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I researched this quite seriously last year as I have similar musical tastes and have been playing a couple of years. There are two ways to enjoy your early music.
- Historical performance – this means you play a replica instrument and use techniques as close as you can to the time period. This is quite different to classical technique. The advice I recieved from a historical player is that you should learn to play a low tension instrument rather than a pedal harp to make the transition to a historical instrument easier. This can include a replica gothic instrument which has one row of strings and no levers, or a double or triple strung instrument which is what most baroque music was played on. As stressed to me classical technique will hinder more than help in this arena.
- Original music on a modern instrument – you can play whichever harp sounds best to you and suits you and play your musical choices on that. It won’t necessarily sound anything like a historical performance but then again it may actually be more musical to modern ears as well. If you go this route then any modern technique which gives you freedom of movement without injury is appropriate. If you want to get as close to historical instruments as possible then choose a low tension folk harp, which is closer to the sound than a pedal harp. The full sound of a high tension harp is a very modern invention and would never have been heard with early music.
It’s all a matter of how hard core you want to take your interests. If you intend to play with a historical ensemble then get yourself a nice large gothic harp which is the cheapest of the historical harps and will do while you learn. Then scour the world to find a historical harpist that will teach you their technique.
As for myself. I decided that
Yep, I agree with Sherry. A nice card with a hand written message, saying how much you appreciate her help. That is something that she would keep for years. And if you make things, do embroidery, pottery, paint, draw or whatever…that is also special as it is something that will always remind her of you!
I just know that they are the things that I cherish most. I have an old fashioned card from a student with a lovely poem inside (I think Emily Dickenson) with a really lovely note that I just love. I also have a hand made mug, quite rough and not that slick, but I really love it. And also a have a nicely framed photo of me teaching a student, that a husband took one christmas – with a really sweet thankyou message on the bottom. And a cushion that a student embroidered for me, with a harp and a lion on it (celtic pattern) and she loved celtic things…really sweet of her to do all that work.
Hope these ideas help.
Ro.
I’ve found people are often completely unaware of how distracting it is to carry on a conversation while I’m playing. Once I played in a violin/piano background duo, for a large afternoon tea. There were so many old ladies gabbling that we musicians
This is a tough one, so comiserations to you Calista. Well, I think everything that everyone has said is good and you have done as much as you can. Putting it into an information sheet is a good idea, and I’d just
Now that is interesting, thanks for that Jennifer, as I’m playing some Latin works (mainly transcriptions) and never thought of how to articulate the end of the gliss for
I’ve been taught to play glissandi both ways as Barbara described, and as she mentioned it depends on the music. I practice both types of glisses on their own, and vary the number of octaves for the glissando. I also practice volume, and I use a metronome. I have to work on getting the glissando to get its full value, and fitting it into the piece.
Cei Cei
Hey Briggs,
Naughty! He has already tried to give me extra money in his last lesson, and on others just not paid me at all….so he is a scatter brained flibberty jibbet…
I kind of like him, he’s
Diane, I agree with you. There’s so much of teaching that is merely “slogging it out”, endlessly going over the same concepts, correcting technique, assigning sight reading… I think there are many teachers who are unwilling to do this–which is fine.
Between us all perhaps we can fit all the different types of students who come to us. I don’t teach advanced piano students, though I studied advanced classical piano. Instead, I focus my efforts on forming solid beginning and early intermediate students, prefering to let them move to another teacher when they reach that place.
And so many students are, as you described, just about mediocre. I went through years of disillusionment before I could face that truth. Out of my nearly 30 students I have only
Oh that is so funny! Whoops! I didn’t check the date on the original post…silly me. well, I can blame it on the gal before me for resurrecting it…but yes, they probably have well and truly sorted it by now, and if not…well, my advice aint gonna help any…
Sorry gang
Still laughing..
