I went to a wonderful concert last night – “A Festival of Harps.” There were all kinds of lovely harps there…most nylon-stringed neo-Celtic harps like mine, but also several wire harps, a Paraguayan harp, a double-strung harp, two pedal harps and even a hot-pink electric harp! The music was great, especially when all the harpers played together in a “harp orchestra.”
My pet peeve? Well, when the pedal harpers got up to do their set, the older one (a teacher) mentioned that the younger one (her student) “started on a little Celtic harp like these, but now she’s graduated to her very own pedal harp!”
I hate the assumption among many classical musicians that folk instruments are merely a stepping stone to “the real thing.” We’ve seen it here before too…people saying “I’ve played the whistle for X years, and now I’m ready to ‘step up’ to a flute.” Personally, I consider going from Celtic harp to concert harp, or from whistle to flute, to be a LATERAL move…the person has decided to take up a new instrument, is all. That’s nice, but it’s hardly a “graduation.” A great many of us play only folk instruments all our lives, and have no desire to learn a classical instrument that is played differently, has a different sound, and is often used for a different kind of music (well, the flute can and often is used for traditional music too, but you get my meaning). To my mind, it’s a little like saying “my daughter started on a little fiddle just like that one, but now she’s graduated to her very own cello!” or “I’ve played the mandolin for X years, and now I’m ready to step up to a guitar.”
I know the woman didn’t mean to be insulting, but I also know I wasn’t the only folk harper there who bit their tongues at that one!
Redwolf: All of my degrees are in the musical arts, and I am a bonafide classically trained musician and teacher. I agree with your ‘rant’, 100%. If the time and place were to present itself, I would have a well-meaning - maybe even humorous - discussion with the individual in question. I would certainly mean no criticism, but it might open some doors toward dialogue and understanding. Since you are not acquainted with the teacher, possibly a respectful, friendly, well-worded letter is in order - with a return address supplied…
Hmmm…a letter might be worth considering. I do mention this peeve of mine when it comes up at The Harp Column.
The interesting thing is, I hang out all the time with classically trained singers (including a couple of opera singers) and they don’t seem to have the same attitude. If I were to say “I’m a folksinger, but I’ve decided to move up to opera,” they’d probably look at me funny and say “huh”?
There is an explanation that has nothing to do with elitism or looking ones nose down at lever harps. Maybe the teacher (or another teacher) recommends starting out on the lever harp before going on to the pedal harp. It would make perfect sense to me if a teacher recommended shelling out the couple thousand or modest rental fees for a quality folk harp to see if the student had the right set of characteristics to play the harp. Then it would be worth it to shell out the 15k+ or much higher rental fees to learn what is a more complex instrument.
I did exactly that. I never “graduated” because I never “got” the harp. I also took up the whistle not as a goal in itself, but as a first step to learning uillean pipes, since I’d read in many places that one should master the whistle before taking up the u-pipes. I did become proficient on the whistle, and, for various reasons, decided to take up the Irish flute rather than the pipes. So I consider myself having graduated from the whistle because I took it up specifically with another goal in mind.
I’ve recently taken up the Baroque flute to play Baroque music. I don’t consider, though, that I’ve graduated from Irish flute to Baroque flute, because I didn’t take up the Irish flute as a first step toward playing Baroque music.
None of this means that I have any less respect for whistlers or lever harpers than I have for pipers or pedal harpers. In fact, I think that having some experience with the Irish flute helps my Baroque playing, and the converse. (This has actually been recommended to me by both of my teachers.) In a similar vein, I think playing the less-versatile instrument requires the player to be more creative in phrasing, ornamentation, melody, etc.
As Red said, different instruments, different skill sets, but just because somebody began on one and graduated to another doesn’t mean that she considers the first a lesser instrument.
I’m sure you’re experiencing a happy anomaly. grouch
I’m wondering: in singing and other things, we all know that classical techniques cannot properly apply, in and of themselves, to traditional arts, and vice-versa. Does this apply to single-nylon-strung harp as well, or is it just the size, range, pedals and Corinthian column of the classical harp that make the difference?
BTW, I once had lunch at a table next to a classical harpist, and boy, those things are LOUD. Unpleasantly so for such proximities. Or maybe it was she just didn’t think to play more softly. Harper jokes, anyone?
I’d say about the same as singing. Don’t forget that some parts of singing are cross-platform, perhaps most importantly breathing and breath support. I remember Joan Baez was having big voice problems a couple of decades ago and the solution was taking classical voice lessons, not to develop a different voice, but to learn how to produce sound more efficiently.
As for the harp, the strings are plucked similarly, although the action is different. The pedals, which can sharpen or flatten a note, add a whole new dimension. But the biggie is the whole approach to the music is different. I bought an album by what turned out to be a crossover harper – classically trained, had “discovered” the Celtic harp a few years earlier. It was horrible. Everything sounded somehow constrained or mechanical. This was someone who was very technically able, but either didn’t understand the music or didn’t understand that it required a whole new approach to a new instrument.
I think that stalking the woman in question, cornering her in a dark alley and then forcing her to listen to the celtic recordings of the late Derek Bell (among others) who is a classically trained harpist gone “native” ought to do the trick.
They’re quite different. Different tensions, different types of strings, different techniques, different music, different repetoire. While some techniques can cross over, for the most part they’re really different instruments.
Yes, they can be awfully loud. They were designed, remember, not so much as a solo instrument, but as an instrument that needs to compete with an entire orchestra. That said, there is a certain amount of dynamic leeway on any harp, and she may not have realized that her technique wasn’t suitable to the situation. Personally, I don’t like the sound of the orchestral harp, but to each his own.
Harper jokes…hmmm. The must be some, if for no other reason than the word “plucking”
I know several Harper jokes but unfortunately they pertain to a group of Harpers in the Forgotten Realms universe, so if you don’t play D&D and/or read Forgotten Realms books, you wouldn’t get them.
My mother is a harper, and her good friend and teacher is a classically trained harper who prefers Irish harp. She (the teacher) does not see either Classical or Irish (or any other variety) harp as being superior to the other, just a different instrument with a different approach.
I wonder if the instigator of the peeve wasn’t just trying to be humorous… hmmmmmm.
At a public performance where the audience is very close to the performers, a fairly loud “Oh” of shock and hurt from the audience can usually bring the offender up short and apologize, if they are the apologizing kind. They will then usually explain themselves. Else they will confirm their bias.
Redwolf, a journey to the Pedal Harp may very well pass through your world from time to time as may a journey to the Banjo or Ukelele.
Don’t be angry about it. Instead, be glad that the Celtic Harp snf you were there to provide this particular student with a passageway to the instrument that she is meant to play which is the Pedal Harp. It isn’t personal, dear. The instructor is merely proud to have found another potentiate.
In the mean time, carry on and be glad that you were able to provide a launching pad for a Pedal Harpist.
