What an exciting way to start 2014!

There was an email from the Grand Dame of Irish harp in my inbox!  Janet Harbison got my email address from someone else and thought I could help her make connections for her for upcoming concerts and other Irish harp related events!

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help her to be honest as it seems she'll be based around Liverpool and that's a couple hours drive from Leeds and I don't know anyone in that area.  Also, I'm not exactly the most connected person and I don't really know a lot about networking, etc.  But, she still wants to call me and ask me a few questions, etc.

I do know the UK (well England anyway) really really needs a good shot of Irish harp related stuff as everything is sort of generic folk, Welsh (blah), Scottish, or Classical.  I will do everything I can to help her!  I'm excited to talk to her on the phone.  I wonder (doubt it!) if she'll remember me taking her week long workshop 15 years ago.  I certainly remember so much about it--it was such an amazing experience!

Bloody finger!  Literally.  I cut it on a can of beans a couple days ago and it's still bleeding off and on.  And it's my right hand pointer finger (that's harp finger number 2).  So it's hard to play right now.

Anyway, with my help, my chapter of the Clarsach Society has booked Fiana NiChonaill to do a workshop for us in March.  She's a former student of Janet Harbison.  I'm really excited about it--it'll be the first Irish workshop we've had since I've been a member!  She's also offered me a free lesson since she'll be staying with us when she flies in from Ireland, so yay!

I don't know what else to say right now except for only about 6 weeks to go until 'Irish Month'!  Can you believe one of my harp lady friends didn't even know when St. Pat's was??!

Finger has healed but I have fractured my little toe!  At least it wasn't a finger!

I have relearned The Blackbird and am confident with it except for a bit of the B part where I put some variation into the melody and getting that to go with the left hand at the same time.  I am thinking it's a big no-no to play a tune with the same variation / ornamentation both times when competing in the fleadh, which is why I'm pushing to get The Blackbird learned with the different variations for both times through.

I have also relearned a simple slip jig I learned from Janet Harbison eons ago called Baltiorum.  Also an air which was one of the first tunes I learned from Kathy.  At the time she thought it was O'Carolan's  Lament for Owain Roe O'Neill. but now we know it isn't O'Carolan at all.  It's on an old Clannad album, we don't have a name for it.

Have any of you seen the book 'Irish Harping 1900-2010' by Helen Lawlor?  It's very interesting!

Fiddle lessons!  I had my first fiddle lesson (in the UK) last night!  Apparently he is the only fiddle teacher in Leeds!  He's a lovely young guy from Co. Tyrone, Tommy Peoples was his teacher.

 I brought my 'book' (Lucy is familiar with my harp book--well this is the same with my fiddle tunes all written out in my own quirky ABC format) and said that at the moment I don't need any new tunes, I just need to refresh on the tunes I already have.  He's really easy going and was fine with that.  We worked on Mist Covered Mountain (which they don't play much in Co. Tyrone *or* Leeds) and Cliffs of Moher.

He showed me loads of different ornamentation to do including double stops and rolls.  I know, this is not harp stuff, but it's related, right?  The double stops gave me ideas to try on the harp (left hand stuff) and also he had a super cool different bit in the B part of Cliffs of Moher which I've got to learn on the harp!  I was up half the night with my mind racing about this stuff!

A Brand New Year, January 2014

Happy New Year fellow harpers!

January 2
I've been quiet lately and I don't quite know why, I guess too much other stuff going on.  This is one of the things that gets in the way of playing and practicing, in fact, but there isn't a lot one can say about it.

New Year's is the time for resolutions - practice more, learn more tunes, revive old tunes.......   What are you all thinking about?  I don't know yet myself.  I hope something occurs to me.

January 3
It is bitterly bitterly cold and I am finding it hard to muster the energy for much of anything...... perhaps what it is is winter doldrums?  Whatever it is I am not enjoying it very much and I'm not playing! Before this hit I was doing pretty well reviving the Michael Rooney's lovely tune Glor Na nAingeal which we learned for Kathy's Harp Orchestra and I let lapse..... also I've been reviving The Blackbird, which wasn't as hard to do as I've periodically brought it back into my repertoire.  Both take energy to play and I haven't any.  Just taking the dog out for five minutes is like being thrown against a wall, a real shock to lungs, skin, bones!  Ugh.  We're going to be -19 F tonight - I really really don't like it!  I'm hydrating my harp like mad too......

January 29
I have no idea why I have found it so hard to stop in here this month.  I have been playing the harp plenty - having the goal of playing at least one unplayed before tune at my hospital lobby gig every week, has borne fruit - it's fun as well as helpful.   This week the 'unplayed before' tunes will be the very pretty Planxty Dermot Grogan  or else a set of hornpipes:  Napoleon Crossing the Rhine/Rights of Man.   Or maybe both, won't know until I try!  Other recent tune revivals have been Henry McDermott Roe,  Michael Rooney's lovely Glor etc. Last week it was The Blackbird, which I had better listen to and work on a little bit tonight.  I have one place - not too far from the end where I tend to drop a beat whenever I haven't practiced it for longer than a week.  Drives me mad!  

The endless bitter cold of this winter has really gotten to me.  Normally taking the dog out for a good ramble morning and evening is one of my favorite things, but I've gotten so sick of having to bundle up - and it makes my nose hurt, my hands hurt - no fun!

I'll try to be better in February.