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“Performance wear is another matter, but is still an individual choice and an expression of that person as an artist.
I don’t “know” for a fact why, but I always assumed the same. The way they are arranged with each fifth on alternating sides makes sense when you are modulating through the keys.
Having them simply in order doesn’t necessarily make it easier to pedal since the keys change by fifths.
I have never experienced that. To me the hand position for playing harp and piano are so different that my muscle memory doesn’t get too much in the way.
I do, however, feel odd in the right hand when I go from one to the other because the right hand plays opposite in terms of going up and down in pitch.
If you are
Almost any good music supply store should carry them, but you can definitely get one through Sylvia Woods Harp Center.
I do still use it, particularly when I am short on time or there is background noise that makes it hard to hear.
I like to keep my ear tuning in practice because I don’t like being dependent on a tuner. The tuner has helped a lot. When I first started I was completely unable to tune. My teacher insisted I get a tuner and use it at first until I became accustomed to hearing things the way they are supposed to be.
Over the years I have sharpened my skills so I can do it without the tuner, although I still find the tune much easier. But it is nice when there is just one string out of tune to be able to just fix it without needing to pull out a tuner.
For some people tuning by ear is not a natural or easy thing and takes some training. Took me a couple of years actually before I could do it half way decent. But it is definitly something worth developing.
Well, I don’t know what would constitute expert tuning. Here is how I do it:
I tune A to a reference (I use a piano, but a tuning fork, pitch pipe, on-line tone generator or anything else that plays A in concert pitch will do), then I tune the octave relative to that A using fifths and fourths.Perfect intervals are easier to make out. A to E. E to B. A to D. D to G. G to C. C to F.
Then play the octave and tweak as needed to make it sound good to your ear. From there I tune to the octave. C to the C above. D to the D above etc… If you have a hard time hearing octaves clearly play the lower string as an harmonic.
After everything is tuned play your scales and make adjustments where things sound off if necessary. Typically by that point everything sounds fine to me, but I don’t claim to have the best ear.
I am not familiar with Barbara Feldon’s arrangements. In fact I had to look her up because the only Barbara Feldon I knew was agent 99.
On the other hand I think I have every classical arrangement for lever harp that Barbara Brundage has done and am still struggling diligently through her arrangement of Premiere Arabesque because as challenging as it is it is such a great arrangement it is worth the effort.
I am going to slightly dissent.
While I highly recommend finding a teacher if at all possible, I also think that if you aren’t planning on becoming a professional classical harpist it is not 100% necessary. Always a good idea, but if you really can’t find one and want to stick to simpler music then it is very possible to teach yourself.
I say this based on the number of folk harpers I know who are very talented, play wonderfully, and are self taught.
If you decide to go the self taught route then get a copy of Sylvia Woods’ Teach Yourself To Play The Folk Harp and get the companion video. It won’t make you another Nancy Allen, but if you follow closely, pay attention to what she says and use the video to copy hand position carefully you will learn to play decently and safely enough.
While it is possible to harm yourself with bad technique I think the occurrence of this happening is rarer than people think. I know a lot of harpists and it seems the professional, trained harpists are the ones who have more hand problems, not due to technique necessarily but due to the amount of playing they do. The hobbyists I know, even the self taught ones, don’t seem to have nearly the issues. So while you can harm yourself with really bad technique, If you follow carefully a source like the Woods’ book and are not playing for excessively long periods of time each day it is unlikely you will have problems.
I did take lessons with a Salzedo trained teacher and the only time I have ever had problems was when I was practicing five hours a day. Despite that I have decent technique and at the time I had a teacher to point out any errors I still had problems. It was due to overpracticing, not technique. I know self taught harpers who have been playing for over 15 years without any problems.
Just my experience with the people I have known.
I think some of the best for beginners to theory are not necessarily specifically for harp.
Edly’s Music Theory for Practical People is an excellent introduction to music theory. Particularly for those who don’t play classical and maybe even totally play by ear because although he provides written examples of music he also explains things in a way that you don’t need to read music to understand.
The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory is another. It begins with reading music, but if someone already can read well they can skip and go right to the next sections. Goes over scales, the circle of fiths (and fourths), modes, chord structure etc… Despite the title it is an excellent introductory book.
For things specifically for
Barbara’s are by far the best in my opinion. I would say they are as “correct” as they possibly can be for lever harp. She rarely makes any major compromises in making them accessible for the lever harp, which is why many are rather difficult, but all worth the effort. But there is generally not the sense of something being off or missing that I often find with other lever harp arrangements.
That’s what I was thinking too. Almost always I get compliments from neighbors regarding my practicing. Once I even got an apartment with no references when I happened to mention to the landlord I played the harp. He loved the sound of the harp and thought it would be nice to hear a harp being played in the building.
I bet it is just one person or couple stirring up trouble. I would speak to the landlord and check the local noise ordnance. Regardless if the neighbor gets annoyed, so long as you are not violating the noise ordnances they have no grounds for a complaint.
+++But I’m still curious to know what other harpists think about McKennitt as a harpist,+++
I think she is a fine harpist. She doesn’t play with a classical technique so if someone is snobbish about what school of playing they belong to they will probably
It is a very individual thing and your taste, the sound you want to go for, the acoustics of the room, and the harp itself are all variables that will effect what you will need to do.
Personally I prefer using external microphones rather than contact picups that a lot of people seem to like.
I use two mics. A condenser mic that I position pointing towards the sound board in the treble from the right side about one quarter down the soundboard. And then I use a dynamic mic to pick up the base. I put it in a low mic stand pointing in from the front bottom to the left side of the pillar pointing slightly up the soundboard.
I typically need a second person to help position them once I have the harp in playing position in order to get the best sound. I run them in to a mixing board on separate channels and record using a Boss stand alone digital recorder to separate tracks so that I can EQ and adjust the balance later on if I think necessary.
But what will be needed for your harp and in your studio may be completely different, and you may simply have different preferences for both sound and type of equipment.
Unfortunately when it comes to recording, even if you have all the text book knowledge there is still a lot of trial and error needed when learning to work with a specific space and to develop your preferences.
Two books I used to get me started and which gave a ton of information when I didn’t know anything at all were:
Home Recording for Musicians for Dummies by Jeff Strong
PC Recording Studios for Dummies by Jeff Strong
The Musician’s Guide to Home Recording by Peter McIan and Larry Wichman
