Well, where to begin... Much of the early morning is a haze now as I try to process all the information given to me during the day. I remember meeting Natasha, a pianist, on the way in with her guitar and straight away we talked about why we had chosen our instruments and what we hoped to get out of it. As we went into the busy reception I managed to knock her, and a few others (including one of my own managers!) out of the way as I manoeuvred around to say hello to colleagues and friends and to sign in. I can carry the harp case on my shoulder but I need a lot of space, more space than I am used to, if I want to swing round and talk to anyone else. I have been told it will survive the odd knock but don't think other people will so I must remember it is a bit bigger than my clarinet case.
I was directed to the harp rooms and found my group’s teacher, Elaine. The harps had been divided into two groups, lever harps (small, more portable and sensible) and pedal harps (big concert harps often seen towards the back of orchestras, or being loaded / unloaded from a Volvo estate). The other teacher Rohan, who I know through other musical activities, was with the pedal harps. There were three of us in our group and as Elaine tuned my harp I chatted with Maureen and Amelia about what we did and why we had chosen the harp. None of us appeared to have specific reasons, it was just something we fancied and here was our opportunity complete with motivation. We started with single finger exercises, using the second (or index finger as the thumb is the first finger) learning the technique of plucking. Elaine explained how the fingers pluck the string and fold into the palm, keeping the hand as still as possible "your hand should be like the Rock of Gibraltar". She showed us where the arms, elbow and wrists should be and effortlessly played a few notes. So far so good! However, after just a few seconds into our practise she was calling one of our names, followed by an anatomical part. For me it was usually “Steph – elbow” then as I looked at my left elbow she’d say “right elbow needs to be higher. Imagine you are a princess!” As a right hand technique was mastered and we felt good we then did it with the left hand. Once that had been achieved with a sense of self-satisfaction we had to do hands together. Although each exercise was a development from what we had just done it felt like starting over, going right back to basics which at times was irksome. As adults we do want to run before we can walk and I struggled having to rethink it all again. I found using the fourth finger particularly tricky so will need to work on that. Co-ordination appeared to be a bit iffy for all of us as our fingers tried to decipher the messages from the brain, not always successfully. While we were battling with our own techniques Elaine was constantly drawing our attention to slouchy backs, drooped elbows, saggy wrists, and tense fingers. At one point I did wonder how long her patience might last but she remained calm and encouraging and towards the end we were able to focus on the notes, fingers and arm positions to check for posture, and hopefully look like princesses. We covered techniques and exercises based on the pieces we were to perform and even managed to work through all three pieces. That sounds impressive until you realise we spent at least 10 minutes on the 12 bars of Azaleas in Houston and that was without the repeats! Still it was great fun and the great thing about the harp is that even if you go wrong it still sounds lovely. Elaine wished us luck and we came away with a buzz and desire to do well for ourselves and for her. The three of us have decided to meet up about half way through to see how things are going and we have swapped email address for moral support and to offer suggestions and advice.
There were other sessions during the day and I'll write about those tomorrow. I managed a good ten minutes practise this evening just to revise the basic techniques but my thumb started hurting (see the excuses have started) and I'll have another go tomorrow. Or maybe as soon as I've logged off...
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