While March was spent revelling in the glory from my grade 1 result, April was much slower. I had almost exhausted my sponsors but the total raised from all the Grade-1-a-bees was close to £70,000 which was fantastic. I got off to a good start this month though. On the final Palace Band rehearsal of term we had an informal concert and as an encore I got the harp out and played a couple of tunes. As a surprise to the band I had been in touch with co-conductor Caroline and we did a version of Greensleeves with me accompanying her on the flute. The last time Caroline had played with a harpist it had been Sioned Williams but conscious of dropping too many names in front of the band I mentioned this fact only twice! Anyway the band were impressed again and a few more had a good look and a pluck.
The following week was Live Music Week which was a week touring various schools in Cambridgeshire with my clarinet and some musician friends giving performances to schools. Having presented my harping skills to numerous audiences over the last few months meant that introducing a programme of mostly classical music to 150 year 7s was a doddle while the performances to the nursery children were sweet and amusing. Arranging a fair amount of the music and providing directions for my colleagues (and double checking the cellists knew what they were doing) left less time than previous weeks for the harp. My time preparing was not wasted though as the cellists only got lost once and Wallace & Gromit was a useful addition for the nursery programme but I did miss the harp.
Another highlight was a duet session at Anne’s. We met up in the Easter holidays one afternoon. Rohan had provided us with a big bag of music so we spent a pleasant few hours sight-reading a huge range of pieces including Pachelbel’s Canon. We would both admit to playing huge numbers of dodgy notes but the sounds were lovely. Anne also played me one of her grade 7 pieces that she is hoping to play in a concert shortly. It was a wonderful piece full of all the things the harp can do well like glissandi up, down and round and round, harmonics and plenty of gorgeous melodies with arpeggio accompaniment. It was a great afternoon so thanks to Anne for having me.
There were practise sessions throughout April and I had another donation. This was from Helen, a clarinettist with the band and a member of the Philharmonia Chorus. Helen’s session was a serious one and after warming up with scales I switched to arpeggios. These now need to be prepared with hands together so will take a bit of getting used to. They are a bit scrappy at the moment. Moving onto pieces I went through a few grade 2 pieces and settled on Evening Song. This has an Alberti-style bass. It looks simple but is deceptively hard. The last section features the tune but in octaves. This is also quite tricky. I kept catching the strings between the ones I was supposed to be playing but then realised fingers 2 and 3 needed to be tucked away. This also produced a better sound.
I had a few more sessions and got the metronome out to keep track of scales progress but otherwise practise was much less frequent. I needed some more inspiration so made a big decision. I contacted Pilgrims and ordered a new harp! It will be made to order so I had to go through lots of questions, rather like ordering a coffee in a frothy coffee outlet, how many strings, do I want legs, what stain do you want the wood, do you want a case… Finally they knew what I wanted and in about eight weeks time it should be ready. I will then plan a trip down there to take the hired harp back and pick up my new one. Anne suggested I ask them for a tour of the workshop when I am there. So with a new harp on the way and a date for grade 2 things are looking positive again. If that wasn’t enough the total raised for the Spinal Injuries Association was over £80,000 by the end of the month. A fantastic effort by all involved and another thanks from me to all my sponsors over the past few months!
