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I just read something on the harps and accessories thread (Salvi Angelica) about someone saying that a harp sounded muddy and think its the right place to talk about it here. As I have heard a harp like that a really old one that had a really bowed soundboard. Sometimes when the soundboard bows up they sound really beautiful and full, but sometimes harps can end up sounding too boomy and there is no focus in the sound. I think its mostly a pedal harp thing. I don’t think its the wood being walnut so much as that the board had pulled up too much.
Oh yeh, I just play in the local community orchestra sometimes. I like it a lot but I’m not sure I want to play with an orchestra as a job because you have to play loud all the time! Ahhhhhhh!!!
What you were saying about the differences between cello and harp is interesting. But I think that a great harpist can make a student harp sound so much better, and a lot of your tone is in your fingers and not the harp. but I think that you might be right that there is more difference with harps, than say, cello or trombone or something.
Ha! I hope you love it to pieces! You are gonna have to be careful when it first comes and not overdo it coz its gonna have a higher tension that what you are used to…I remember when my pedal harp first came I practised so much that my hands got really sore and I got really bad blisters, but I just couldn’t stop!
OOops! seems I have a talent for saying stuff wrong and I think maybe I should just keep my mouth seriously shut from now on! My harp is not that bad, its just not amazingly amazing! And I can’t afford another harp anyways…or should I say that my folks can’t afford to buy me another one anyways!! .I love it because of the music that i can learn on it and the orchestra that I play in
Try this:
Practice slightly below tempo. Feel a pulse that is twice the normal beat (I don’t have the music in front of me and I don’t know what the time sig is off the top of my head… e.g. if the beat is quaters, count eigths) If you want, put a metronome on that. Now when playing, play each hand together (e.g if the trill is on C and B, play C and B together with the right hand, then CB with the left, etc.) Eventually move up to tempo. Once you have internatlized the number of trill sets (so that you’re not counting but feeling the number) you can start actually trilling.
I hope that works, but I can’t say that it has worked for me – I don’t have this problem so haven’t needed to think of an exercise.
~Sam
Keep us posted on what happens! You are right that you change and grow when you have been playing for a while.
To people that went to the festival….I’d love to hear all about it! Best things? Funny things that went wrong? Inspiring performances?
Hi Jessica. When I first posted here I put a question on like three different threads or something coz I wasn’t sure which one was the right one or if people looked at all of them. So maybe that is what Gidi was thinking too.
I hope she finds somewhere to practise. It’s kind of exciting that she is travelling and going to practise somewhere and kind of cool too.
