Here’s the system I use to indicate lever changes easily and clearly in Finale. Lever changes can pose a bit of challenge to show exactly which lever is to be changed.
Even if you work with a different notation software (Musescore, Sibelius, etc.) I hope this episode is helpful and gives you some ideas 🙂
Farewell to Stromness is part of the “Yellow Cake Revue” – a set of songs plus two piano interludes (Farewell to Stromness being one) that Sir Peter Maxwell Davies wrote to protest a proposed uranium mine on the Orkney islands in 1980.
Written for the piano, I think it works beautifully on the harp (thanks to a viewer for the suggestion!). In this episode of Harp Tuesday I talk about some of the fingerings and other things I’ve done to adapt it for the harp.
This week’s episode is a look at Carlos Salzedo’s extremely fun to play “Short Fantasy on a Catalan Carol“. (Aka Fum, Fum, Fum).
A music video of the piece:
Join me as I attempt to adapt for lever harp this beautiful Chaconne from Handel’s Suite in D minor, HWV 448.
You can find the original sheet music I’m working from on IMSLP.
I was inspired to learn this Chaconne after watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh4i6acTgH4
The final episode of my look at arranging the Skye Boat Song:
And here’s the music video:
In this composer-centric episode I talk about pedal change, pedal markings, and pedal charts. As a composer, should you include these in your scores/parts? Answer – it depends 🙂
Hopefully helpful and interesting to composers and non-composers alike! Questions? Email me at info@joshlayne.com
I use my arrangement of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring as one of my examples – find the sheet music here.
Here’s part 2 of my process of arranging the Skype Boat Song. Was inspired to do this from remembering my Arranging Greensleeves Project and thought the time was right to do something like that again! I’ll be arranging the Skye Boat Song over several episodes, watch part 1 here.
A real-time look at adapting for lever harp the first of six “Noels” by Marcel Tournier. Tournier wrote these for pedal harp, and there’s a certain amount of modulation going on in this Noel. Still, having played through it a couple times I’m hopeful that I can adapt it for lever harp – join me for the journey and lets see if it works out! 🙂
I’ll be arranging the Skye Boat Song over several episodes, starting with this real time look today. Hope you enjoy!
In this episode of Harp Tuesday, I try to arranged Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C from the Well-Tempered Clavier for the lever harp.
The episode:
And you can watch me figure out the lever changes in real time:
I used a public domain setting of the piece from Mutopia
Here is a scan of the completed version with all my markings – download the images by right-clicking and selecting “save image as…”
In this episode I talk about transcribing music written for other instruments, with a focus on “solving” pedal challenges. I also demonstrate how I change 3 pedals at once for a Beethoven Sonata
I had a lot of fun with this series of episodes – all about arranging Greensleeves. I ended up with an arrangement/composition that I really like, and it’s neat to see it happen bit by bit, including in the first episode, in real time!
And the music video!
In this episode of Harp Tuesday I talk about taking piano music and adapting it for the harp. I use the example of Bach’s Partita No. 1, in particular the Courante:
