Harp trios

Fellow grade-1-a-thon harpist Robyn has also continued with her harp playing and took and passed her grade 3 when I did grade 2. She had expressed an interest in playing with others and at short notice we met up yesterday afternoon for a couple of hours chat and playing round at Anne's. It was a lovely scene, one pedal harp and two lever harps in Anne's conservatory and after Anne had let both of us play her pedal harp we had a look at some trios that Rohan, teacher to all three, lent us.

 First up was a lovely Grandjany piece called  Les Agneaux Dansent or Dancing Lambs. We sight-read it through fairly well then had another go and Robyn suggested recording it. She set her little video recorder up and we gave our performance. I had to request a restart as I played more wrong notes than right in the first 4 bars and on the second attempt we got through it. Well, I say got through. I missed a reapeat, Anne went to the Coda too soon and there were many unusual notes throughout but we were quite pleased with it. When I watched the uploaded video later that evening it sounded lovely. But then that's the advantage of the harp, when you play badly or with many wrong notes it sounds nowhere near as bad as the equivalent standard on say the violin or saxophone.

We then tried some trios by Alfredo Ortiz, a south American composer. A quick internet search led me to discover a little more about him. As well as estabilshing a performing career as a harpist he graduated from medical school (several other composers started out on the medical path) then switched to full time performing. My favourite bit of trivia though is that he says his "most important concert" was when he played the harp in the delivery room for the birth of his second daughter. I chuckled at first but then thought if we have music for weddings and funerals why not at the start of life too? Could this be something to develop? There is a growing bundle of research that suggests music can be good for healing and well being. Many hospitals and care homes have visiting musicians playing to the patients or residents but each maternity unit with it's own harpist...?

Anyway we didn't know this at the time and played several of his Latin style pieces. Cumbia Deliciosa, Danza de Luzma and Llano with the second two having some particularly tricky rhythms. We just about kept going, stopping for one or other of us to catch up every so often. We had enough fun to want to do it all again and maybe even aim towards an informal concert at some stage. Anne regularly organises pupil concerts often adding an extra item herself to show children what you can do if you keep up your practise! Speaking of which I am now off to do a little more practise of my own.