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She may say she is listening but either she isn’t, or she is just not rational because you seem to have said what you wanted in a way that was both
I play the LeDentu edition. Mainly because I am currently without a pedal harp and of all the editions playable on a lever harp this one stays truest in my estimation in the melody with necessary simplification only in the accompaniment.
What they said ;^)
Seriously, Right and Wrong in this case is a subjective thing. Fignering does effect the music, but different people are built differently, and have different preferences and ideas of what good is.
If you were to look through all of my earliest sheet music you would see that virutually every piece of music I have from that time with fingerings indicated have changes made by my teacher. She definitly had opinions on what good fingering was, and it has really been an influence on me. If you asked me to mark out fingerings in a piece and compared it to how my first teacher would have done it I would bet they would be
Yes, Harris is her married name (not past tense. I haven’t heard from her in a while, but as far as I know she is alive and well). I guess they
Carl,
Applogy accepted. I appreciate that you can step back and re-evaluate what you wrote.
Yes, I studied with Mrs. Harris. Not only a magnificient teacher, but also simply a wonderful human being. I have nothing but good memories of her and her daughter (and also her dog, Polaris. I assume he is no longer with us, but I never saw an animal who loved the harp as much as that dog).
Mrs. Harris opened up a whole world of music to me that I doubt I would have become interested in without her influence.
I actually have a copy of Swing Time. Its wonderful to have those recordings. Its too bad that some of the tapes were so deteriorated that they could not be restored better, but they are good enough to appriciate her playing, and are a wonderful piece of Jazz history.
+++what I have observed about the Salzedo cult +++
See Carl, this kind of thing is where I have a problem. The fact is I have much respect for harpists of all schools. I think the end result is what matters and I am far from being of the opinion that all the best are Salzedo players.
And I actually have a lot of respect for most of your opinions.
But when you make comments like this, which are just unnecessary in any discussion, it makes it very hard to have a real dialogue with you on the topic.
You want to make yourself out to be fair minded and just reporting your observations, but then you make such a judgmental and negative comment knowing that the term “cult” is almost always used, and interpreted, in a pejorative way. How can anyone take your claims of being just an impartial observer making conclusions based on your unbiased observations, when you intentionally say such things which you know are going to be insulting?
You are certainly free to express your opinion, but when you say things like this I find it hard to take your opinion on this subject seriously despite your many years of experience.
Carl,
I know you like to turn every mention of Salzedo in to a Salzedo vs French debate. The question was about something specific about Salzedo’s technique and I was trying to answer the question. I wasn’t make a comparison with any other method nor was I in any way putting down any other method or suggesting that there are no other methods that do similar or even better.
I will say that your description of Salzedo player often is very far from my personal experience.
I am all for people adjusting technique, modifying, and doing what works and feels best for them. If it works then, in my opinion, its good.
But the question asked was about the Salzedo method and that was what I was trying to address.
I studied with a woman who was a student of both Lawrence and Salzedo and she never had me stick my pinky straight out. Since the pinky is so short compared to the ring finger it rarely gets in the way, and to be honest I have never given much thought to what I do with it. I just let it “hang” naturally.
As for “stiffness of the arms” I think that refers mostly to unnecessary tension. This is for two main reasons.
One is as you mentioned, tendonitis as well as CTS. Tension and rigidity in the arms, wrists and hands can lead to several different forms of repetitive motion injury. Being relaxed and allowing your arms and hand to actually move a little can help prevent this.
The other thing is mobility. Tense arms are full of resistance and hard to move. Of course if your arms are so relaxed that your elbows drop down to
I use Allegro, which is a mid version of Finale between the full Finale and Print Music. Sylvia Woods sells special font sets of Harp notation for the Finale series that are very useful.
If you are not experienced with music theory and arranging / composition techniques then I recommend the following books:
Music Theory and Arranging Techniques for the Folk Harp by Sylvia Woods
The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory by Michael Miller
The Complete Idiots Guide to Music Composition by Michael Miller
Edly’s Music Theory for Practical People by Ed Roseman
Composing Music, A New Approach by William Russo
How to Play from a Fake Book by Blake Neely
Saul’s comments also resonated with me. I could never see myself playing some overly carved, gold gilded harp. Masculine looking harps, or at least neutral looking harps, were for a long hard to come by. The Salzedo was the only specifically masculine looking harp I can remember for many years.
The funny thing about the Salzedo is although it is rather masculine it still looks fine when played by a woman. Our local symphony has two harpists. The principal is a man and the other is a woman. The symphony has two pedal harps, both Salzedo models, and both the man and the woman look perfectly at home and not at all odd behind them.
The other thing about the Salzedo is that it is not only a great looking harp, but it sound wonderful and the projection is fantastic. I would love one. If
I will third the Sylvia Woods arrangement. I use it for lever harp and it is very nice and very full sounding. I often get compliments when I play it. I also have both the older version and the new edition (sent to me by accident when I ordered something else and they kindly told me to just keep it) and there are some differences. But both are very nice and you may be able to find an older edition second hand fairly cheap.
Generally I like Sylvia’s arrangments and I wish she would do more arrangments of classical music. She does them very well.
I was going to mention Yolanda Kondonassis as well.
In addition I like the playing of Jane Yoon and Maria Luisa Rayan.
There are several reasons why someone may not publish such works.
For one thing is that if you are the student and your teacher gave you the arrangement then you, technically, have no right to publish it. It is not your arrangement and publishing without the consent of the arranger (or their estate if they are deceased) would be against the law.
Although to defend a copyright you basically have to have it registered, technically as soon as you write something it is considered copyrighted. Only the holder of the copyright (the author unless legally transferred to someone else) has the authority to publish.
Another reason is that publishing isn’t necessarily easy. If you self publish you are basically setting up a second business. If you have someone else publish you have to find a publisher who is willing to publish first, and then deal with all of the legal and financial issues surrounding publishing a piece.
Many teachers who do their own arrangements have no idea where to even begin, much less a student who just had an arrangement handed to them by their teacher.
My teacher was as much as composer as a music teacher and since she wrote so much music she started her own publishing company to handle her compositions and arrangements, as well as those of some of her students. Most of her compositions are available to anyone who wants to buy them.
However, she was for ever refining her arrangements and I have copies of several that have her hand written changes in them. Some have some real significant changes to them. Some have been incorporated in to later editions of the published piece and some where not for what ever reason.
Am I going to publish the versions I have? Of course not. If she wants them published she will publish them. When she dies her estate will make those decisions. I have no right to do it. The versions I have she did for me. I am not covetous of them and have no problem with someone else playing them, but she didn’t decide to make them all available through publication so who am I to make that decision for her? I simply don’t have the legal right to do it if for no other reason.
Last I heard from her Ruth was well and very excited about a release of a CD of her Jazz recordings from the 40s and 50s. You can read about it here:
http://www.msrcd.com/1111Harp/1111Harp.html
I tried the vibrato and worked well. Nice for adding some subtle coloration.
