[Menvi-discuss] Harping

[Bill]

Ø  Personally, I couldn't play the thing if I couldn't see it.  

 

Hmm, might be interesting for you to try it sometime and report back?  Do
your harps use a different color for the C’s?  Or is it the F’s?  

 

BTW, I am not saying that it cannot be done by a blind person.  I am just
saying that it cannot be done by this blind person.  J  I attended a
presentation at the CTEVH conference years ago, when it was still called the
CTEVH conference, where Grant Horrocks had one or two of his students
demonstrate his “piano geography” approach.  Students seated at the piano
had to put their hands in their laps.  Then Grant called out a chord change
and the student was expected to play it without feeling around the keyboard
to get oriented first.  And these blind students did it!  He teaches his
sighted students to do the same.  No peeking aloud.

 

But I still say that doing that same exercise with a harp would be much
harder because the harp is not nearly as stationary as a piano.  

 

You have probably heard this wise saying:

“Harpists spend half of their lives tuning and the other half playing out of
tune!”

 

And if you had a dollar for every wise guy who thought he was the first one
to think of telling you, as you lug your harp to/from a gig: “Bet you wish
now that you had kept up with those piccolo lessons?”, you would be retired
on your own tropical island somewhere.

 

Bill

 

 

Bill McCann
Founder and President of Dancing Dots since 1992
www.DancingDots.com
Tel: [001] 610-783-6692 

 

 

From: menvi-discuss-bounces at menvi.org
[mailto:menvi-discuss-bounces at menvi.org] On Behalf Of SClark6144 at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 7:05 PM
To: menvi-discuss at menvi.org
Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] Harping

 

 

 

Harp moving is a way of life for me.  I have two harps and move them a lot,
as I am basically a wedding harpist.  The bigger one is a Style 15.   As
your wife knows, that is a small concert harp, about 65 pounds, awkwardly
spread out.  I'm so glad I wasn't able to afford a bigger one.  It fits in
my Accord wagon.  The other harp is an Aoyama Etude, which is also a pedal
harp, but smaller at 60 pounds.  It just takes a strong back and a weak
mind.  

 

I think the blind harpers of yore played harps that were quite small
compared to ours, so you may be getting a glorified impression there.
Personally, I couldn't play the thing if I couldn't see it.  

 

Syl

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