Harp weekend in Saltaire

Harp weekend coming up next weekend in the fabulous Salts Mill in Saltaire.

Organised by the Early Music Shop and Camac, it features a weekend of workshops and recitals by Sarah Deere-Jones and Louise Thomson.

(click on images for to view in detail)

Affiniti

Lovely music from Affiniti who are an Irish Classical crossover trio with Aisling Ennis on harp, soprano Emer Barry and violinist Emer Barry.

Inappropriate noise

Q. What's the worst noise that, as a harpist, you can make at a wedding?

A. A wire string snapping whilst the bride is waiting to say "I do"?

I very rarely have any wire strings break on me... I change them regularly every year and a half and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many have snapped on me. It's like a gun shot when they snap and even though it's a rare occurrence it quite freaks me out!

Half way through the signing of the register today (and the wedding guests were very quiet), there was a loud crack which is the horrible precursor to a wire string snapping.

Luckily I managed to draw to a close very quickly the piece I was playing and then jump up and slacken off the offending wire before it snapped. PHEW!!!

After a crazy month of being really busy and being stuck in the pit at Buxton Festival, I think my harp was trying to tell me I need some time off!

asbestos fingers

After spending most of my life obsessing about the state of my finger tips (too soft?... too hard?), you'd think I'd have tried most things to avoiding getting blisters?

Well it turns out not.

I'm doing a couple of operas at the moment, one is a bit of a pedal work-out, and the other one is a finger shredder.

(double click on image for closer view)

Kaschei the Immortal by Rimsky-Korsakov is a great little opera, which is really enjoyable to play.... apart from the 4 pages of solo (loud) harp glisses at the start (which you can't use felt picks for!)

After the dress rehearsal my fingers were SO SORE that I didn't know how I was going to get through the run over the next few weeks.

In fact they were so sore, they felt bruised to the touch, which was when I had the brain wave of using arnica cream.

Hallelujah! Had the first show last night and my fingers were fine - not sore at all.

Came home and rubbed a bit of arnica cream into my fingertips, and so far so good.

Fingers crossed (no pun intended) that arnica cream will be the answer to keeping the blisters at bay over the next few weeks.

The case for wedge heels

Played in a church yesterday, and this was the only place to set up..... and the holes in the grate were just large enough for the heels of your shoe to slip into!!

Now if I had been wearing wedges or flip-flops it would have been fine....

Blazing pedals

Sensible shoes only please...

Definately no wedges or flip-flops!

(double click on image for closer view)

I had thought re-writing this little bit from 2nd act of Intermezzo by Strauss so that you aren't reading enharmonic notes, (my personal pet hate) might make it easier.

Figure 94 in 1.

80+mm per bar!!!

Maybe shoes with little booster rockets are in order?

Locking string onto the tuning pin

A while back I posted some videos which I found online on how to tie a harp string, brilliantly demonstrated by Lyon & Healy technician Steve Moss.

However I only posted his videos on how to tie the anchor knots. Here is the other important end - locking the string on the tuning pin.

I never used to do it this way, but since using Steve's method it is brilliantly simple and straight forward, and better still, really easy to describe.

The quality of the video is a bit fuzzy, but if you listen carefully to what he says it is really simple!

Locking a string on the tuning pin, 0-4th octaves by Steve Moss

Alan Stivell

Wow - great what you can find on YouTube! Footage from 1982 of Alan Stivell with Angelo Branduardi on fiddle.

I've always loved his harp playing. A great (unofficial) website about Alan Stivell here with a page of pictures of all the different harps he's played, plus info about him through the years. Site's in French, but you can google translate it.

His official website here..

electric envy

I see the harp twins have a lovely pair of Lyon and Healy Silhouette electric harps.



I was drooling over the black version of this harp a while back......

.... I did have a quick side swipe at lusting after a see through electric harp

before remembering that I really can't afford another harp until I've paid off for my lovely Iris.

And the bride would like....

lots and lots and lots and lots of requests

♥

♥

♥