Category: Theory

Ep. 311 – What are dotted rhythms and how to play them!

Dotted rhythms have come up a few times recently when I’ve been teaching, and I thought I’d do a look at how to play them, as well as a brief overview/refresher of note values and what adding a dot after a note means! Hope it proves useful/interesting!

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Ep. 310 – how to play “Shepherd’s Cradle-Song”

A look at the “Shepherd’s Cradle Song” from Betty Paret’s “First Harp Book”. This beautiful minor key melody is fun to play and offers some good practice for coordinating both hands.

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Ep. 301 – Practice with me – 2 against 3 polyrhythm drill

Play along with me to practice a 2 vs 3 polyrhythm – a rhythm that comes in very useful in, for example, Debussy’s First Arabesque. You can use the chapter time-stamps to skip straight to the playlong part.

You can also check out this episode I did specifically on the Debussy Arabesque:

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Ep. 296 – What are weak position notes and why do they matter?

I’ve talked before in various episodes about paying attention to weak position notes, but I’ve never actually done an episode devoted to the concept – so in this episode I show which rhythmic positions are strong and which are weak and talk about why we often need to give a little “extra” to those weak position notes.

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Ep. 269 – Analyzing Hasselmans’ “Rouet”

Today I take a look at Hasselman’s lovely “Rouet” (Spinning Wheel) from his “Three short and easy pieces”. You can find a copy of it at the harp archives: https://archive.org/details/troispetitespi00hass2/page/2/mode/2up

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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Ep. 231 – what is the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures?

The time signatures of 3/4 and 6/8 both contain a total of six 8th notes. So what is the difference between them?? This is a question I’ve often been asked by students, and in this video I attempt to answer. (Quick answer – 3/4 has 3 beats or pulses per bar, and 6/8 only has 2 beats).

For further reading, the wikipedia page on time signatures is a good starting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature

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Ep. 194 – How to play the ‘Aria’ from Bach’s Goldberg Variations – working with tricky rhythms.

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.

My arrangement of the Aria is one of seven pieces in my new book, Transcriptions for Lever Harp.

Ep. 180 – 8 note chord progressions

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/

Ep. 122 Fundamental exercises on the harp – chord progressions

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/

 

Ep. 70 Accompanying and improvising

In this episode of Harp Tuesday I talk about creating simple accompaniment patterns for the left hand based on chords, and offer some ideas on improv. Both draw heavily from a firm knowledge of chord structure – I did an episode on chords that might prove useful.

I use Auld Lang Syne as the demonstration piece for this episode. I’m reading from a handwritten lead sheet (chord symbols + right hand tune). Download the PDF here.

The section on improvisation starts at 10:22

Note that since this episode I’ve done quite a lot of free improvisation – for example every new year’s day since 2016: