Where Have I Been????

I hardly know how to explain my absence.  The guilt of a philanderer?  I've been working so hard on the concertina . . .  playing the harp a little bit here and there, but only just enough to keep things alive.  Is it because, um, it is just so much easier to pick up a little lunchbox-sized instrument that never needs tuning?  Shame on me!

Seriously, I started this blog for just this reason, this feeling that I had hit the wall and didn't know where to go next with the harp.   I can't seem to keep more than a few tunes alive at one time on the harp whereas on the concertina, it feels as though I have plenty of tunes tucked away now that I can bring out and revive in very short order.  Maybe I don't play them with any particular grace, but I can play them at a session and not make a fool of myself and have fun.  I am enjoying that part of the concertina so much.  Also the blending in--when you bring a harp into the room you raise a certain expectation.  I'm finding again and again that it is almost easier to play South Wind or Fanny Power or whatever, people love that as much (or even more) than if I play some more challenging tune . . .   

I promise I will keep coming back to write some more about this, Andee.  I just want to get something here so you know you haven't been abandoned! 

And I haven't given up playing the harp,  not at all, I still love it, it's just I am having trouble working out what my "goals" are,  whereas with the concertina it is so easy to set goals for having a couple of sets ready for this or that session.  It does help some that I have an (erstwhile) student.  Just one, a beginner but with real ability, but who hasn't quite committed herself to the whole thing even though she likes it, I think.  Not sure what will happen with that.