Here’s a simple (but not easy!) exercise to work on achieving a beautiful, sustained and singing sound when playing repeated chords (or anytime when we have to replace on a previously played string).
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Happy New Year! To start off the year, here’s a short exercise that is a great candidate to turn into a daily goal for 2022.
Want to hear more about my thoughts on goals, process, and more? Watch this conversation with Victoria at Talking Harps: https://youtu.be/XiuWoEmfF3M
I’ve covered many other aspects of playing chords in various Harp Tuesday episodes: https://www.harptuesday.com/category/chords/
Support from my patrons helped make this video possible: https://www.patreon.com/joshlayne
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Placing all four fingers but only playing 2 at a time – featuring a section from my composition Nordic Spaces.
This type of finger independence can be extremely handy! For more, check out Harp Tuesday episode 23, plus page 32 from Betty Paret’s First Harp Book and/or the first set of the Lariviere exercises.
Sheet music for Nordic Spaces is available at https://www.joshlayne.com/store/?product=nordic-spaces-downloadable-sheet-music-pdf
Support from my patrons helped make this video possible: https://www.patreon.com/joshlayne
Get free sheet music and stay up-to-date on what I’m doing by signing up to my email newsletter at http://eepurl.com/nBSlz
Here’s my answer to a viewer’s question on what you need to do on the harp to make a chord major or minor. (Answer – the fingers play the same strings – it’s all about the lever or pedal settings!).
Play along with me as I do some rolled (broken) chord practice on the harp!
I’m using a metronome app called Pro Metronome (thanks to viewer Keven for his suggestion!) and its “practice mode” to very gradually speed up the pace. Link below, though note that practice mode is a paid upgrade. Do you have a favorite app that does something similar? Let me know in the comments!
A look at eight note (four notes per hand) chord progressions, using the opening of Naderman’s First Sonata as an example. (You can find the sheet at the harp archives).
Such a useful thing to automatically be able to do! Here are a few other Harp Tuesday episodes that touch on chords and chord progressions: https://www.harptuesday.com/category/chords/
Here’s a look at how to position your wrist and hand and how to close your fourth finger in order to play 4 finger chords cleanly and easily.
In this episode oI talk about chord progressions and working on the ability to automatically go up and down a chord sequence (root, 1st inversion, 2nd inversion). As a companion to this episode you might find these two episodes helpful:
https://www.harptuesday.com/ep-34-chord-basics/
https://www.harptuesday.com/ep-71-chordjumping-exercise/
We so often play chords with a break/roll, even if it’s very slight. It’s good to be able to play chords with every note sounding at the exact same time – here I offer a few thoughts on hand position and finger action when playing 4 finger solid chords.
Here’s a “Slow Motion Monday” video of me playing chords:
A chord/jumping exercise! Download the free PDF here!
I talk about chords – some very basic theory (what is a chord, anyway?), inversion, some possible exercises.
