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Kay, beautifully said.
I don’t know or associate with many children, so most of the harpists, harpers, hapisters or what ever in my area I know are almost all adults who started playing as adults. They are each individuals who all approach the harp in their own way, and while harp playing is important to all of them it holds a different degree or place in each of their lives.
Some of them, despite having started later in life, managed to turn professional even.
Adult learners face different challenges. Learning at an older age actually can be harder. Music is a language and language acquisition skills decrease as we age, just a simple fact of nature. Adults have jobs, family responsibilities, community responsibilities and other important things that most children don’t have to deal with. Yet most of the adult learners I know manage to be serious and dedicated to their pursuit of playing the harp despite that.
Personally I am inspired by those adult learners I know. They remind me that I am never too old, and that despite the special challenges that the passing years heap on me I can do the things I want if I am focused and dedicated enough.
While I am sure there are some individuals out there who are difficult cases for their teachers overall I have to take my hat off to those adults who overcome the challenges, and the self doubt over starting something so challenging and different at a later age, and go on to pursue their interests and dreams.
The reason for the sound holes in wire strung harps is because the soundboards are typically made from harder woods in order to hold up to the tension the wire strings puts on them. The holes help the sound project.
As for levers, I have heard that levers break wire strings more often, but as I understand it the real reason for not using levers is that they just don’t sound good. I believe that Triplett offers levers as an option for those who really want them, but blades come standard on their wire harps.
Several wire strung harp makers don’t even use bridge pins for that reason. It seems to me that if the major makers wire harps don’t use them then there is probably something to it.
As Barbara said, it’s Clever Levers and Blazing Pedals. I have many of Ray’s books and they are all well worth the money and even more worth the time and effort of working through them. His are the kinds of books that after you read them you say to yourself, “Gee, I really should have understood all this before, but I didn’t until I just read that.”
Clever levers is one of my favorite books for lever harp and really explains harmonic structure in a way that, to me, was such a revelation. That along with Verlene Shermer’s Cool Chords and Groovy Rhythms are the two books that have helped me get the most out of playing lever harp.
The two Blazing Pedals books are probably the only two of Rays I don’t have, but I have them on my short list of books to acquire soon.
Does the wire harp have to be played with the fingernail?
No. In fact at the last Harp Festival in Belfast in 1792 of the 10 competitors the only one who played with nails was Denis Hempson, who was also the oldest at 94 years old at the time. They all played wire strung harps, but only one played with nails.
Derek Bell of the Chieftains played both gut and wire strung harp and played without nails.
Triplett used to make a wire strung harp designed superficially for those who played gut or nylon as well and so wanted to play with the finger tips instead of nails. The string spacing was farther apart than on most wire strung harps and the sound board was spruce instead of the harder woods with the intent of reducing the sustain on the strings so you wouldn’t need to do as much dampening of the strings.
I think the main problem with playing with the finger tips is that most wire strung harps have closer string spacing so it is hard to fit your fingers in. I have played around with wire and have no nails to speak of. It can be done although on most harps it requires a drastic alteration hand position. Also the sound is different without nails. If you really want that clear, bell like, ringing tone then you need to use nails. But it is a matter of preference.
Derek Bell sounded fine playing without nails after all, just different.
Actually I always thought the objection to nails on anything had more to do with the tone produced than damage to the strings, although I can see that nails on gut would shorten the life of the gut strings.
Playing with nails for, say, Celtic music on a harp that has lighter gauge nylon strings is one thing. Playing classical music on a concert strung harp, even if it is all nylon, is another. The tone you want to get for that situation is completely different, and, at least to me, nails sound horrid.
If I play with any length of nail the clicking of my nails against the strings drives me crazy. Not only that, but when I play fast I tend to keep my hands very close to the strings and if I have any nail I will sometimes brush the edge of the nail against a string while moving from note to note or chord to chord.
So really it depends on what you are playing. But I think the aversion to using nails on nylon has to do with the tone it produces and it not being suitable for classical music. But for the various folk musics if it works for the music then I say go for it.
Nails won’t hurt nylon, but in the wrong situations it just sounds bad.
When I play guitar I use a pick. When doing finger picking I use finger picks. They take a little getting used to, but they work well and many plucked string instrument players use one form or another as the standard way to play (banjo players and Koto players come immediately to mind).
I forget exactly who it is, but one of the harp recording artists who plays both nylon and wire strung harp does something to shape her nails so that they can be used for wire but still don’t get in the way for nylon. Also while some people, like myself, find that any bit of nail gets in the way and keep their nails ultra short I have seen some people who are able to play with a bit of nail without it getting in the way on gut or nylon strung harp. Different people are different and the shape of the fingers and how your nail grows will be an influence. You can try growing out your nails to see exactly how long you can get them before they get in the way on harp, and then see if that is long enough to make use of for guitar.
Eleanor,
Thank you for your contribution to this conversation. It is great to have the opinions of others who were there who didn’t feel the same as the initial post, and more importantly, why they felt different.
Since most of us commenting haven’t actually heard the piece (and of course on the Internet when has that ever stopped someone from offering an opinion) we had just the one sided description. From that I concluded that the piece was most likely not good, but your description has given me reason to think that perhaps it is worth hearing if, by some miracle, I ever get the opportunity.
Fake Books are collections of lead sheets.
Basically instead of a full arrangement, with treble and bass lines all clearly worked out, a lead sheet gives just the basic melody and the chord symbols above it, as well as lyrics.
You use that to make your own arrangements, either ones you write out or if you get good at improvising ones you make up as you play.
Most Jazz musicians use only Fake Books and lead sheets because Jazz is rooted in the idea of improvisation so Jazz musicians don’t like to be bound by an pre done arrangement. They
It’s hard to say without knowing your skill level, but a good bet are always Sylvia Woods Books. I think all of her different Celtic Music Books, with the exception of the Irish Dance Tunes Book, all have two versions of each song, an easier A version and a more intermediate B version.
What is nice is that even if you can play the B versions you can learn both and put them together playing the A first and then B on the repeat to give it some variety.
She has a book of Irish Songs, Scottish Songs, Irish Dance Music, and a book of all Carolan tunes.
I tend to
David,
That is a brilliantly simple solution that I can’t see anyone having issues with. Bravo.
I think ultimately the issue isn’t the music itself but people being blind sided by something they weren’t expecting.
+++You mis-read me.+++
Perhaps, but I don’t think so. That is why I said I didn’t see the comparison as valid. Not because they involve different things but because the scale, not the caliber, of the event was different.
You basically said that one of the problems with the performance was that it was a non-American finding fault with America and that doing so at such an important event was wrong. When I said that the event was hardly known you implied that it was more important than I realized and compared it’s importance to that of the Miss Universe or Olympics.
I got that.
My point is that while it may be of equal importance to those participating directly it is not of equal impact. That the performance of an Olympic athlete is going to be seen my millions of people, but the performance of a piece at the WHC is only going to be seen by a handful of people and so is not worth they bother of getting upset over.
600 in attendance is a great turn out for such an event, but in the grand scale it is only 600 people who attended,
