I broke a cam.....

Haha, before I broke one, I didn't even know what the cam was. This is much like when I played the piano pretty seriously and knew zip about the inner workings. Dusty Strings has a helpful page about replacing them, and sent me a replacement in the mail pronto. I thought all cams were interchangeable, too - who knew that they are sized like your strings? My husband replaced the cam while I was out shopping; as he replaced it, he found quite a few strings that were not perfectly lined up with the groove on the end of the cam, and he adjusted those as well. Is this what regulation is? Lucky me, to have a person in my house who can find/fix harp problems, as I'd hate to have to drive all the way to Sale, MA to get little jobs taken care of. I should be taking that class at Somerset that educates you on your harp!

Trying to learn new stuff, although I am not working on the New Blues piece anymore. :(( The Frank Volz Gloria is ready for action; hopefully I'll use it at some summer and fall weddings. I found 2 older pieces in the Sue Richards book that I never quite learned, and I got those under my fingers pretty easily. I got an arrangement of Cohen's Hallelujah in the mail, don't like it one bit, and have resigned myself to playing it by ear. I am not the most creative arranger, but people at the hospital seem to like it (this is where I play as a therapeutic musician every Monday). Next week I'm going to get to play in the infusion room each Monday morning before I go out on the regular floors; this is where I just love to play. And people are so grateful....I did play a little funeral recently, too. I like funerals, especially at funeral homes, because you can generally watch on the sidelines and choose your tunes as you feel the energy in the room. I have a gig for a Valentine's Dinner in Concord to look forward to, which is also fun because people make requests; I don't play by ear as easily as I do on the harp as I used to do on the piano, at least not yet, so I like the challenge of choosing the right chords/arpeggios  and lining up my fingers correctly.

I went to a wonderful wonderful concert in northern NH last week, where Maeve Gilchrist was part of a quartet of performers. Have you ever watched her videos with Nick...Gareiss(sp?)? I am fascinated by the way she plays, so boldly and intuitively, and I am such an ABBA person that I can't make hide nor hair of the form of her pieces. But we got to talk a little, and she sent me a simplified version of one of my favorites, The Sand Hunter. I don't play left hand syncopations as well as I'd like, so here is my chance to figure things out! She played the most beautiful-looking Thormhalen Ceili harp, with just the most elegant inlay. Wish I was a bigger fan of carbon strings.

I am making my own arrangements of Beatles tunes lately, and have suddenly discovered my problems with flipping levers on the fly - I seem to not be able to stop myself from flipping only on the beat! Does anyone else have this problem? And really, are Camac levers more easy to flip than Lovelands? If you have played with both, I would love to hear from you!!

Happy Valentine's Day, or, my new favorite, Happy Galentine's Day! And happy harping.