Day 23 - Back on track

Any loss of momentum suffered yesterday has been put to rights today. Lots of incentives played a part to revive motivation today including five new sponsors, a new book and more time than usual on a Tuesday. Chris had gone out for a drink so I had the house to myself. The first sponsor to have a dedicated session was Harvey, a flautist who has been with the Palace Band for longer than I have. His session was 20 minutes and included scales and arpeggios creeping up to 76 beats per minute. The plan with these is to gradually increase the speed, eventually playing them much faster than needed for the exam. Then when they are slowed down they should feel easier. It works on the clarinet for me so hopefully this will transfer to the harp. My new book is Harpe d’Or by Dominig Bouchaud and it is delightfully French. It is a beginner book most likely aimed at the younger market but has some different exercises to the other book I have and has another grade 1 piece. I actually went for it because it had a colourful front cover, a bit of a risk but the content suits me fine. There are pictures which cheer the page up and when you give a simple exercise a title such as Echos dans la forêt it makes the piece much more fun to play. I had a quick flick through and tried a few tunes.

After my last pupil of the day I managed another half hour, this time for Jane, a clarinettist in the Palace Band. Harpe d’Or has some exercises that are suitable as a warm up and that I can use to work on my own weaknesses. I placed four fingers on four strings and just plucked one, keeping the others in place. I still find this awkward as I keep hitting neighbouring strings or plucking with two fingers instead of one. I worked through my exam pieces again, listening for any imperfections in quality (there were a few) and working on dynamics. As Jane has a weather-related surname I finished with a little piece called Parapluie (Umbrella) made up of C major arpeggios.

I listened to Radio 4's Woman's Hour from last Thursday which featured Sioned Williams playing the MIDI harp. I have a tiny amount of experience with synthesisers and this was a fascinating insight into the use of MIDI with a harp. Sioned also spoke about her early experiences with the harp and how in her career she has spent considerable time searching for new and interesting music for the harp to expand the repertoire. Part of the concerto that is being premiered this week was performed on the show. It certainly was different and while I will save comments until after the broadcast next week it will be intriguing to hear the whole performance.