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Carl,
Thank-you for your feedback. I intend to secure some harp lessons, and never compose at the piano unless I’m writing piano music, but the things that I could learn from a harp teacher are not the kinds of general things that I wanted to learn from posing questions on this forum. I seriously doubt that the questions I have posed here will be answered by taking harp lessons.
Christine
I am fortunate that I live in Houston, and when I was planning to buy a small harp I could go to Melody’s and try them all out.
Hola Amanda e Ivan.:Yo soy de Chile,pero actualmente vivo en Suiza (Basel),en Chile he aprendido a tocar el arpa clasica,alli tambien saque mi Titulo,he tocado con varias orquestas clasicas en Chile,Peru
I would agree that this is really a try before you buy situation. My teacher has a Ravenna which she uses during lessons while the student uses her Troubadour. She loves it and thinks it’s a great little harp. In fact, when I was in the market for a lap harp this is what she suggested to me. However, after looking around I was really in love with the look of the Blevins Avanta (their other 26 string harp). My teacher cautioned me, saying that she hadn’t heard a Blevins in awhile but really didn’t think they sounded as nice as Dusty’s harps. Well, after getting my Avanta she has entirely recanted, and now says this is the best small harp she has ever heard.
I love my little Avanta, and think it is the best thing ever. Of course, I’m extremely biased. My point is simply that either harp can be great and if possible you should try to get ahold of the harp before you buy it. If you can’t (I couldn’t) just try to make the best decision you can with the info you have. If you have a gut feeling about one or the other, go with it! I did, and I am so glad I didn’t give in just beacuse someone told me it might not be the best.
Dear Jenny, thank you for your comments. It hadn’t occurred to me that
this could be upsetting to someone, so I will take your comments into
consideration. You are correct to say that there are a lot of presumptions being made about the student teacher without knowing her.
This is also true of our relationship. It is difficult to communicate
all the nuance about the situation, so this thread by nature has
limitations. I
appreciate your concern regarding the internet as a public place. I
teach a number of students, most of whom do not know one another, and would not have chosen to deal with this
issue online if I felt there was any
chance that anonymity would not be preserved. I would feel quite
mortified and shocked if I am somehow proved to be mistaken about this. My student
is a gifted, conscientious individual with a great deal to offer.That is really a big question. I think that fingering determines much of phrasing. You would have to study the musical line and think about which notes group better with which. How does the line build or fall? It is a different effect to play a one-octave scale with groupings of 4-3 or 3-4. Or maybe it should be 4432121. It depends. If you can play the notes evenly first, then you can look at this. Every line builds or falls. It should never remain exactly the same. Each finger has a different quality. 4 and 1 are the last in each direction, so they have a finality to them. 2 sings well. 3 is the most resonant. 234 in sequences can be very cantabile. Enjoy.
If you want my advice, just try to find a good teacher, and don’t worry about if they are Suzuki or not. If you want to help your child practice, just make that part of your lessons, your understanding with the teacher.
A Salzedo cult? That’s pretty funny. You are all invited to my
reception (but don’t drink the Kool-Aid!)The 5th should not be pasted to the 4th finger, there should be space between the fingers, and the 5th should lead the others, so if you are about to play a chord, try opening it out a bit and then closing, so it has a little bit of oomph. The 5 should not be curled in or under, either. Correcting common habits sometimes requires what sounds like an overstatement. Also, the method was not so fixed, it evolved. An early photo of Miss Lawrence aged 19 or so show extremely high elbows, above parallel, so that was already a change.
Well, you are playing some very big works for a newly pedalled harpist. Don’t worry. The Handel is actually very difficult, and I find it still very challenging, and it requires a lot of energy. I re-edited it the last time through, so the next time I will have a new version to perform. What I hope to do someday, is find the rest of the Suite it came from to play the rest, perhaps. I would recommend Ibert’s Six Pieces, Grandjany’s Pastorale, Salzedo’s Preludes for Beginners and Tiny Tales then Short Stories for you, along with Handel musical-clock pieces, and a lot more classical, baroque music, plus some modern works. You are not far from playing Mathias Three Improvisations.
