First Harp Circle for Northern Harpsong

[Barbara]

Great pictures! Thanks Fred, for taking them and putting them on the site (Fred? Leigh?Both of you?)

It was a lot of fun and very exciting to play with all those beautiful harps. How lucky we harpers are!

[Barbara]

And that is an unbiased opinion! but I agree. And of course, I love those moody Irish songs.

[Leigh Griffith]

I agree, but then I feel that way about most Welsh music! ;-)

[Barbara]

When you hear Ash Grove on the harp, you would have to believe it was written just for that instrument. A match made in heaven.

[Barbara]

varying, verying--ooof!

[Barbara]

Open harp circle was a lovely day. I hope others enjoyed it as much as I did. We started out with Loonlight, a piece by Joyce Rice from her collection, Petty Larcenies. It is easy but cleverly captures the mood of the Clair De Lune. Our goal was to play through some different styles of music, add some new pieces to everone's repetoire, and have the fun of playing together. We did some pieces that were unison, but added to them with chords and added ostinatos and they turned out to sound very impressive. We also did a couple of O'Carolan tunes with just a lead sheet and practiced improvising some accompaniments. We even played some original pieces composed just for Heavenly Harpers; a lovely piece called Pavanne, by talented local musican, Harrison Roper, and even an attempt at original music by me, Morning Star,Evening Star. I also arranged a piece in 5 parts for this harp circle, which was interesting to do (for me--not necessarily for others! :):))

Of course wherever there are haprers you are sure to find good food and our lunch together was a great chance to visit, get to know new people, and listen to a wonderful CD of Linda DeBrita's, Whispers. There was also a lot of laughter and all of this underscored the fact that haprers are fun people to be with.

In the afternoon we had a short session led by a local yoga instructor, who gave us some great insights into using realxation techniques to assist with overcoming and avoiding the aches and pains associated with harp playing and to tie performance with relaxation, not anxiety. I found this to be very helpful and would like to hear more.

We had all levels of harpers there and tried to make it comfortable for everyone by letting each tackle what they felt they could handle; right hand only, melody line, hands together, and some arrangements had a choice of hard and easier parts. One of these was a three part arrangement of The Ash Grove by J. Pratt-Walter. It lends itself nicely to this type of event as it has verying levels of difficulty in each part.

We ended the day with a simple version of Pachelbel's Canon and finally, Sylvia Woods lovely arrangement of Farewell.

With Harpers coming four hours from south of us, 2 hours to the north of us, and even one returning from Prince Edward Island, it all added up to a great first time open circle for Northern Harpsong! Now, if we could just have gotten you there, too, Ro!

[Barbara]

I knew you could post them! And absolutely the place to be on a rainy day.

Now on to our next project.

[Leigh Griffith]

Actually, I got them up all on my own! I clicked on your pic to thank you for your work of leading us through the pieces you worked with and found you had just posted this blog. It sure was a great way to spend a rainy day!