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The opening of Debussy’s Clair de Lune has a wonderfully free and rubato feel to it – and yet all of that is written in specifically, using in particular a shift from triplets to duples and back again.
In this episode I go over the first page and show how we might count and conceptualize the rhythm.
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Here’s a look at Samuel Milligan’s arrangement of “The Ashgrove” (Llwyn Onn) from his book Medieval to Modern volume 2. This was a piece I learned when I was fairly new to the harp and I loved the excitement of the 2nd page and all the fast 8ths notes 🙂
I’ve also done Harp Tuesday episodes on Bochsa’s Air and Rondo from the same book.
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During slow passages we sometimes have time to use a fingering that produces exactly the sound we want, rather than a fingering that is most efficient. In this episode I demonstrate what that can sound and look like, using the opening of Glinka/Balakirev’s “The Lark” as an example.
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If you’re a benefactor on my Patreon, as a bonus you can hear my live performance of The Lark from a concert this past May.
If you love the beautiful melody of The Lark but don’t want to tackle the very difficult Balakirev version, Angela Klohn has a great arrangement of the original Glinka song.
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In this episode of Harp Tuesday (episode 297) I take a look at a pattern from the slow movement of Rodrigo’s beautiful Concierto de Aranjuez. I arranged this for solo harp over 20 years ago, but I’m always looking for better ways to do things, and last year I came up with an option that I think is much better and lets me get the speed and sound that I want in this pattern.
Hope you enjoy this look at problem solving, and maybe carry it over to something you’re working on!
Watch a live performance of my arrangement:
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I revisit Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols (my first ever Harp Tuesday episode) to share a few spots that I’ve updated over the years, finding better fingerings or other options.
As a bonus, I actually discover another change I want to make on camera – demonstrating the idea that it’s always worth looking for new solutions even in pieces you have played for decades!
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I’m excited about doing a Harp Tuesday episode on the first of Godefroid’s five fantasies on Schubert songs (I already did one on the Serenade (https://www.harptuesday.com/ep207/ )
In preparation I needed to write in pedal changes and some fingerings and I thought I’d bring you along! I hope this episode gives you a sense of how you can do quite a bit away from the harp – although there is no substitute for actually trying it out, I know for sure I will change some of the fingering – stay tuned for the Harp Tuesday episode featuring it 🙂
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My friend Dorothy Cook asked me a number of years ago if I could write down a piece that she had composed. That piece is called St. Columba’s Moon, inspired by an experience she’d had at a harp event at a place called St. Columba’s house.
I’ve always wanted to do a Harp Tuesday episode about the piece – and here it is! Dorothy has made the sheet music freely available if you want to play it yourself.
Dorothy as an amazing storytelling and I’m so glad that I got the chance to film her telling the story behind the piece. Stay tuned to the end of the episode to hear her story and to hear me play through the entire piece.
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I love George Winston’s take on Carol of the Bells (the traditional Ukrainian song Shchedryk). In this episode I take a look at how to play it on lever harp!
Here’s a link to the sheet music I’m using (note that this is an affiliate link – I will get a small percentage if you purchase the music using the link.
As I mention in the episode, there are several options for Winston’s music, none of which seem to be completely free of errors. If you like his music you might pick up the “George Winston Piano Solos” book 1.
I just bought the Kindle version of the book a couple days ago to see whether it is any more accurate and it seems to be exactly the same as the version I used (mistakes and all). The Prelude, however, seems more accurate, and of course it includes a bunch of other music!
I filmed a music video on pedal harp:
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I talk more about the mechanics of playing downward 3 note patterns in an episode on Aurum Aqua (which can be played on pedal or lever harp):
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In this episode I look at the first page of Felix Godefroid’s Etude de Concert in E flat minor. Download the first page with my markings on it here. The full piece can be found at the harp archives here.
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In this episode I take an in-depth look at the first movement (theme and variations) from Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11, transcribed for harp by Alfred Kastner.
Sign up for my email newsletter to get a copy with my fingering and pedal markings – both as a PDF and as a forScore file (in case you use forScore, which then gives you the option of easily erasing any of my markings you don’t need).
IMSLP has various editions of the piano music, including the first edition – useful to compare and check. And many of the editions include suggestions on how to play the various ornaments and appoggiatura.
I did an episode years ago featuring a very easy arrangement of the first half of the theme from this Sonata, as well as an “into the archives” episode offering a first look at Kastner’s arrangement.
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In this special 12th anniversary episode of Harp Tuesday, I show how I play the Prelude of Bach’s 1st Cello Suite with only the left hand. It ends up fitting so nicely, it’s almost as if Bach intended it for the harp and it makes a wonderful left hand exercise 🙂
I did a Harpist in the Wild episode featuring the cello prelude:
My original inspiration to try this Prelude with LH only was seeing that Fernando Guerrero had done so. Watch his video here and he has whole book of movements from the cellos suites arranged for LH only: http://www.arlu.org/arlu.html (click on “publicaciones”).
If you want to play the Prelude on lever harp, it’s one of the pieces in Anne-Marie O’Farrell book of Bach transcriptions.
French harpist and composer Marcel Tournier’s “Etude de Concert” (Au Matin/In the Morning) is a beautiful piece of music that’s also very satisfying to play!
In this episode I offer a few practical suggestions for playing it. Make sure to watch my performance of the Etude here.
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These days we’re so lucky to have easy access to recordings and the full score when it comes to preparing many orchestral parts. In this video I show how I use these tools to help get ready to perform the harp part to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol”.
While this video is about learning a harp part, I think it’s relevant for any instrument, particularly those that have many bars of rest between playing… 🙂
IMSLP.org is an amazing resource for public domain classical music, and you can find there both the harp part and the full orchestral score to “Capriccio Espagnol”, along with thousands of other pieces.
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“Au bord du ruisseau” (By the stream, or on the banks of the stream) is a short, beautiful piece by the Henriette Renié, a monumental figure in the classical harp world.
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An in-depth look at my arrangement for lever harp of the the Chaconne from Handel’s Suite in D minor, HWV 448. (One of seven pieces in my book, Transcriptions for Lever Harp).
In this video I look at how to break down and practice a short section from Bach’s Toccata in D minor. This method of finding a small section or “chunk” that you can practice effectively is a very important and useful concept for practicing in general!
A chance to watch how I go about practicing a section from Presle’s beautiful “Le Jardin Mouillé”. I always think we need more options to watch people practice, rather than just seeing the finished product. Hope you find this interesting!
In this episode of Harp Tuesday I take a look at Felix Godefroid’s beautiful take on Schubert’s “Ständchen” or “Serenade“. Here’s a live performance of it from 2016:
In this episode of Harp Tuesday I take a look at how to play Carol Kappus’ beautiful arrangement of “Poor Wayfaring Stranger”. Check out Carol’s music and sign up for her email list at http://www.carolkappus.com
I recorded “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” as a standalone music video:
A special virtual duet episode of Harp Tuesday! I’ve uploaded myself playing the 2nd harp part to Henriette Renié’s beautiful duet, “Les pins de Charlannes” and I invite you to play the 1st harp part along with me!
The Aria that starts off Bach’s Goldberg Variations has note values from half notes to 32nds and the rhythm can be a bit intimidating at first glance. In this episode I walk you through how to decipher and make sense of this and other music with tricky rhythms.
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.
A look at Hasselman’s beautiful “Chanson de Mai” (Song of May), freely available at the International Harp Archives.
[EDIT – I have come to believe that in the arpeggio section that starts with the second to last page, the 2nd bar is missing a flat symbol in front of the Cs, and they are in fact played as B natural. Here’s an updated version with pedal markings].
Click here for my annotated copy with pedal markings, etc. (Keep in mind that I wrote these marks on my iPad, so somewhat sloppy – you may want to print out a clean copy from the Harp Archives and transfer my markings over instead).
I thought I’d do something a little different today and try and teach (and learn myself!) a tune by ear. A beautiful Irish tune known by a number of different names – Down by the Salley Gardens (or Sally Gardens), Maids of Mourne Shore, The Foggy Dew, etc.
While it kind of defeats the purpose (of learning it by ear) if you’d like a free copy of the music with my fingerings, sign up for my newsletter
(Existing subscribers, email me and I’ll send you a copy!)
Here’s a look at 6 spots in “Alla Turca Jazz” where I ended up changing my fingering or otherwise problem solving in order to play it better!
Ekaterina Afanasieva’s excellent arrangement of Fazil Say’s “Alla Turca Jazz” is an irresistible piece to play (based on the iconic last movement from Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11, K. 331).
An easy Bach “Chorale” gives me an opportunity to talk about phrasing and dynamics!
If you’d like the sheet music for this easy harp arrangement of “Erkenne mich, mein Hüter” from Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, just sign up for my email newsletter and I’ll send you a copy 🙂
Carlos Salzedo’s “Concert Variations on O Tannenbaum” is one of my favorite carols to play – so much fun! I just published a music video of it and here’s a Harp Tuesday episode going over the variations and offer some thoughts and suggestions.
I recently came across a transcription of Mozart’s Sonata No. 11 arranged for harp by a harpist called Alfred Kastner. He did an excellent job with it – join me as I take a look through the first movement in the 2nd in a series I’m calling “From the Archives” as I highlight sheet music from the harp archives.
If you’d like a copy of my current pedal and fingering markings (still a work in progress!) sign up for my email list and I’ll send you a copy (plus you get to stay up-to-date on what I’m doing).
Here’s the start of a new type of video: From the Harp Archives. A quick look/read through of a piece of public domain music that I feel is worth highlighting. In this case, it’s Felix Godefroid’s beautiful setting of “The Last Rose of Summer”
I highly recommend listening to the full orchestral original. Here’s a link that shows the score as it plays: (We hear the violin solo+harp chords “Scheherazade” theme for the first time at 0:52 )
Hope you enjoy! Thanks to one of my patrons for the suggestion – I wasn’t aware of this arrangement and it’s beautiful and a lot of fun to play 🙂 You, too, can become my patron and support Harp Tuesday at https://www.patreon.com/joshlayne
I’m home from my fall 2018 European tour and ready to get back into recording Harp Tuesday episodes! Here’s a look at a short section from Debussy’s 1st Arabesque that features two different places where you have to be very careful to avoid buzzing!
Hans Trneček’s transcription of Smetana’s “The Moldau” is one of my absolute favourite pieces to play. In this episode I look at the last 3 lines and talk about problem solving and how sometimes we can come up with a better way to play something!
I fell in love with this song many years ago listening to a Zabaleta recording. Couldn’t find the sheet music at the time, but was thrilled to finally track it down a few years ago online at the harp archives
Labarre’s “Caprice” (as recorded by Zabaleta) is No. 7 from his “Grande étude pour la harpe : composée de huit caprices : op. 30”
In this episode I take a look at Carlos Salzedo’s “Seguidilla” from his suite of eight dances. I give some tips on it in general, and then talk about playing fast and offer some ideas and ways to work on speed.
I also made a version of this episode which shows the sheet music onscreen as I talk about it, though the video quality is worse overall. You can watch it below:
In this first episode I take a look at a beautiful piece called Alfonso XII el Sabio (13th century Spain) from Kim Robertson’s sheet music book “Celtic Harp Solos . (I wonder if in fact it’s music associated with Alfonso X el Sabio).
With a rather hypnotic tune and great rhythms this is a very fun piece to play!
(Celtic Harp Solos is an excellent book. Your favourite harp music retailer will probably have a copy (or could obtain one for you). It also appears to be available as a PDF download. For example:
“Pistache” (Pistachio) is one of a collection of pieces by Bernard Andres called “Epices” (Spices) where every pieces is based on a spice (Paprika, Cinnamon, Vanilla, etc.)
Pistache is probably my favourite from book one of the collection, and in this episode I take a look at it. Pistache has a bunch of cool effect/extended techniques, some fun rhythm stuff, and is just overall a blast to play 🙂
A two part look at Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich’s beautiful harp solo “Songs of Nymphs“. Written for Erica Goodman in 1988 with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council, Songs of Nymphs is made up of four songs, or movements:
In this six part series I take a look at my Fantasy on Greensleeves, the lever harp version. Be sure to check out my Arranging Greensleevesprojectpage for more info, or to buy the sheet music!
“I feel different” is one of my favourite compositions by Dutch harpist/composer Anne Vanschothorst. It felt like a great subject for my return to Harp Tuesday after a long break due to my European trip, etc.
Feels great to be back, and on almost exactly the five year anniversary of the very first Harp Tuesday episode!
Hope you enjoy – I’ll be doing a couple follow up Slow Motion Monday videos from this piece – look for that next week.
In this special edition of Harp Tuesday from the Zagreb Harp Centre in Croatia (http://zagrebharpfestival.com) I take a look at the “Rondo” from Bochsa’s “Air and Rondo” – the first piece in Samuel Milligan’s “Medieval to Modern volume 2”.
In this special edition of Harp Tuesday from the Zagreb Harp Centre in Croatia (http://zagrebharpfestival.com) I take a look at the “Air” from Bochsa’s “Air and Rondo” – the first piece in Samuel Milligan’s “Medieval to Modern volume 2”.
Harpist and composer Bernard Andrès has written a lot of music for harp, here in these episodes I look at three pieces from his book Ribambelle – a set of 10 short works for lever or pedal harp
In these episodes of Harp Tuesday I look at a piece that I learned as “Variations sur un theme de Mozart”, playable on the Celtic harp and edited by Odette le Dentu. However, it turns out it may have nothing to do with Mozart! Thanks to a youtube comment I found the original on IMSLP – it’s the first of 4 Airs and variations by French composer Martin Dalvimare.
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In this episode I talk about Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (from Cantata BWV 147)
The beauty of virtual sheet music is I can easily offer a whole bunch of different versions. So pick the one you prefer, or download them all!
The arrangement is for the public domain, so feel free to copy and distribute as much as you would like. While you’re here, consider signing up to my email newsletter. It’s the best way to stay up-to-date on what I’m doing, plus you get some free sheet music! (And you can always check out my other sheet music available at my online store).
The only difference between the two versions is a low B in the bass, and the markings for the lever/pedal change. The next two versions include the low B.
In this episode I take a look at Deborah Friou’s wonderful arrangement of Scarborough Fair. Sheet music (including PDF) available at the Sylvia Wood’s Harp Center.
I recorded a music video of A Bird Came Flying last year.
The piece can be broken into 5 parts, here are time links to when I start talking about each part:
Start – Page 1 1:50
Page 2 12:15
Page 3 18:56
Pages 4+5 24:50
Page 6 30:15
I was still working on the format of Harp Tuesday and was splitting everything into shorter videos. Also, sound balance is not great – you may find you need headphones while listening.
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I was still working on the format of Harp Tuesday and was splitting everything into shorter videos. Also, sound balance is not great – you may find you need headphones while listening.
Get free sheet music and stay up-to-date on what I’m doing by signing up to my email newsletter!
Support from my patrons helps make continued Harp Tuesday episodes possible – if you would like to help support future videos you can become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/joshlayne
November 29, 2010 – Episode 1 – An in-depth look at Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. The first ever Harp Tuesday! I ended up re-uploading this after adjusting the audio levels – I’ve linked to that version, but you can still find the original on my YouTube channel.
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Support from my patrons helps make continued Harp Tuesday episodes possible – if you would like to help support future videos you can become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/joshlayne
