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“Musicmakers” has a very detailed book on harp design and construction. —-or just order a set of his plans and build and learn.
hello i played glier impromtu many years ago, he is very nice composer , has a romantic music, dont be afraid of that getting rid of wizzing voice by nails is not a big problem , just open your ears and listen to every note, it sounds clean or not? when you listen carefully you will do well, and one thing more : try to change the position of the end of the finger where the nail, and you can find a position wich make you play better, so practice slowly and listen carefully to every not. and tell me later
good luck
I have to say that I absolutely love my Roger Muma 36-string harp and have infinite respect for him as a craftsman.
At the small harp tasting at Sommerset this year the Muma harp was one of the ones I thought had the best sound.
It depends so much on your individual characteristics and the ability of your teacher. I needed someone to hold my hand in position and move my fingers correctly so I could feel how it should work. I didn’t get that till later. Playing chords, breaking chords, clear harmonics, mastering pedal changes are obvious markers. What matters most is learning to make the harp’s tones sing warmly. Try to think of hugging the strings just a little with your fingertips, or a lot to make a big sound. After one year I was playing solos from Mildred Dilling’s collection, after two I began Salzedo’s Preludes for Beginners, but I skipped a lot of basic material like his Tiny Tales. You want to be sure your left hand is equal to your right, so give it extra repetitions. It was also useful to say the bass notes out loud to lock them into memory.
I recently gathered the impression, and I don’t remember from where, that Salzedo may have occasionally played with straight fingers rather than curved, which seems helpful to avoid buzzes. But this is not allowing the knuckles to collapse at all, the fingers have to be very strong. It just goes to show the adaptability of a strong technique to accomodate various necessities. I do find that when I play something by a 19th-century harpist I tend to gravitate to letting my right arm touch the sounding board, as I feel this to be part of the patterns they chose as an outgrowth of their posture. It is wonderful to hear Suzanne Davids’ input as I have grown up with her students, Don Hilsberg in particular.
I agree with the above posts that students need to buy their own music with their own markings and to build their own library to play from. There is one instance where having a loaning library is helpful – that is for sightreading material for students. It is true, though, that when you loan items out a percentage of them will not come back, so be prepared. Even with good intentions on the part of students this can still happen. The cost of music is small compared to the cost of a harp, even a small harp. Having good lesson books is well worth it for the student. They should invest in the very best. As the years go by they may need to review what they were taught. It is a lifelong investment.
All harpists, teachers, students, professionals, amateurs, have to buy music. Why? No one else will buy harp music. The reason the established major publishers have stopped publishing harp music is because not enough people are buying music. Don’t only buy what you have to. We should all aspire to having a complete library. If you don’t have music you haven’t played yet, how will you choose what to do next? How will you broaden your repertoire? Composers need to have publishers to take care of their music, and publishers have to have customers, as do stores. We must all strive to do more and encourage others as well. Even if you think of it as charity, it is so important. All the years I knew Don Henry, the largest publisher of harp music and the one who made so much available to us through Lyra, made more money selling strings and harps and accessories, just to support publishing. It is also a question of literacy. Harpists should have the scores of pieces they hear on recordings and in concert so they can look at them and learn more about them and how they were written. It is important to learning how to relate the wondrous sounds we hear to how it is written. I have always thought of getting old-fashioned library cards to keep track of who borrows music. You can use index cards, just have a copy you keep with the name of the borrower and when you want it returned, and give them one with date due, and make sure your name is on the music too. Miss Lawrence lost track of a lot of music by giving it to students to copy markings and who neglected to return it.
**Opinion from a busy teenager**
Your methods sound great, already. I agree that you should definitely take the student’s goals into consideration. Students come from all across the spectrum, and the same goals won’t work for each student. Here are just a couple of ideas for students with varying motivations: 1) playing free gigs at nursing homes or similar places, 2) “earning” songs of their choice by learning other music, 3) figuring out and arranging a popular song from the radio (which will help with the ear, fingering, chords, etc.), 4) a workshop where the older students help the younger ones, 5) performing at a coffee house or someplace where the students’ friends will be.
I don’t think that students who lack dedication or discipline should necessarily quit. It depends on what the student is getting out of playing, and what he/she wants to get out of it. Remember that a younger teen who appears to lack passion could gain it back in full force at any time, without warning! I also agree with the importance of organization. If you write down or make clear the pieces, measures, et cetera that you expect him/her to practice, it is much more likely that s/he will. If some of the students are at the level that they can play gigs, that is a great motivator to practice. The last important thing to do is make sure that the student is playing at his/her level. Pieces that are too hard will frustrate the student too much to practice, and simple songs are too boring to play. Communication with the student about his/her goals and what s/he wants to play is vitally important, I think.
Thanks everyone for your relplies. They have helped my mom rest assured that this will come in handy one day. We even started to check out a few websites to see what they expect. Thanks again!
Well, i recently joined an amateur orchestra as a harpist and this are just some of my… findings. (read: culture shock)
1. Counting of hundreds of bars of rests, either that or count tens followed by tens, followed by another tens, all with changes of key with time signatures in the middle of it. Initially, I frequently got lost counting and then i’d give up and give a puppy look at the conductor, and he’s usually nice enough to cue me in. (Well, when i give my puppy look, and he wants his harp to sound out, then he jolly well cue me in) But of course, i’m not a prima donna and i do try to find my own cues, and the conductor’s usually nice and helpful in assisting me in that.
2. After playing a passage, i would have programmed pedals for the next passage after an interjection of bars and bars of rests, then the conductor decided to “ok, back to bar xxx…” which has an absolutely different key, and he doesn’t wait…
he would just wave and off we go!
worse, starting with the harp entrance… so there was poor me, making a hell of racket, flipping and crashing down pedals to the right key –WHILE– his first beat is going down… usually i manage to do it in the nick of time *phew* but it’s still not a nice experience. with this conductor i try to come in even though my pedals are not in their right positions (ie playing in the wrong key and adjusting as i start) because he would otherwise look at me with this are-you-trying-to-go-on-strike kind of look.
sometimes pedals don’t get locked properly and i’d be playing in some unidentified key signature when the pedal snaps out of the notch… *sigh*3. The worse score for the harp that i have ever received was… for the harp to come in the last 3 bars of the whole piece… playing some nonsense.
Could do without a harp in the first place…It sounds like you need to go away for the summer and practice. You should contact Professor Ellen Ritscher of North Texas State University about her summer program, and there are a few other summer festivals with lessons like Eastern Music Festival, Brevard Music Center and Interlochen. You can also study privately with someone for an intensive period, two or three lessons a week without going to the country. Also, you should transfer to a school with a harp program or able to offer lessons. I don’t encourage dreaming of a professional career unless you are willing to dedicate yourself and take a lot of risks and chances, because it is still very difficult to do so, but a lot of people play part time, and there are other ways to contribute your music.
I like the idea of colored rubberbands to differentiate between levers are that are raised for naturals vs. levers raised for sharps. Evangeline make a good point that oftentimes a string is less resonant with a lever up. This bothers me a bit even on professional quality lever harps with loveland levers. I haven’t use other types of levers yet. I’ve especially noticed the resonance issue is most problematic when playing forte.
I introduce students to the concept of major and minor scales at the same time they are ready to play with all four fingers since they can build two tetra chords playing a scale with left, then right hand. It’s difficult to know the best solution- whether flats should be introduced a little later, or just have them tune some strings to flats. It’s easiest when they are on their own to tune to naturals with their tuners. Tuning with select levers up would keep this simple for them, but there is a tiny bit more tension on the string above the lever than below it when tuned levers up, so when the lever is lowered the tension redistributes. But perhaps when just starting out one must choose their battles.
These are helpful suggestions and I welcome more.
