[unknown-user]

Yes, I learnt the Danses initially like this – with the bottom note emphasized, and on the beat.

[unknown-user]

Hey! I am Steff, and am18 from the US (Seattle area) it would be great to stay in touch, I have been thinking about getting a Camac Electric Blue for awhile, though am happy with my pedal, the Prestige. Hope you have fun harping! e-mail me sometime, would love to chat. kikoskates@hotmail.com

[unknown-user]

I

[unknown-user]

Glad to hear you got that info Leonard. If you want any other advice about learning in Australia, feel free to email me privately.

Good luck with your studies, and I hope you enjoy sunny Sydney or Canberra!

[unknown-user]

Hi Tanya,

Another thought I had was have you contacted the Oregon Symphony? Their harpist would probably teach, or could point you in the right direction.

The symphony website is http://www.orsymphony.org – there are phone numbers for the administration office, or you could write to the harpist care of the admin address listed. The principal harpists name is Jennifer Craig.

Good luck.

[unknown-user]

Hi Tanya,

You could try the American Harp Society – http://www.harpsociety.org/

They may be able to help you.

[unknown-user]

Some relevant quotes from How the Brain Learns by David A. Sousa.

What teachers learned in the past… Their training on how the brain learns has focused essentially on the behaviorist model which tries to explain what is happening inside the brain by observing outside behavior. (page1)

Under certain conditions, emotions can enhance memory by causing the release of hormones that stimulate the amygdala to signal brain regions to strengthen memory. Strong emotions can shut down conscious processing during the event while enhancing our memory of it. Emotion is a powerful and misunderstood force in learning and memory. Another way of stating the situation illustrated in Figure 2:2 is that before students will turn their attention to cognitive learning (the curriculum), they must feel physically safe and emotionally secure. (page 42-43)

Over the years, most teacher-training classes have told prospective teachers to focus on reason and avoid emotions in their lessons. Now, we need to enlighten educators about how emotions consistently affect attention and learning.

Figure 2:2 Data that affect survival and data that generate emotions are processed ahead of data for new cognitive learning. (page 43)

We also have to explore what and how we teach students about their emotions. Goleman suggests we teach about controlling impulses, delaying gratifications, expressing feelings, managing relationships, and reducing stress. Students should recognize that they can manage their emotions for greater productivity and can develop emotional skills for greater success in life. (page 44)

[unknown-user]

I never let that happened, I put my back up, my spine, and I needed that in orchestra situations later on.

I should add that this is a real catch-22. The oppressive, sometimes sadistic, culture found in the performing arts can be fed by creating more individuals who can operate within that mindset, or we can work to find a more civilized approach to communicating. I have also not understood the benefit of nearly abusive conductors to motivate musicians. By observation it would be logical to conclude that none of the musicians even wanted to get it right, that they had to be forced. It makes absolutely no sense to me. People who actually love music will get it right because they want to and will be willing to work until they do. All this social berating and nonsense clouds the issue of music and shifts everyone’s attention away from the meaning in a passage to merely surviving it w/o humiliation.

[unknown-user]

My teachers certainly had no patience for it, and if you started caving
in, they would zero in on any weakness and really make you wail!

I have to be upfront here. I have no tolerance for that level of emotional violation of a student. I completely disagree with that approach. It is a remnant of our tribal mindset and more primitive motivations socially. Sociologists can verify that shaming a student into learning/obeying is the method used by cults, communistic governments and abusive individuals. How is there a place for that in teaching? Yes, music is an ideal towards which we strive, but it is completely unethical imo to violate a human being in order to achieve that. There is no excuse for zero empathy, regardless of stature and intelligence. Shame on anyone who deliberately attacks someone’s emotional weakness. Shame on them, whoever they are.

I
never let that happened, I put my back up, my spine, and I needed that
in orchestra situations later on. What is shocking is when a student
cannot appreciate this approach and wants to be indulged, even a
grown-up. Oh, well. What can you do, really? How do you handle tears?

I admire your inner strength, Saul. It is not about wanting to be indulged. It is about being respected as an entire human being, not a musical robot. I have experienced this from both ends, and the solution is not hard. You simply ask the student if they feel able to proceed with the lesson. If they say ‘no’, then that is to be respected.

How can we as musicians communicate with sensitivity and meaning in music if we cannot achieve this with simple verbal exchanges? This has baffled me for sometime, and it makes me wonder if artificiality can translate into sincerity in the minds of the innocent.

[unknown-user]

Hi Leonard,

Here are some web addresses that may be of help to you.

There is a page on the Sydney Symphony Website that has a biography of Louise Johnson.

http://www.sydneysymphony.com/page.asp?p=67

You could also write to her care of the orchestra:

GPO Box 4338, Sydney, NSW 2001, Australia.

Alice Giles also offers a summer course, that you may be interested in finding out about. And there is a contact email address for her on that site.

http://www.ganyarharps.com.au/KiolaSummerCourse.htm

Alice also has a website with some rather interesting soundbites on it and info on her:

http://www.metronomeinc.com/AG/alicehome.htmu

Hope this is of interest and help.

[unknown-user]

Yes, Louise Johnson of the Sydney Symphony is indeed a Salzedo player, who studied with Alice Chalifoux. She has taken private pupils from time to time, depending on performance commitments. You can contact her through the orchestra – they have a website if you do a search for them.

And there

[unknown-user]

Tears… well a very difficult situation to handle…

[unknown-user]

Thanks for that Elizabeth, good to hear that I’m not mad (well, not entirely anyway!).

Yes, the chords at the beginning of the Lilac Fairy section are marked Serrer.

And also in the second page of the Swan Lake Cadenza – the ascending rolled chords (triads

[unknown-user]

Thanks for the run down of what the word serres means, and I’d say that it definitely is a clue to how to execute those chords – accelerando and/or to squeeze and push together.

I disagree with you, as if it had nothing to do with rolling chords the harpist involved would not have written it in her part and mentioned that the term refered to a different technique. Maybe she just went to a different teacher than you did, or maybe it was a term of her own devising….I have no idea, but I thought that this was a good forum to sort that out.

[unknown-user]

Our family dog (this is when I was growing up, she lives at my parents’ house) has always loved music and listened attentively… until one day I came home from college with an oboe.

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