A Child Like You

Only a couple of weeks to go to the premiere of "A Child Like You" at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on the 2nd May at 8pm.


It will be my first time playing harp with a brass band, and it's a real privilege to be playing with a band as amazing as Foden's Band! The piece features my wonderfully talented soprano, Anna-Clare Monk who will be singing and narrating.

"A Child Like You" is a 15 minute work written by Andy Scott for Soprano voice/narrator, harp and brass band and will be the centre piece of the first half of the concert on the 2nd May in Manchester. It will then be performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in the South Bank on 6th July, and at the Concert Hall in Glasgow as part of the Commonwealth Games celebrations on the 2nd August.

If you can come along to any of the dates to support this project that would be brilliant!

brave new world

OK fellow harpists..... what is this?



I think....  it's a Budin carbon fibre single-action harp (I saw a couple of black ones in the Budin shop in Paris a few years ago) with some Do-It-Yourself colour changing LED strips stuck on the edges of the soundboard.

But I may be wrong....

Carbon fibre lever harps are now available in the UK and although they are an interesting harp which would have some really useful purposes being extremely light and able to use in almost any temperature etc, it's currently at a £6,000 price tag for a 36 string harp.

Admin overload... again

22.55 and I have just finished SOME (not all) of my very overdue admin.

I think I much prefer getting blisters.

At least it means I'm actually playing the harp instead of catching up on the never ending admin.

(BTW that's not a picture of my desk. I'm too embarrassed to upload an actual picture of my desk/chaos/madness)

According to the Daily Telegraph - "Having a messy desk makes you 'more creative'..." Yeah, right. Doesn't give me more time to do what I want to do which is PLAY MY HARP, not bloody admin.

blisters.. again!

I've been learning a new piece which has a long passage right in the top octaves.

Combine that with a couple weeks of orchestral work and I now have a bruised 4th fingertip, remnants of a blood blister on my thumb and a puffy blister on my second finger.

ARGHHHHH!

Interview with Daphne Boden

Daphne Boden was the special guest at the 2013 UKHA Christmas party.

An influential harp teacher in the UK - and member of the board of Directors of the World Harp Congress, talks about her harp life with Cecilia Sultana de Maria

Grab a coffee and enjoy!

how to get a concert harp into a small hatchback

I scream each time I watch this - I defy any harpist not to watch this without screaming!!!

Epic scene getting harp into a small car from 0:58 seconds in.



I have got a harp into a small hatchback back in my pre-college days before I learnt to drive and had to rely on lifts. However we took the front passenger seat completely out and then (CAREFULLY) lifted the harp in so that it went in backwards with the pedal end into the foot well of the passenger side.

I used to regularly get taxis and then the overground train to gigs, which shows my age as I'm sure you certainly wouldn't be allowed onto a train with a harp now. I even ended up locked in the guards van once (with my harp) on a train from London Victoria to Canterbury.

Ahh... those were the days!

Winter wonderland

God bless Ray Pool... and his brilliant Winter Wonderland book!



Every harpist should have this book for playing at Christmas parties.

I'm also a great fan of Ray Pool's harmony book "3's a chord" which is an excellent book for teaching.

UKHA fundraising cards

The United Kingdom Harp Association is celebrating 50 years in 2014.

It's run by volunteers and relies on members to keep the organisation thriving.... so if you are a harpist in the UK and are not yet a member please join and support this organisation!

It's for any harpist - whether you are a student, professional, harp business... basically anyone who loves the instrument and has a keen interest in all things harpy. We are a nationwide association covering the whole of the United Kingdom

You can also support the UKHA by buying a set of these fundraising greeting cards; beautiful images from UKHA members to celebrate 50 years of our organisation.  They are only £5 per set of 4 cards, and the cards are really good quality and can be bought online here

Silly season

Well the silly season has well and truly arrived. I did my first orchestral Christmas concert on Sunday... yes the 17th November!! The earliest time in the year I have ever played "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" sitting on a stage next to a 13 foot snowman.

A bizarre end to a manic week of concerts with the RLPO of Debussy La Mer, La Valse, Ravel Alborado del Grazioso, a recital with my good friend (and gorgeous soprano), Anna-Clare Monk and a couple of solo harp childrens school workshops thrown in for good measure.

My music stand is bulging with music to practice for the next month and I'm on the Barroca and vitamin tablets already to get me through the season.

A countdown of Britten Ceremony of Carols, Nutcracker Cadenzas, Carol concerts with the RLPO,  Raymond Briggs' The Snowman children concerts and a Harp Duo seasonal spectacular recital thrown in for good measure.

And according to the Daily Express, we are due for 100 days of snow!!!!

Bring on the Mince Pies.

Sheila Bromberg & The Beatles

Interview with Sheila Bromberg, who played harp on the Beatles track 'She's leaving home'. With Ringo Starr on the One Show.



A lovely article about her and her session work here

Why are harps harp shaped

Very interesting article by Jon Butterworth in The Guardian and fascinating to read about it from a physics point of view.

Also in the article are links to a research paper by Chris Waltham on harp design and construction.

For the less scientifically minded the images of the harp soundwaves are fascinating.

link to The Guardian article is here

La Source

Wow - Alisa Sadikova - (9 years old) playing La Source by Zabel with real musicality.

It's a really hard piece and she makes the huge stretches in the middle section look really easy, I don't know how she does it with her small hands. 

Brilliant !!!

Playing outdoors is no good for the harp...

How many times do I have to say that?

Considering I have a policy of not playing outdoors with my harps, I've played in some pretty funky outdoor situations this summer....

So for this one, I turned up to a private function only to find it was in a field.

After trying to explain why I couldn't play on grass, the TINIEST of stages was eventually found and some hay bales found to stop the stage from falling over on itself on the very uneven ground. 

Luckily the weather wasn't too bad, a fair cross wind, but it was just light summer jacket/cardigan weather, and a fairly short duration of playing.

Romantic looking = possibly?

Sound projection across a field with a waterfall nearby = zero

Still recovering from last nights orchestral summer pops gig in an outdoor theatre, complete with tarpaulin roof but no side panels on a day with terrible weather across the country - freezing rain and howling winds.

Only 3 strings broke, and for the first time in my gigging career I kept the base covers on during a gig. Had a black scarf luckily to disguise the blue base covers a bit.

Only in the UK, would you do an outdoor orchestral gig in the rain, with the wind howling through playing patriotic favourites, wearing fingerless gloves playing "Thunder and Lightning" polka by Strauss.

NO more outdoor gigs this year - PLEASE!!!

itsy bitsy spider

Yes I know it's only a tiny spider...... but in all the years I've been playing I've never had a spider drop down on my hands whilst I was playing before.

Flys, wasps, daddy longlegs - yes, but never a spider.

Breathing

One of my favourite pieces ever... By one of my favourite harpists, Rudiger Oppermann.

His duo with Park Stickney is amazing and his music is utterly brilliant, full of colour and soul. The duo version of this piece on their CD, Harp Summit is sublime and I think his solo harp version is pretty damn good too.



I was recommended to buy their CD by a friend who said it was one of the best harp CDs ever, and they certainly weren't wrong, if it isn't already in your harp collection you should get it!

Remy wins Gold!

Congratulations to Remy van Kesteren for winning the Gold medal in the 9th USA International Harp Competition!



I really enjoyed his Saxophone, Violin & Harp CD - Trio42... lovely music!

Lots of YPG

Wow, June has sped by.... lot of gigs this month, but one of the loveliest gigs I did was a rather bizarre but brilliant educational event I took part in as part of the Barnaby Festival in Macclesfield.



It was an ingenious introduction to instruments of the orchestra, set in Macclesfield library. There were groups of string and wind players spread out on the ground floor of the library, with brass and percussion players upstairs and the harp in the corridor.

There were tours every half hour with a stream of visitors to each group of musicians. As the tour party arrived at your spot, you played your cadenza from Britten's Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra. After each tour party had heard all the cadenzas from the various instruments they could then go off and have a go on the various instruments. After playing the first cadenza, there was a steady stream of children wanting a go on the harp throughout the morning.

Luckily I had my lovely teenage daughter with me as my official roadie that day, as well as someone who had volunteered to help fend off little fingers from the harps as I was playing, and boy did I need them both!

I took my little harp for everyone to have a go on, and it was a pretty full on morning of playing YPG cadenza lots of times and then supervising lots of very young children having a go on the lever harp.

The pictures make it look a lot more relaxed and sedate then it actually was, as it was usually at least 2 children having a go on the lever harp at the same time as there were just so many of them wanting a go. It was a brilliant event and lovely to introduce the harp to so many young (and not so young) people.



Never have I been as in need of a restorative cup of tea, as after that gig.

A brilliant concept of an educational event and I was very glad to have been a small part of it.

Marisa Robles interview

The wonderful Marisa Robles being interviewed by Ieaun Jones at the UKHA Christmas party last year.  Marisa talks about her early life in Spain, coming to London, working with James Galway, teaching at the Royal College of Music, her views on competitions etc.

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy - in 4 parts.... well worth viewing.









with thanks to Russell at Raws Production for the excellent videos.

If you are a harpist in the UK and you are not yet a member of the United Kingdom Harp Association, please join. It's for ALL harpists across the UK, and next year is the associations 50th year.

digital music stand

I had to leave my bag with all my wedding music in the car a while back, and I suddenly panicked that if my car was stolen, I could replace my car..... but I've spent nearly 30 years collecting my wedding music and that was irreplaceable.

So I've spent the last couple of months, scanning all my music that I use on weddings and functions, and I thought that whilst I was doing that, I may as well see about putting all the music on iPad so I could use that instead of carrying round TONS of music to every gig.

I was a bit nervous about using the iPad on gigs. First up, my eyesight is not great and an iPad is not big. Also I wanted to have the music as I would have it on a music stand  - e.g. 2 pages side by side, and not single pages having to turn all the time. This means that the music ends up being a quarter of the size you are used to seeing.

However - and here is the surprise - because the music is backlit from the iPad, the smallness of size didn't bother me. Even with my dodgy eyesight. I wouldn't want to sight-read something that size that I hadn't seen before on the iPad, (although it's possible) but really you shouldn't be sight-reading on any gig.

I've done 3 gigs now using the iPad and they have all been ok. However, during the wedding ceremony itself, I had a hard copy of the bridal processional on the stand, which was a good call as the registrar gave me no time or notice before announcing the arrival of the bridal party and the cue for playing that piece! Not good to be thumbing through the controls of the iPad then, so better to have that piece of music on the stand.

PLUS POINTS.

• Don't need music stand lights
• Don't need pegs to hold the music down
• Don't need to struggle with bag full of loads of music
• Once you get used to it, turning music pages on iPad is really quick and easy.
• Have access to your entire collection of music, more than you are used to fitting into your gig bag.

MINUS POINTS.

• Security - may need to do something so that someone can't take it off your stand whilst you are playing.
• Bright sunlight - I've not been in that situation yet, but it's worth thinking about.

TECH STUFF.
I already had a good scanner, iPad and a Dropbox account. I saved all the scans into my dropbox account. I downloaded an app called ForScore onto iPad (£4.99). You can upload your scores from your dropbox account into iPad.*

Within ForScore you can make the pages 2up (display 2 pages at a time). The best thing about this app is that you can create as many key words as possible against each piece and then make set lists either in advance or on the fly using the key words. Want to play all your Welsh music? Or your Jewish music? Or all your upbeat tunes for drinks receptions? Or all your songs from the shows? If you spend a bit of time labelling all the key words against each piece, it's time well spent.

Personally I'm already finding that there are lots of tunes that I haven't played on gigs for ages... so many good tunes I had forgotten I had!

I would recommend that when you scan the music in, that you do the pedal markings on the original in red or blue pen and scan in colour rather than black and white.

I did an hour at a time scanning and labelling and it took me nearly a couple of months to get it all done. If I had sat and done it all in one go, it probably would have taken a couple of days.

Once it's done, it's done. And with it all on Dropbox, you'll never lose your music and can access it on any device through Dropbox. ForScore is for use on one device only.

* Rather than use the 2up facility in ForScore, I inserted the scanned images into a landscape Word document, then saved the word doc as a PDF into Dropbox. The reason being that if something went wrong with the ForScore app, I do then have the music in a readable format in Dropbox.

You can buy a foot pedal which you link to the iPad via Bluetooth which will turn the page on the screen in ForScore. However, I think harpists have enough pedals to think about with having another one to use.

Sorry for long post, but it's good to go digital!

well that's cheered me up

The very lovely Athy playing one of his compositions on TV - is it me or is it hotter than 29 degrees?



lovely harmonics and what a fantastic finish on the harp.