harpcolumn

Harp Teacher Directory

Contact

Log in to view more contact info for this listing.

Social

Location

Region

United States,

Teaching locations

Faculty

harp info

Harp type

Styles

Classical

Ages and levels

Beginners welcome, Adults welcome, No piano background required

Background

Schools attended

Degrees

Teachers

your listings

beth chen

i’m happy to teach cross-strung harp, if you can’t find more qualified teacher. i play 7+5, but i could also teach 6+6 if necessary. i’m classical pianist by training, but i’m open to other genres. in the past, i was church pianist, and i taught piano lessons. i organized concerts & performed on stage with music students, but my degrees are actually non·music: math (PhD), women’s studies (grad certificate), physics (BA). cross·strung harp is very different instrument from single·strung harp, thus technique will be very different also (some harpists might say «unconventional»). you will need to use both thumb-over & thumb-under, in order to access both upper & lower strings. sometimes your hand will be upright, or rotated, or even up·side·down. any chord/arpeggio/scale might have several possible fingerings. you need to get comfortable with all of them in your toolbox, in order to choose the optimal fingering (which depends on context: what comes before & after in the music).

as teacher, i take pedagogy very seriously. so of course, i expect similar level of commitment from students. length of lesson is naturally related to amount of progress you make, which is directly proportional to how effectively/efficiently you practice. syllabus depends on your background (coming from piano, or level/pedal harp, or true beginner). for me, teaching is not about $. rather, it’s about helping those students who are truly interested & eager to learn.

online lessons only (facetime, skype, etc) during covid·19 epidemic. my iPhone filters unknown numbers, so please text or e·mail to establish contact.