Mid- December Panic!

Well, it is the oddest late fall I can ever remember.  Roller coaster temps.  Ice on top of snow, on top of mud on top of ice ...you get my drift!  behind on holiday preparations in every facet of my life.  A choir who is just now been introduced to Christmas Eve service music.  Last minute harp exchanges for Celtic Evensong, due to the Fisher busting an A string right in the middle of the harp 20 minutes before I was planning to load up the van and head for church.  Thank goodness my Kortier workhorse with the small voice  (aka "Patrick") was standing by after being pretty much neglected the past year and a half- barely needed tuning!  And I stuck the mic down inside as usual for that space, and he sounded great.  The tension on that bird's eye maple is harder. so not the same feel as his little sister, "Colleen"- not so many ornaments- but I really felt good with his size.  The Fisher is a lot smaller and lighter, tho only 2 strings less than the Kortier.  Which makes life easier.  And she has a brighter tone, and much bigger voice.  But I was reminded about the things I really love about the Kortier.  So, I guess I am not ever selling him again!  (Sold and then repurchased him from a student after she gave up harping..)  Unless I can find another harp that does what he does, only with a voice to match the size!

Tonight I am playing at our local library.  They have had a Festival of Trees display for the past  few years, and tonight they are inviting folks in after hours to stroll thru the trees while hearing lovely music.  I was first told it was "background" music, which is fine- but then all the press releases billed me as a performer and the hour as a performance!  Yikes!  Wrong time of year to start prepping for an hour long PERFORMANCE!  So, we shall see- that is a lot of music, and they have now assured me there will just be a few chairs, and people will be encouraged to wander about and chat...and I am going with Christmas music printed!  So it will be a mix of stuff I have nailed for memory, and pot luck from the books!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas and Wonderful New Year!  Stay safe!  Stay warm!

love, Sharon

December in Kilfenora and surrounding area!

Another gig!
I just got another gig playing at an awards ceremony this Thursday!  The awards are from the Burrenbeo conservation trust!

Also I have learned a new tune (all in one day!)--The Kilfenora Jig (sometimes called The Clare Jig).  In honor of my new home.  I am also going to play it at the gig along with anything from this area, like The Cliffs of Moher, The Mist Covered Mountain, and all the Junior Crehan tunes I can get up to performance ready standards.



That's me playing during the awards ceremony.  The Boghill Centre won three awards!  And I gave out a few business cards to people who said, "I do a lot of weddings" including a couple hotel owners and the DJ (who is very famous, so I am told)!

Kifenora Cathedral Christmas Choir and Miscellany Concert

My little performance in the cathedral was a success.  I was only a little bit nervous and there was enough light to see my strings, bonus!

I got several nice compliments, but the best one of all was a woman who said, "You really played from the heart; I could feel it.  And that's really rare."


And another gig!
Now I have a third gig booked!  I will be playing background music as a prelude to a trad female trio on New Year's Eve!  I play for about an hour at a local pub, Kilshanny House, and this time I get paid!  Not loads, but it's a step in the right direction!  And the bonus is I know what I'm doing on NYE!

A lot of practicing!
I've been practicing loads for my NYE gig!  I'm feeling really confident!  I've decided (maybe even had a major shift in my thinking / being) that life is too short not to be fabulous!  Life is too short to be scared!

I really need to be on form on NYE because this is the real deal ladies!  I am in IRELAND playing Irish harp, opening up for a trio who are high profile!  It isn't three ladies, but two ladies and one guy.  It's led by Norin Lynch who has a CD out.  She is a wonderful singer.  The flute player is a young lady who I think is called Clara and the third is a fiddler / guitarist called Quentin.  Both Quentin and Norin are in Eoin O' Neil's band The Ceili Bandits.  The Ceili Bandits also have a CD out and Eoin does a trad program called The West Wind on Clare FM.  He is a local celebrity and plays bouzouki and fiddle!

So you see, this *could* lead to some gigs and to be on the same bill as these people is a bit daunting but I'm taking the bull (Irish cow??) by the horns and going for it, because LIFE IS TOO SHORT NOT TO!

November

Hello everyone!  I am still here, and I didn't want all of November to go by without me posting.  I am healing and finding time to play as well.  One exciting thing is I've been asked to play a piece at the Christmas concert which will take place in Kilfenora Cathedral, a 1000 year old church!  A dream come true!

I decided on my piece.  I will play Black is the Colour (I do it as an air) / The Blackbird.  Because I will only have three minutes, I had to pare things down, so I'll do the air twice through and The Blackbird only once through (AA BB).

Another gig!
I just got another gig playing at an awards ceremony this Thursday!  The awards are from the Burrenbeo conservation trust!

Also I have learned a new tune (all in one day!)--The Kilfenora Jig (sometimes called The Clare Jig).  In honor of my new home.  I am also going to play it at the gig along with anything from this area, like The Cliffs of Moher, The Mist Covered Mountain, and all the Junior Crehan tunes I can get up to performance ready standards.

November

Played at our local coffeehouse at the beginning of the month; Pachelbel, Fanny Power, Kean O'Hara 3/George Brabazon and a weird combo of Scarborough Fair/Lark on the Strand. The audience was so appreciative, but little mistakes have made me resolve to buy some kind of pole lighting. Does anyone else do this? Not really seeing the strings is so frustrating!!!! Playing at a different coffeehouse this Friday, where they have sideways, adjustable lighting. I have to remember what they've got so I can get one, too....Carpal tunnel surgery in a few weeks, and then knee replacement in December. Getting older is not for sissies! But 4-6 weeks off from work - think of the practicing I can get in! I am loving the cold, less-humid weather that lets me not tune EVERY SECOND. The mister and I are writing our first instrumental together, a 6/8 lullaby with jazzy chords. Fun seeing a less-nervous Sharon on stage, hoping she'll keep it up! That's all for now, folks. Happy harping.

November- getting old fast and giving thanks!

Greetings!  This is my birthday month, though I can hardly believe I have already reached this advanced age, when I still have so much to learn and do!!  And I love that Thanksgiving is part of MY month, as I am so grateful for so much, including the inspiration of you all, and fellow musicians in general!  It is feeling like snow, though I do not expect any today, and I am loving the rust and smoke of the surrounding countryside and woods, as there are still bright patches that surprise the eye and gladden the heart!  Hurray for Autumn!!

I was particularly inspired by Pam and Lucy's posts, describing Maeve (whom I have never heard or seen) and I decided to go onstage at the local Coffee House last Saturday with a smile on my face and a bounce in my knees, and decision in my fingertips!  And, though I cannot say for sure there was a noticeable difference in my performance from the audience point of view,  I did feel immensely more confident and had a great deal more fun!  and it is definitely easier to play with the lights dimmed a bit, so as not to wash out the string colors as much, but I felt I was not focusing so much on watching the strings as I was really trying to focus on the tune in my head- minus the usual constant chatter and worry about what came next, leaving more to muscle memory. and a decision to drop the left hand if I started to panic, ready to pick it up down the road when ready!  I had decided to practice my 3 pieces a bit differently, starting at different places, and at different speeds, mixing up tempo and rhythms to see if I could still go forward with the melody line despite it all.  Challenged the gray cells a bit.  And had also decided that pausing, and slowing down if things started running away from me, was not a sign of defeat!  I had once read an account of a disparaging remark made about a musician playing for a dance, and how badly the dance steps can be tripped up with bad rhythm, or by playing too slowly.  However, since I am not playing for dancers, that should not matter, right?!  Why let that complaint mess ME up when I am onstage??!!  So, thank you ladies- your comments were taken to heart, and I tried to be the opposite of grim.  It must have worked at least a little, because my good friend, Don, commented on how relaxed and how much fun I seemed to be having up there.  I also decided NOT to voice any disclaimers this time around...what I was to give is what the audience was to get- no excuses. At my first and only competition, at Loon Mt, the judge told me not to tell the audience I was nervous or even allude to the possibility of goofing up- no matter how funny I tried to make it.  For some reason, I thought it was a way to bond with the audience and make them more sympathetic perhaps?  So, I kept it up, as part of my schtick.  Now, after this weekend, I see that while my audience may have appreciated my self deprecating humor, my own brain was becoming more convinced that messing up was an expected outcome, and I would start the inner dialogue of failure in my head!  Which explains why- at least to me- I actually would become MORE nervous with each song, instead of more relaxed!    So- new mental habits are being worked upon!!

What did I play?  Three Swedish dances, learned from Sue Richards in Lubec.  Josephine's Waltz, another waltz I am spacing out on (Jarna's Valsen?) and Var Det Du- all 3 waltzes.  I had a Shottis in my back pocket if I needed it, but I knew the 3 waltzes would go ok, and my daughter joined in on the flute for the last one, as a duet.   So, I have also decided the DIY is an important thing to pursue, and have another waltz I pulled up on YouTube- also Swedish- that I have begun to try to learn.  It has that bizarre tuning so many Scandanavian tunes seem to have, starting out with B flats and f sharps!  The lever changes will be interesting!  May wish I had taken up the fiddle after all!  I am definitely heavily in Hall of the Mountain King mode, as the winter approaches!  Loving the light and dark contrasts in these tunes, and the surprise twists the melody takes, after being so immersed in the Celtic genre, which is a little more predictable perhaps...not that I don't still love those Celtic tunes!!!

Well- thank you all again for the inspiration you provide!  I think we should arrange to meet in some beautiful place and spend 3 or 4 days together just playing, sharing and drinking buckets of tea!  Would love to meet you all face to face, and have a group hug!  Many group hugs!!  Maybe someday!  Hope you are all keeping well, and finding lots of reasons to be grateful despite the curves life throws at us, and making lovely music- for yourselves as well as others!  Take care- Sharon

October This 'n That

The month has almost come and gone! Are you, like me, wondering how we got to almost-snow season already? We're working hard at not turning on the heat yet, but I know the day is coming. I am lucky enough to have the house to myself this morning, so I have the time to make a nice cup of coffee with a big chug of chocolate syrup and post about lots of stuff.....like The Highland Games, carpal tunnel surgery, new music and MHTP Thereutic Harping!

The Highland Games
We have wonderful Highland Games in New Hampshire at Loon Mountain. We are late to this party, and only started going 2years ago, but goodness we love everything about it! This year I took a personal day off from school and we spent the good part of a day sitting in the sun watching the sheep dog trials. Throughout the weekend people are jurying their bagpipes, so the sound is everywhere!!! I like it enough to consider taking lessons, but the only teacher in our area lives here just part-time....and they're so hard to learn, right? There are harp workshops and competitions throughout the weekend. Maeve Gilchrist was the pro 3 years ago, but for the past 2 years it's been Kim Robertson, my idol. (Though sometimes I do get tired of her big open 9th and 10th chords...) I didn't. Attend any workshops this year, but went to the New England Open Competition and of course Kim's concert. Next year I'm going to enter, and I've already selected two out of the three songs I'll need. You get on-site parking if you're a competitor, which is a great incentive! But we really go to the games to hear Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas on fiddle & cello. This year I think we saw them 3 times, including a set where Kim R sat in. The food! The wonderful people from all over our country! The great-looking men in kilts! It was a wonderful long weekend.

Carpal Tunnel Surgery
My doctor does this in a clinic, which makes it a bigger deal than it is. I think I was out for maybe 10 minutes, and went to work the next day with a band-aid over my 6 stitches. It is great to finally sleep through the night, but because I waited so many years to take care of it, I might never get full feeling back in my fingers. Argh, the numb tingling is annoying, but thankfully it doesn't really distract me from playing. Maybe in mid-November I'll get the other hand done.

New music
I've worked up my own arrangement of a fiddle tune, Mrs. Jamison's Favorite, song #1 for the games next year. I am also determined to learn Kim Robertson's The Selkie, which is a challenge for me because I have almost no technique -yet!- playing open octaves. I have also been playing through her Celtic Christmas book. Sharon, do you have this? There are 2 chants in it that would be great for your Sunday afternoon services. I try to spend an hour sight reading once a week, though that doesn't always happen. If I can learn The Selkie by January, I'm going to reward myself by ordering Janet Witman's new arrangement of Moondance. I have no idea how to do those jazzy lever swoops, but by God I want to learn! We - my husband and I - are playing out twice this month, at local coffeehouses, same old songs with maybe the addition of Pachelbel's Canon.

MHTP Weekend
In early October I went to the second of five long weekends training to play at bedsides in hospitals, nursing and private homes and hospices. So much to learn, and a little frustrating: all the other instrumentalists have single-note instruments, and because a lot of healing music is simple, I'm playing lots of very slow, one-note phrases. But such an interesting thing happened - the session leader did not bring her own harp and used mine. Other than the afternoon that I bought it 4 years ago, I had never sat across a room and heard how deep, expressive and resonant it is!! Maybe 15 minutes of listening has changed the way I play. Kim R said she was planning to live 10 years past the normal age because playing the harp is so spiritual. Haha, I feel this way about my own harp now!

By gosh, the longest post ever. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend and a happy Halloween. And Andi, that photo with the cat right in front of the lens is priceless!!!!

October Odyssey

Leaving home on the Friday, two weekends ago, I drove down to New Brunswick to attend The Harper's Escape.  I think my 12th year?   Different this time because Grainne, having just given birth to #2, Liam, was not there, nor Billy  (I still brought my bottle of Balvenie which I began bringing for him mainly).  Maeve Gilchrist taught the group I was in and Eileen Gannon was also there.  So,  different but very very good.   I will play The Factory Girl and Farewell to Limerick, but .... I don't know about the jig, not really my thing, but you never know.  Simply watching Maeve play is a revelation.  I very much like the jig the other class learned... Walsh's, I think,it is called, a hornpipe, so I will be learning that, I expect

In case you haven't seen it here is this you-tube offering that a local cable station posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Cbz0abebE&feature=youtu.be

Watch Maeve especially!  I think it is hilarious that they devoted even five seconds to a concertina.  And I was appalled to see how grim I look when I play and also that sometimes my mouth is open!  I must work on that . .  My suspicion is that sometimes when I think I am smiling all I have actually succeeded in doing is to neutralize my expression so that while it is not grim, neither is it exactly happy-looking either. Drat. That is probably my biggest takeaway from HE this year.  More on that further down however....

As is more often the case, my favorite time is not the classes and workshops but  hanging about playing and talking harp shop (and other stuff).  This year folks were NOT shy about the Balvenie,  I'm happy to say, which was great, because the idea is to lower the anxiety level and have fun when we do FINALLY get to just play.  Sunday evening, our extra night, was the best although we were all in the 'drop' stage of 'harp til you drop'.  If I ever organize anything it would be collegial, no instructors, for people at this "level" that we, the folks that read or write in this blog*, are all at, presumably.   Is it all right to say that while one is never done learning and benefitting from the teaching and example of marvelous players, DIY, at this stage, is the most important thing to go for?

*To new readers:  If you want to be a writing participant, just let me know down below and I'll get you started! 

OK, so back to the musical odyssey.  I spent most of the week editing a manuscript while staying at a B&B that inspired my thoughts of a harp gathering, also visiting with my daughter now at college in Bronxville, just outside of NYC (we went into the Met, etcetera) and THEN I went up to the Northeast Tionol in East Durham where my sister (fiddle) and I always share a room and play play play - I also usually meet up with Eileen McIntyre and that great New Jersey crowd of hers and we play every tune we know and it is so much fun!  I also play the concertina quite a lot at the sessions, and because of the class I take with Benedict Koehler and Hilarie Farrington here in VT, my repertoire is improving. For reasons I cannot comprehend, the session group always stop playing tunes I know when I finally get settled and ready to play.  When I leave they start up again.   Be that as it may.... I have really been obsessing with steadiness, consistency and rhythm issues on the concertina like really trying to get my whole body involved and moving when I play.  What I need to work on with BOTH instruments:  play them like I really mean it.   And that includes being comfortable playing an air and filling the air with silences..... I'm probably the quietest concertina player in existence as it now stands.  The harp I do already play with more steadiness and conviction and I have to say I think it is because of my stint in Kathy's Harp Orchestra.   

At the Tionol I learned a jig  - "Bubbling Wine" by Paddy O'Brien in a class about the composer given by (fiddler Matt Mancuso) that I might try out on the harp.  A very cool tune indeed. 

One piece of news is that next year the Harper's Escape and the Tionol are on the same weekend.  It is a special time with my sister, so that does not bode well for the HE.    

Further, I'd like to apologize to everyone for my long absence.  RL has been very compelling. I work as a writer and that has been absorbing all my energy, which is good for me, but bad for music.  This is also the time of year when I have the six-week class with Benedict and Hilarie..... two more to go!  This weekend my local posse, The Flies in the Porter, has a gig at the Harvest Festival at the big monitor bar in Richmond owned by the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps. In September we played two farmer's markets, one in Richmond and the other in Stowe in September.   The Stowe gig was five hours and we lucked out with an incredible day, just perfect.  It's one of the 'bigger' markets and there were tons of out-of-staters there.  We felt very.... picturesque.   I played the harp and the concertina both. 

I hope this makes up a little for my long absence.  There's snow now on our local mountain.  Cheers!

Past Mid-October and the Weather is Blowing in From the Atlantic

Hello ladies, I have made it safe and sound back to Ireland.  Wounds that were just starting to heal were ripped open (there are a lot of memories here of many happy times with Mike) and I spent the first couple days attending to that and trying to get settled in.

Time to put myself on some kind of a schedule (around working and socializing, which are both very important to my healing right now).  I set up and tuned up my harp in the small octagon hall and this morning before anyone was awake and before the sun was even up (7:00, not as early as it sounds!) I practiced for an hour.  Next time I will practice fiddle stuff as well.

I am continuing to practice both harp and fiddle.  Have moved out of the small octagon hall into the big one for now--but it may be too cold in there, I will see.

Making new friends, even going to the pub a couple times so far to hear the local musicians play in the sessions.  I may work my fiddling back up to participating in the session again. I am toying with the idea of doing a little concert for the Boghill community.  Who knows, maybe I'll find someone to play with once in a while.

Where, Oh Where has my Summer Gone????

The weather is spectacular, the colors are peaking early with all the drama of a Verdi Opera, I know I had summer, but is it already gone??  Unfair!  August did contain a wonderful week back up at Summerkeys in Lubec,Maine, where I think I had the best time yet.  The class of harpers were great fun, and a variety of abilities, and Sue Richards was her usual, incredible, warm and encouraging, inspiring taskmaster!  I love the tone she gets from her harps- great touch- light, yet confident, and that is what I am aiming for!  For myself, I was soaking up some more Scandanavian tunes.  Always have a surprise- little odd sounds or turns you don't expect.  Very haunting, often, as well.

The concert Sue gave with her band mate Carolyn Surrick (on the viola da gamba )was amazing, again.  They played a version of Bonnie at Morn that just ripped my heart out!  So, I am learning that, too.  Can't believe I never heard it before...and the words, when I tracked them down, aren't particularly special, but that tune....  And I found out I have been playing The Cliffs of Moher as this lovely, and dramatic slow air- only to play it for Sue and find her looking at me like I had sprouted an extra nose on my face!  It is a JIG- fancy that!!  So, I am now trying to speed that baby up and give it a bit of a kick!  Well, I had never actually heard that played either, so how was I to know?  Hey, if it sounds good, and I like it, why not?!  Of course, I realize I could be in big trouble if I tried to pull that off with a more knowledgeable audience!  But, I do think the beauty of folk music is it's ability to morph and change, depending on whose hands are on it at the moment.  Right? 

Actually got the husband away to the island of Nantucket for a few days in the middle of this month.  First time in 6 years!  He was overdue for a vacation.  I had nicely sprained my ankle the Tuesday before we left, so I was hobbling a bit, but biking was fine.  The weather was perfect, out there, and we extended our summer a bit.  My dream is to be a good enough musician to rent a place out there for months and play enough gigs to pay for the rental!  Dream on!!  Then you all could come visit and we could do duets and trios and so on!  Sound like fun???

Celtic Evensong is starting up at church in a week, and I need to get a gig list put together for that.  May have a new flute player to help me out, so will be aiming for sweet and simple...pretty much my usual fare!  Andee- you are in my thoughts and prayers as you start a new Irish adventure and mend a broken heart.  Pamela- you are also in my thoughts and prayers for healing energy as you face surgery and perhaps rehab.  You I hope to see soon!!

Have a lovely end of September, ladies!

Andee's September

Well, I got the harp out of the case and tuned up.  I have to be happy with that considering the circumstances.  August was tough, but yesterday I seemed to have turned a corner as I was able to get through the day without going into floods of tears.

I had a gig scheduled for last week which I cancelled.  I have two more scheduled for the month which I am still not sure if I will be able to do or not.

I am due to go to Ireland around 16th of October.  Things are still surreal to me, nothing feels 'right'.  If I dwell on this, I will get too upset and I am tired of crying.  I want to be happy again.

Here we are now almost at the end of September.  It was a difficult month for me to say the least.  For anyone who has been through a similar situation, or even a death of a dear dear loved one, you  will know that the grief and the pain comes in waves, ebbs and flows.  The healing is not linear.

For me, at first the waves were tsunamis.  I am finally (hopefully) at the place now where the waves are just big waves and maybe in the future they will be small waves.

I am starting to think about the possibilities in Ireland.  I am even contemplating attending Janet Harbison's Harp College.  Maybe.  It is expensive.  But I have some savings.  You can go for a weekend, a week, a month, or three months with the possibility of staying and doing an internship.  Why not?

/http://www.irishharpcentre.com/

Click on courses and you will see.  I am thinking along the lines of a one month or three month course!!

Let's Just Say September....

......because I probably didn't post in August. Such a busy month for all of us, I think. I spent a week in London visiting my daughter/SIL, and had an 'interesting' airbnb experience that turned out to have a happy ending. I reached the end-of-the-road for my poor, downtrodden knee, and went back to school as well. Thank goodness for Labor Day weekend, to help me catch my breath!

The biggest thing that happened, harp-wise, during August, was that I took the first of 5 weekend-long workshops (technically they're 'modules') to become a beside harpist for hospital and hospice patients. The program I am enrolled in, MHTP, was highly recommended by a person I ate dinner with last year at Somerset - Janet Whitman! I am definitely NOT being a name dropper here; I was flabbergasted when she approached me in the cafe line and asked if I'd like to share a table. Haha, we are FB friends, and she is the person who got Catriona McKay to send me the Swan Lk 243 sheet music, but she didn't know me from Noah. I play quite a few of her arrangements - Carolan's Concerto and Wild Mountain Thyme to name just 2 - and I was completely awestruck until I saw how down-to-earth she is. I had decided not to sign up for the MHTP program last year because I spent my summer $ at Somerset, and they weren't offering all the modules in our closest city, Concord. I think she was just beginning MHTP herself, and she had nothing but good things to say. There are not many beginning students with me, maybe 7. There is a lot of serious reading involved about the science of music and the stages of death, etc. You need to develop good improv skills and have a variety of types of music ready for all types of patients. But it was REALLY interesting, and I met some wonderful musicians who I would never have played with, Indian flute and flute being my favorites. After my harp tipped over at Somerset last summer - CRACK! - I am now the proud owner of the Cadillac of harp carts, so at least moving in and out of Concord Hospital both days was a breeze. The woman who runs the arts program at the hospital is a wonderful ally, and I am so looking foward to the day when I can play at the hospital on a regular basis. Now, if just one of you would volunteer to pay off the mortgage on our house....

I never did learn every tune of Grainne's first book; I don't like The Blackthorne Stick arrangement that I started with, and then just started looking for beatless music and also music I can play at 50-70 beats-per-minute for MHTP, and my idea of learning all GH's songs turned out to be a total wash. I CAN finally play O'Farrell's Welcome to Limerick, and was planning on playing it our October coffeehouse until I gave up my spot to one of my favorite keyboard players/singers. I would like to learn a fine versio of The Butterfly, and wondered if any of you have arrangements you recommend??

That's it from here in the sticks. Looking forward to everyone else's September posts, especially Andee, as I worry about how she's getting on......

Back from Clare and a complete life shake-up

Hello ladies.  Ireland was fantastic, I learned a few new tunes and played in more sessions this year than I did last year (fiddle).  There was another harpist there this year and we chatted and swapped tunes and now I'm thinking of getting a harp teacher up the the Boghill Centre for next year.  It might be worth it if there are going to be two of us again!

The life shake-up is that I found out that my husband wants a divorce.  I am doing OK, but am determined not to let this set me back (my first divorce set back my harping by a couple of years, Lucy will remember).

Yes I am heartbroken, betrayed, devastated, but I must believe that there is a opportunity around the corner.  And there is.  It looks like I'll be moving to Ireland for a year or so.  This is going to be an adventure, one I must have on my own.

There and Back Again: Somerset 2014

Of course my view of Somerset is warped (not in a bad way, mind you) by working behind the tables, but people seemed contented and good-natured about the few things that went wrong, which had to do more with the physical environment of the hotel than the festival itself.   The pre-workshops, liturgical and historical were successes and I heard more than once from people who didn't get to attend their first choice workshop that their second choice was terrific.  Kathy knocks herself out trying to respond to comments and criticisms and lies awake nights trying to think up anything she can to make the festival work smoothly and it shows.

Unusually for me I attended no classes (yes, lazy - but also overwhelmed by all the tunes I haven't learned - feel the same way about all the books I haven't read) so I made that choice which was .... a bit odd, frankly.  I did show up at the Carolan Marathon which was not as well attended as sometimes and we certainly didn't even come close to breaking any records and didn't come close to exhausting my Carolan repertoire, but that's the breaks.  Very amusing time playing for the ceili  - five concertinas!  And afterwards some more music in the redone atrium.   I should add the concerts were spectacular and.... if you didn't get to sit inside the hinterlands weren't bad and you had the entertainment of Miss Hambly-Jackson dancing around and blowing bubbles along with the music.

As it was also my birthday on the 31st everyone was very friendly about that which was nice as was receiving what felt like a multitude of splendid gifts and greetings!

It was also delightful that everyone was extremely sensible about their harps and parking them responsibly etcetera.  A literal load off my mind.  It does take up a lot of space, but it works.  And reconciles me to the Hilton somewhat.  

The truth is I don't know what to do about all the music I haven't learned that I could learn - that I want to learn - it's making it very hard for me to want to go to any workshops where someone might try to teach me a tune!  I know I don't have to, but I am nothing if not conscientious so it is difficult.  I am in a space right now where less is more so any traveling I do to music venues will be for one purpose only! (Read on!)

The most lovely thing for me about Somerset is rooming with Laura E. and hanging about with Kathy and Dennis and Debbie and Corinne and Kim and Laurie N and Emily G. and.. and.. and if I've left your name out forgive me!  It's always wonderful seeing so many people who love the harp together.

I'll be back with the photo Kathy took as I was leaving the festival on Monday morning.

Today I am fighting off a cold and we've had a huge thunderstorm.  Glad I didn't have to drive home in it.

2 wise guys pretending they know what they're doing! And my eyes are practically closed, arghhh!

Harping in the July heat (drip, drip....)

Our humidifier is working overtime this week. We're hoping for rain tonight to break the spell, but meanwhile everything is just...sticky! We have a wedding to play next week, and I finally broke down and ordered a pair of light wristies to both help me slide and to save the finish on my harp. I can hear my old teacher telling me to raise my arms and not rest on the side of the harp. But sometimes, up in those high octaves, I get lazy, especially if the tune is up there for a while. Is anyone else a leaner, or am I the only lazy harpist here??

We (my husband on guitar) played a coffeehouse at the end of June. We don't play out that often, so it always re-surprises me how intrigued everyone gets over seeing a harp! We've been getting ready for the wedding at the same time, so, when asked for an encore, we had nothing ready and ended up playing Fanny Poer, which I love, but we haven't made a great arrangement of yet. We had a hard time getting out of there because so many people wanted to try the harp. I hope The Harp Connection is ready for all the people I recommend to them! We've played twice at our local Farmers' Market, where the vendors clap and laugh at each and every number and little girls dance all around us. AND the vendors give us free stuff! I got the most AMAZING Irish soda bread, and I wish you were all here to help me finish it, because that thing is huge!! A little girl on a bench behind us called out "Bow down to the goddess" after C's Concerto. You should have seen the look on my husband's face -  he is sometimes known as the Guitar God (jokingly, but still...) by our goofy friends, and suddenly I was the one getting the fun comments!

Our wedding set list is our regular stuff with the addition of Pachelbel's, Here Comes the Bride and the Wedding March. I like playing weddings because we're usually there ahead of time and by the time folks start walking in I have warmed up and feel comfortable in the new setting. And then I hate weddings because, no matter how you plan, you're going to have to lengthen or shorten Here Comes on the fly due to slow/fast walkers, delays, etc. So far we have managed to end right as the bride reaches the groom! but someday our good luck will run out. We're so pleased to be invited to the reception, but it's in another building, and we'll have to bring our instruments into the A/C instead of leaving them in the car, which always seems a little show-off-y. If you ladies have advice or great stories about past gigs I sure would love to hear them!

Bye for now! Have a great month.......

Sweet (and humid) July

Sooner or later the photographs from this  year's Carolan Festival in Vermont will be posted and I hope among them will be a proof that I did a solo and I will post it here!  I played Henry McDermott Roe, valiantly, and made it almost to the very end.... whereupon that little idea.... Oh my god I'm almost done......infiltrated and I kind of fell apart on the last two measures, but it wasn't much and everyone laughed.   I'd love to hear it too, as I know it was all filmed, but who knows when and if any of that will be available.

The festival was terrific this year, the best ever!  Lots of harpers and we all clumped together under the awning of a harper named Mary Paul, many different levels, and I guess you could call it a slow session, but it was a bit more than that as we played tunes as many as eight or ten times and stopped to help people fix things.  We encouraged newbies to just listen and pick out the melody.... a great way for them to get familiar and figure out what tunes they'd like to learn next.  It was spontaneous and lots of fun. I think that is why I had the courage to sign up and play during the open performance time.

Now I'm in the gap between the Festival and Somerset..... I always find it difficult to decide what to concentrate on.  But I've somehow gotten fired up about deepening my understanding of jig rhythm and so have tackled Munster Buttermilk/Green Hills of Woodford - from Grainne's CD mainly the 3rd one, but also listening to all the other renderings I have of both of those around and about in my music library.  

July means off to West Clare (On the Road to Lisdoonvarna)!

Yay, but not until the last week of July so still some time to go.  There is some more good news:  I've gotten a gig at Nostell Priory, which is a Georgian Era mansion, playing my harp and they are even going to give me a dress to wear!  Think less Eliza Bennet (Jane Austen) and more Marie Antoinette (but not so over the top).  I am off to research hairstyles and brush up on my O'Carolan pieces (maybe even learn a a couple of new ones) as the latter part of his life falls comfortably within the time period.  Yay!

I just got another gig!  I'll be playing a 'welcome event' (fancy dinner) which will be held at the Leeds City Museum.  The last time they had the event they had a sitar player and the woman who passed my name onto them thought of me right away.  Just the kind of gig I like!

Harping in June!

Yesterday I played the local farmer's market and we got a month's worth of rain in just a few hours!  But this is England and rain doesn't deter people so there were plenty of people to hear me and the waterproof gazebo worked just fine!

I had 8 harps in my house yesterday for our play-together.  I taught everyone The Boys of  Bluehill, someone else taught a French tune and another lady taught a jig which is also a song Follow Me Down to Carlow.

My chocolate chocolate chip muffins were a success and now I'm gearing up to our gig at Kirkstall Abbey which is on this Sunday.

Kirkstall Abbey gig went well, this time I played it with Mike and he backed up my tunes with guitar and sang some songs.  There was also a farmer's market on at the same time so that was nice since it meant more people milling around.

Summer Harping!

It is NOT my year to go to Somerset, because I hope to go to London at the end of June and visit my daughter/SIL. Nevertheless, I have a couple of things in the fire that will hopefully keep me practicing. Since I am lucky enough to be a teacher, I have these great plans every year about practicing for 2 hours every business day morning before I do anything else. But hmm, there's exercising, and gardening, and reading, and kayaking, and cooking, and general sloth involved, too. So we'll see...

Our first gig (guitar/harp duo) is as the featured act at a coffeehouse in the western part of NH. In our region of the state, there are coffeehouses in maybe 1/3 of the small towns here, and the folks that run them try to keep things scheduled so that, if you wanted to go to a coffeehouse every Friday and Saturday of the month, you could do it with no conflicts. I like going to new coffeehouses because there's so little stress - your audience has never heard your songs before, so you can play songs you've known for years! We have a pretty standard set list, which includes Squire Woods, Baptist Johnson, Swan lk 243, Ashokan Farewell, Kean O'Hara #3/George Brabazon, Sheebeg Shemore (sp!), etc, etc. We use the Sue Richard O'Carolan arrangements a lot because they're easily adaptable, harmonizable, memorizable, etc, etc.

Our second gig is a wedding at a beautiful, small chapel out in the country. We learned the S. Woods Pachelbel's Canon duet for this, as well as the Wedding March, Here's Comes You-Know-Who, etc. I like this arrangement a lot, but sometimes I have trouble in my LH stretching my fourth/third fingers from low G to D and continuing the arpeggio. I have tried changing my wrist position, flapping my fingers in especially carefully, arching perfectly, to no avail. If you ladies know what I mean and you have advice, please, speak up! About 50% of the time my fourth finger hits an adjacent string as I move up, which is driving me crazy. Yes, I could adapt the arpeggio to something that fits better under my hand, but I refuse to let this thing kick my ass!!

I also hope to spend a few Saturdays playing solo at our small town's Farmers' Market. This has seemed to help drive away my once-unconquerable stage fright. No one really seems to be paying attention, and then suddenly a family stops to ask lots of questions and give lots of compliments, and you let their kids try the strings, and I just find it really sweet. Also, the woman who runs the market - such a good older friend that people think she's my mother! - asks all the vendors to give you a small item from their table as a gift for performing for free. Now if she could just stop those motorcycles from gunning it!....One of those days will be my first public performance of O'Ferrell's (sp) Welcome to Limerick, the hardest song I've ever learned because of the trebles, which I love but am not always so great at. I don't find her advice about using your thumb as an anchor helpful one bit! Does Maeve G. use a thumb anchor? It doesn't look like she does.

I have set myself a goal of learning a song-a-week from Grainne Hambly's first book, so as soon as I'm done planning/running a talent show at my school, I'll be all about The Blackthorn Stick. Does anyone else play from this book? Do you have any favorites? I don't love her Fig for a Kiss, which is actually the first song, and I already know the S. Woods arrangement, so decided to skip it.

I'm also looking for non-Celtic music to loosen up my set list. Do you ladies have anything you recommend? So far, things I'd play in public are Ashokan, Somewhere Over the Rainbow and then the Three Easy Pieces by Grandjany.

Whoo, I've written a lot. Time to sit back and wait for your lovely ideas!
Happy harping!

June! Harp Story #3

Of course, this has nothing to do with harping, but we are hosting this little family, a bit anxiously, hoping the two little ones make it.  They are two weeks old as of today, June 6.  Double the size they were last week.  I watched them have bathing lessons today.  To die for.

So.

On with installment #3 in the Saga which I intend to drag out, if you were wondering:

#3 Carolan’s Receipt

The next chance I got (was it a day? a week?) I scampered into a store that sold CD’s, where I found Derek Bell playing mostly solo on Carolan’s Receipt.  It was all  Carolan, whoever he was.....  Of course, not knowing anything, I had no idea how lucky a find this was.   I mean no insult to anyone, but I could have, so easily, gotten ‘new age‘ not the real thing.   I like to think that that ‘made all the difference’. 

In a frenzy of anticipation (somehow I knew) I popped Derek Bell in the car CD player and sat in the parking lot listening.  The first selection was Sheebeeg Shemore. I couldn’t believe the sound of it.  It was as if all my life my ears had been waiting all for this.   I played piano and then, briefly, cello and really, there is something about the harp that is present in both of those instruments more than any others. 

Some tunes had a metallic echoing edge, others had a softer sweeter sound. I read the liner notes.  Wire strung harp?  Nylon strung harp?  Hunh?  You know how it is, you think..... I’ll have some tea..... then someone says.... what kind of tea? China? India?  Assam? Earl Grey? Green?   At that moment I had an inkling of ‘uh oh‘ there are obviously harps and harps and other harps.... like everything if you open up the magical door you step in to a bottomless pit of choices and differences and complexities...

Around then Derek Bell started to play Carolan’s Receipt and that was it.  

Exactly as described by others here, I was bowled over, knocked over the head, blown away:  I have to play this instrument.  I.have.to.  

With the small amount of rational mind left to me, I whimpered:  This is so not like me!

Next up: Enter the Paki Harp!