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my mom and i were backstage before a harp concert at my school. i had just finished practicing some music and left the pedals set in E flat. my mom told me she’d tune my harp for me while i went to the bathroom. when i came back it was almost time for the concert to begin, so i rolled the harp out there and set the pedals and got ready while people began coming into the auditorium. i played about four notes before i realized that my harp was seriously out of tune! so i had to grab my tuning key and fix the harp as quickly as possible. i figured out later that my mom had accidentally tuned my harp to natural while the pedals were still set in E flat. oops.
Flippy-
How hard is it? I’d like to play it, but before I look for it, I want to make sure it’s not too advanced for me. I’m playing “Presque Rien” by Tedeschi and Grandjany’s “Petite Suite.” Both beautiful. I especially enjoy the suite, probably cuz I can already play it, while I’m still struggling through the Tedeschi.I’m in the same position as your student. How long has she been playing? I’ve been at harp nearly 3 years, and had piano for 4 years before that. I recently was in desparate need of pretty but not extremely difficult music because I need 2 hours of repertoire in a month, so here’s what I’m working out of. Depending on how long your student has been on harp, these may be challenging, though they aren’t so technically advanced:Deborah Friou’s Baroque Music for the Harp (includes pieces like excerpts from Vivaldi’s
How about a dreadful but true harp story? Here’s what happened, and if it’s strange enough, I can write it up in story form.
I have a Thormahlen, kind of a tipsy thing on its 4 wooden legs. I learned from my teacher to leave it always with something on either side. So I always tuck my harp in between two piano benches when I go to sleep. One morning, not five months after we bought it, I practiced before I left for school and left in a rush with only one of the two benches in front of it. I came home to find it lying on my bed, like some dead bird, but did not see anything wrong with it, so I figured my mother put it there so it would be out of the way of the cleaning lady. My mother then told my that when the cleaning lady was up on a ladder dusting the windows, she bumped it and it tipped over, but the harp seemed to have survived well. Well anyone who knows what happens to a harp when it tips over on its thin column knows that it wasn’t okay, but I didn’t know. So I felt it over, it seemed allright, until I touched the T brace. I gasped. There was a deep ravine-like crack all the way down the t brace. It took me a while to grasp what had happened. Anyway, to make an already too long story short, we had it taped with blue tape for a while, which was a sight in itself, until we shipped it up to Thormahlen in Oregon. (I’m in Los Angeles.) The T brace was replace, my harp is just like new. And we never told the cleaning lady what she did to my harp. She remains under the delusion of her first comment while lifting it up from the carpet, told to me by my mother, the unhappy witness. “It’s Okay!”I’m 16 and have been playing harp for nearly 3 years. I started on my teacher’s pedal harp, and then bought a folk harp (36 strings, Thormahlen) and am very happy with it. I’ve kind of been playing repertoire for both, as I have them both in my living room, but have recently been leaning more towards the levers. For one reason, I get arm/shoulder/back pain sitting at the pedal harp, I guess because I’m too small for it. This is something to take into consideration. To prevent/eleviate pain, knees should be bent at a 90 degree angle, feet on floor, harp resting directly on left shoulder, harpist sitting straight. This is impossible for a petite person on a pedal harp. Unless you daughter wants to play in an orchestra, why not sticking with levers for a while? Just my opinion.
Dear Judy,
I played piano for three years before I started harp and it really helped me. As you know, piano and harp are kind of set up the same, so many things you learn on one will help with the other. I have been playing harp for almost three years and people have told me it seems like I’ve been taking lessons for longer than that. And I’m sure that is because I took piano first. So I think it’s a good idea to take a few(or more) piano lessons.Rafaella Fox
Mildred Dilling’s 30 Little Classics (I think that’s the title), anything by Barbara Brundage (she may not be able to play all the pieces), anything by Kim Robertson (she has some lovely & interesting arrangements-again, some are more difficult than others).
