QUESTION FOR LEVER HARP PLAYERS

[Janis Cortese]

I guess what I’m saying is that I’d like to see more of a continuum of materials for lever harp that don’t assume that:

1) if you’re playing one, you don’t really care about getting good, and
2) if you do care, you’ll graduate to a pedal harp.

There are no easy or hard instruments, only instruments with high or low expectations. Even the humble ukulele has gone within the last fifteen years from being a cheap toy to something that you might get good at if you play for a decade or so. (Even the fiddle used to have the same expectations around it in the middle ages.) The lever harp isn’t much different — it seems held back by low expectations and the belief that it’s not an endpoint in itself. You start on that, and if you want to be “good,” you graduate to the next harp up. When the next harp up can cost as much as three Mercedes sedans and is completely out of the question for the majority of society, that’s … well, it’s not good.

I’d definitely like to see a series of materials (and more of an expectation in the harp world) that assume the lever harp is an instrument with the capacity for virtuoso play and that run from beginner to intermediate to advanced materials, allowing the student to determine for themselves how far they want to go on it.

[Biagio]

Hi Janis,

Gosh I can think of a slew of resources; though due to the great diversity of instruments they can’t really form a continuum. Here are a few of my particular favorites (in no particular order):

Alfredo Ortiz – Special Effects for all Harps
Laurie Riley – Secrets of the Celtic Style
Sylvia Woods – Music Theory and Arranging Techniques for Folk Harps
Kim Robertson – Just about anything she’s written:-)

All assume that the player is serious about PLAYING at some level (but not necessarily in an orchestra or even in performance).

Which suits me just peachy. I’m 64 years old and although I’ve been making instruments for over a decade I’ve only seriously studied harp for two years; my performance horizon is limited! But I do want to play as well as possible for as long as possible:-)

[Janis Cortese]

Biagio — thanks for the resources! I’m glad they’re out there! I’ve been relying on what I know from my previous musical training thus far, which has been a great benefit, but it does mean that I’ve gotten most of my “harp training” in effect from the piano and not the lever harp. I’m thrilled to see that there are materials out there that approach it all from a lever-harp perspective, and that treat the instrument as its own endpoint!

(I should also say that I did find Ray Pool’s stuff as well, and he sure qualifies as someone who’s not scared of lever flips as a matter of course.)

[Biagio]

You are very welcome Janis and here’s two other suggestions:

-Join the International Society of Folk Harpers and Craftsmen

Home

-Join the Virtual Harp Circle

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/virtualharpcircle/info

The latter was specifically started for beginning “harperists” – although we now have many advanced students and professionals from all over the world on every conceivable kind of harp. I am one of the owners/moderators so when you are asked for a reason to join just write “Biagio invited me”:-)

[Donna O]

Yes Carl, it is the Bochsa 40 easy etudes Opus 318. To answer your question, If I can work in the lever flips in the music I will do them. Lever flipping is as much a part of the music as pedal changes are and need to be planned and played consistently. In other cases I will ignore them, the exercises and practice are just as valuable. Thanks for starting this topic. It obviously demonstrates some needs.

[Tacye]

Other links which might give ideas about resources and music available are exam repertoire lists – sometimes working out which are pedal and which non can be less than obvious. I am sure there are other exam systems which include lever harp, but these are the ones I know.

http://gb.abrsm.org/en/our-exams/other-instruments/harp-exams/
http://www.trinitycollege.com/site/?id=1054
http://www.uwl.ac.uk/academic-schools/music/lcm-exams/subjects

[Biagio]

Sorry, one further comment on lever harp ranges and designs (boy I’m on a roll, must be all that coffee). My favorite harp other than the wire strung is a 34 string high headed formerly nylon strung harp much like the Salvi McFall; the lowest string was a C2 in scientific notation. I like a lot of sustain and bass but decided that I wanted even more bass and slightly less tension and slightly mellower tone. So I dropped it two steps to bass A and put Savarez Alliance fluorocarbon in the transition range. (I might have gone with gut instead of FC but did not want to deal with the humidity issues where I live).

The take home message: you are not necessarily restricted to exactly what the maker has designed – but check with them first before messing around like that. Since this happens to be my own design I felt free to break that rule:-)

[jennifer-buehler]

Are you familiar with Joyce Rice’s work? While none are too difficult, the Pieces in the Contemporary Collections do range in skill level and do some really fun and varied things with levers.

[Angela Biggs]

Thanks for that explanation, Biagio! It makes sense. That’s something I’ve been wondering about for a long time. 🙂

Thank you for the recommendation, Tacye. I found a book of her duos on Harp Connection, but the preview looked like they were too advanced. When I say I’m looking for really easy, I mean really, really, really easy!

[Allison Stevick]

Angela- Cindy Kleinstuber Blevins has some duet books, and the samples look really simple. Of course, the pieces may get more complicated after 3 lines, I don’t actually know. 🙂

https://www.cindykleinstuber.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=987_861&zenid=41o24kdnhi08b6ldqo53no6tf1

[Angela Biggs]

(Bingo! Thanks, Allison!)

[carl-swanson]

This has been very informative and I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to respond. I hope the discussion continues.

I’m interested in hearing from teachers who teach on lever harp. What are your favorite teaching materials? What do you like to use(in terms of teaching materials) to get your students moving around on the instrument? What sort of materials do you use to advance their technique? Do you use some of the pedal harp books, like LaRiviere? Bochsa? Or something else? I know that Kathy Bundock Moore has written some excellent beginner etudes. But what do you use after that?

[patricia-jaeger]

Carl, as you ponder all the different lever harp types out there, don’t neglect considering the Dilling (now Douglas) harp made now in Florida by Arsalaan Fay. Watch and hear him play on You Tube. After I found a used one, I bought it and now enjoy it for its new patented 7 levers instead of many levers, making it much closer to what the pedal harp can play. I sold my Troubadour, as it is more labor-intensive than the Douglas and cannot handle all the repertoire that the Douglas can with ease.

[Biagio]

Carl, perhaps I’m out of line responding since I consider myself a student, but let me share what my first teacher (Jocelyn Chang) used for beginner material. Jocelyn was an accomplished pedalist, a devotee of the Dilling/Douglas harp, and loved exploring the lever harps’ capabilities as well.

The very earliest material was Grossi and Friou- page by page with the etudes by Pozzoli. The etudes came only after she was happy with how technique was progressing plus lots of very simple tunes with the metronome. Clap and stamp, clap and stamp:-) We had reached the point where she asked me to select my favorite tunes and try to play them by ear – just the melody – before she tragically passed away.

She would also share with us what she herself was working on with her husband, a very avant-gard composer. Pretty tough even for her, but she’d have us tackle some of the passages with her as a duet.

One of her assignments was to sit at the harp and just play chords, arpeggios, and scales incredibly slowly trying to make each and every note sound beautiful. She would also drag her students to every single concert and recital she could.

So you see with Jocelyn those early studies were all about entraining the hands ears and mind, with etudes often oriented to what we enjoyed listening to.

I’m sure she would have had more advanced things in mind but you see that those would have been structured to the students’ interests, not the particular style of instrument, until much later.

[balfour-knight]

Carl, I know you build wonderful harps, both pedal and lever. I hope to be able to play one someday, since I know of your great reputation. Speaking of the Douglas/Dilling harps, my problem is that I would love for one of these to have at least 36 strings, C–C, or better still, 38 strings, Low A–High C. I wondered if you could build them, in addition to your established line of harps? I am in Western North Carolina, by the way, since most people do not let you know!

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