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Vinegar is an astringent and will only further dry out your skin. In fact dermatologists recommend you don’t use astringents even on oily skin, as it is far too drying and irritating even then.
And especially if you have dry or sensitive skin, but really anybody, don’t use any lotions or creams with fragrance or perfume! Not even natural or essential oil fragrances – they’re still made up of the same kinds of volatile compounds. Why? Fragrance/perfume is drying and irritating to skin whether or not you have a visible or tactile reaction. It also has a sensitising effect in many people – ie, an irritation reaction that gets worse over time as you use fragranced products. They are often listed on ingredients lists as ‘parfum’. Note that this does not mean you can never wear perfume – a dab on your wrists or neck now and then does not have the same effect as regularly using one or more products that contain fragrance.
But even worse are creams and lotions etc that contain substances like alcohols (ethanol and the like), camphor, menthol (peppermint or other mints), eucalyptus, sandalwood, and so on. These seem like they have a calming effect on irritated skin, but in fact what they do is provide a counter-irritant. Your nerve endings ‘hear’ the reaction to the applied irritant and you stop feeling the original itch or pain, they feel like they’re cancelling each other out or you might feel a ‘cooling’ or ‘tingling’ effect, but in fact you’re just getting a double dose of irritant. Avoid these ingredients like the plague! Men’s aftershaves are among the worst offenders…putting alcohol, menthol, etc on freshly-shaved skin is about the worst thing you can do for it. Also bad are cosmetics and creams that claim the ‘tingling freshness’ you can feel are signs that it’s working.
If you like the mood-enhancing and pleasant mental state that fragrances give, use scented candles, oil burners, pot pourri, etc, where and when you usually perform your ‘toilette’. Your skin will thank you. Here is a good article on how to treat your skin gently.
Specifically for dry cracked skin, try not to soak in water, and after you wash your hands or have a shower, don’t rub harshly with a towel, dab gently, and apply a good moisturiser straight away. There have been some good suggestions made, like using extra-virgin olive oil – very emollient! Here’s another article (also from Paula Begoun) on treating dry hands. (I have no association whatsoever with the site or company, I am just a fan of their products and have found their advice to be consistently good and backed up by actual evidence, not grandiose claims based on unscientific “studies”.)
Sorry this post got a bit long, but we harpists and harpers really need to treat our hands nice!
Wow – a CG fits too! I’m definitely going to have to try this. It’s $20K for a new Corolla as opposed to $35-$38K for a wagon, so much more affordable and as you say way better mileage. Thanks for the advice. 🙂
(BTW in Australia Corollas are both the hatchback and sedan, not separate models. Imagine if they sold harps the same way! 🙂 )
I have a Daphne 44. It’s 68.5″/175cm tall. I see a couple of people have mentioned being able to get a semi-grand into a Toyta Matrix (AKA Corolla here in Oz). How on earth do you do it? I need to buy a car soon and I’d rather not have to buy a huge station wagon, they’re a pain to park and are petrol-hungry, and are expensive! (And the smaller Subaru Liberty and Mazda 6 wagons are just as expensive…)
Lyon & Healy once published a booklet on using the troubador harp and one of its strong points was a graded list of repertoire. Many French editions have a grading number on the edition, found on the back cover where they list titles. However, each student seems to be a bit different, so it’s not like baking a cake. It’s very hard to grade pieces.
Have’nt heared of thea cream but vinagar is sapposdaly quite good for harpist’s fingers!! I know sounds strange but according to my friend it works!
From G
Try it. see how you get on. When I did my GCSEs I stopped with my teacher for a spell as I found it too stressy. And found it quite refreshing! Also you can do your own thing and its YOUR tune and there’s nobody telling you you’ve got the rythem or
I was once approached after a gig by a very well meaning woman “It is wonderful that you can turn the volume buttons at the same time as playing the strings!”
They were referring to the levers as volume buttons. Bonkers.
My teacher had asked me last week to buy myself a copy of Hasselmans’ Petite Berceuse, and it came today. I looked at it, read the notes and heard it in my head, and knew I would be unable to wait to my lesson to play it.
Fortunately the fingerings are well marked and the brackets are easy enough to figure out for myself. It is now, after two hours, almost impossible to pull myself away from my harp. It is not quite perfect in terms of fingers and notes, but it is becoming music as I play it. This is the first time I have played a harp piece and felt that my playing can make this sound as it should. I am truly inspired by playing it.
It happens to me a lot, but I’m always encouraged by the fact that I’m able to do everything the way it should be when I play immediately before and after my lesson. I’m always afraid that I’ve let my teacher down, since she sometimes asked if I’ve had enough time to practice during the week. I have noticed that there are pieces that should be simple but for some reason take a long time, three or four lessons at least, before I finish them.
As far as brain mush, I sometimes can’t remember which colored string is F and which is C.
All in all, the best remedy for me is to go back and play something I learned a month or so ago. Very reassuring.
I have at least one other clip of Lucile Lawrence from the Firestone tv show, and there is footage of Salzedo, and the film shown at the 2004 conference, that very few actually got to see. There is also a video of Miss Lawrence giving lessons to a very young student toward the end of her life, but I doubt it would be possible to circulate. Heidi has appeared on Great Performances with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
