Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all from Melbourne and blessings and good wishes for 2013!

Strike the harp- Australian Christmas Music

Well, it's definitely that time of year again. I don't know about you, but I'm really enjoying the Christmas season this year! Though for those of you out-of-towners I do have to tell you about our crazy Melbourne weather with 17C one day and then up to 41C a few days later. That's been a little hard to live with, and particularly hard for the harps to live with! (Broken strings, anyone?)

I've been tucking into a healthy smattering of traditional Christmas music, and am busy getting my fingers around the Waltz of the Flowers cadenza for a concert next week. I have an enormous folder of Christmas music, which includes some fantastic Australian carols.

The most enduring Australian Christmas carols were written by William James. A boy from Ballarat (north of Melbourne), James studied in London around the time of the First World War. He returned to Australia after the war and became involved in the beginnings of radio (being the first music director for the fledgling Australian Broadcasting Company) and in the establishment of the state orchestras, regularly travelling OS to convince artists to make the long trip down under.

He wrote his 6 Australian Christmas Carols in collaboration with John Wheeler and published them in the early 1960s. The ABC Shop has CD's of the songs available.

Otherwise check out these YouTube vids for a preview. 'The Silver Stars are in the Sky' is one of my all time favourites- so beautiful!

While 'Christmas Day' opens with the north wind tossing the leaves- just right for our hot Australian Christmas where the north wind comes from the desert centre of the continent.

Keep an eye on my Facebook page where I'll be posting some more Australian carols in the lead up to Christmas.

And have yourselves a merry little Christmas!

What's on the iPod- From Bach to Piazzolla

I have to start this review with a disclaimer. Ever since I heard Maria Luisa Rayan-Forero play live at the 5^th Australian Harp Festival I was a fan (read more about that concert here). Then I had the pleasure of working with her myself on some pesky Bach ornamentation and became an even bigger fan. She’s just such a lovely lady!

So naturally I went out and bought her latest CD ‘From Bach to Piazzolla’ to relive the performance and to study her Bach a little more closely. While it’s impossible to completely capture the magic of a live concert in a studio recording I am not at all disappointed in what I got.

Maria Luisa Rayan-Forero has put together a wonderful CD of old classics, new classics and harp classics.

Here’s the track listing:

1.        Marcel Grandjany- Rhapsodie

2.       J.S. Bach Partita in B-flat major BWV 825- Praeludium

3.       Allemande

4.       Corrente

5.       Sarabande

6.       Menuets I & II

7.       Giga

8.       Heitor Villa-Lobos- Preludio from Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4

9.       Astor Piazolla Cuatro Estaciones Portenas- Verano Porteno

10.   Otono Porteno

11.   Invierno Porteno

12.   Primavera Portena

13.   Serie del Angel- Milonga del Angel

14.   Muerte del Angel

15.   Resurreccion del Angel

16.   Libertango

 I came across a listing of the cd on the CD Universe website http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8776380 which categorises the music on the recording as

Category

Classical, Modern, Baroque Period, Dance - Classical, Rhapsody, Partita, Tango

 Which makes it sound a little indecisive in it’s make up. It’s anything but.

Maria has researched at length the influence Bach had on Piazzolla, so from that angle pairing the two otherwise vastly different composers makes sense. Working off her own transcriptions brings out her background learning still further, making for a very detailed performance throughout. The harmonic richness of the opening track (Grandjany) is then reflected in the language of Piazzolla, so it all wraps up very nicely.

Maria announced on Facebook recently that the album is being considered for a nomination at the Grammys, which is an amazing achievement for a solo harp CD. Here’s hoping she gets the nod for a nomination and, even better, a win!

Either way, grab yourself a copy and enjoy!

5 tips for tax time

Ahh, tax. There’s no avoiding it. And around these parts it’s that time of year.

In Australia, our financial year runs from the beginning of July until the end of June which always seems very neat. We then have until the end of October to get all the paper work done and submitted to some nice accountant who knows what they are doing. Only once did I try to do my own tax return and I spent the whole time crying. Never again.

So I spent last week putting it all together and was pleased to see that a few new initiatives I had implemented this past financial year worked really well for keeping on top of all the paperwork. Plus the old reliables are still doing their job, which is always good to know. So here’s a few tips for anyone who shudders at the idea of doing their tax return!

1.      

      The big success for me this year was making myself spend just 10-15 minutes every Monday on bookkeeping. I chose Mondays because there were usually invoices to write following the weekend gigs so I was in a financial state of mind anyway. But just that short time spent adding income and expenditure to my accounting software has paid off big time as there is no scrounging around for paperwork or trying to remember how that mystery $100 came to be in my bank account.

2.       Have a separate bank account solely for business transactions. Nothing makes tax life easier than transparency of transactions (account for everything) and no confusion between business and personal transactions. A separate account for receiving all your income makes this LOADS easier.

3.       Have some kind of accounting system, anything from MYOB with all the bells and whistles to a humble notebook and pen. The important thing is that it works for you and YOU USE IT!

4.       A plastic loose leaf folder. This is a little strange but we own 4 filing cabinets. And I hardly use any of them. But I love filing things in plastic loose leaf folders. I always remember being told that any person can play an instrument if they can just get to the right instrument and I think the same is true with organisation. Find what works for you and you are more likely to use it.

5.       Keep an envelope in the car for all your parking tickets. I mark mine with the details of whatever financial year it is and then bring it inside while doing my tax return, and, hey presto, there are all my receipts for parking. And if I park at a meter which doesn’t issue a ticket I write the date, location and amount on the back of the envelope. This year my parking costs were in the vicinity of $350, which I can claim back as a necessary expenditure. That’s a lot of money that could have been lost with parking tickets just floating around the car and then getting chucked out.

What tax tips work for you?

Who's a clever little freelancer?

Musical training, whether formal or informal, rarely incorporates the business skills required for long term operation as a freelance musician. A few make up for this with formal business study, some learn on the job, and I suspect a lot hope that it will all somehow just take care of itself.

I certainly know that’s what I thought for a long time. At least until it became apparent that odd jottings on the back of old envelopes was no longer going to cut it as a business model.

Now, after 20 plus years on the freelancing circuit I find myself with a business name, an ABN, all kinds of insurance, plus the full social media set up of a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest etc. And I’m actively working towards diversifying my business so I’m not reliant upon the shifting sands of itinerant gigs.

But why bother to think like a business when the phone is still ringing and the gigs are still coming in regardless?

This blog is the start of a whole series that explores that question, stemming from my recent presentation ‘Facets of Freelancing’ at the 5^th Australian Harp Festival. (You can read more about that here and here.) It’s a topic which I have a real passion for, but no formal education. I’m not trained in business management, accountancy, marketing, booking keeping, IT, arts management or tax matters.

But these are all skills which I use every day as I work as a freelance musician. My 3 music degrees taught me how to play all the dots on the page and developed in me a deep appreciation of all kinds of music, but never ever did anyone mention how to survive in the real world. I studied my Grandjany, Godefroid and Glanville-Hicks but never actually got told how to write an invoice. Which is a kind of helpful skill to have if you want to get paid.

So everything I know I learned on the job.

But before we dive into this series let’s check out some definitions. Just what is a freelance musician? Here’s something I prepared earlier:

A freelance musician takes on a variety of short term work according to demand and works for a variety of employers including working for themselves.

I like this one too:

 Freelancers must be highly adaptable, creative problem solvers, and expert networkers, and they must have the ability to deal with dozens of separate information channels and collate them together, minimizing conflicts and allowing enough time to make it from venue to venue. Too little work, and they’ll end up in the poorhouse. Too much work, and they’re headed for the madhouse. It’s a delicate balancing act!

(http://doublebassblog.org/2008/06/twelve-survival-tips-for-freelance-musicians.html)

So where do you work? My 4 main areas of work are:

1.       Music Industry gigs- orchestra, television, recording work.

2.       Background gigs- weddings, functions etc

3.       Teaching- for me that’s in a private studio, but can be in schools/studios outside the home

4.       Self-run concert performances

If you’re a freelance musician I’d guess your job description would look something similar. But have you ever really stopped to think about all the skills involved with making it all happen? It’s mindblowing! (And I think kind of impressive!)

So take the time to have a think- it’s often worthwhile to actually write down everything that you do beyond playing the dots on the page- chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much you can do! This could form the start of a business plan, something we’ll talk more about next time!

A Wrap up of the 5th Australian Harp Festival- Part 2

Hello all,

Time to continue my wrap up of the Australian Harp Festival that happened from 28^th September to 1^st October in Adelaide, South Australia. You can read the first part here.

The other international star who came out for the Festival was none other than the jaw droppingly good Catrin Finch. I’d heard and met her a few years ago at the Llangollen Eistedfodd in Wales where she delighted the hugely partisan audience not just with her playing but with her dress, which featured a large red Welsh dragon wrapped around her torso.

As well as conducting a masterclass, Catrin played a recital at Elder Hall late on the Sunday afternoon. Right from the first note of the first piece (Bach/Grandjany’s Partita No 3) her technical prowess shone. How can fingers move that fast? And accurately. This had ‘wow’ factor in spades.

The programme showed not just that she could play like nobody’s business, but that she is also A1 when it comes to stage presence. There are only so many players that can make Paul Patterson’s ‘Mosquito Massacre’ work so convincingly, a piece where you have to be as much an actor as a musician. It was originally composed for her, and you can tell why. She is a natural at playing the harp while swatting at imaginary mosquitos.

The rest of the programme was really broad- everything from Godefroid to Benjamin Britten with some Debussy and William Mathias thrown in for good measure. It all just made you want to go home and practice scales. Really  fast.

One other international visitor was harp technician Liza Jensen. Yep, a lady regulating harps. And she was great. Liza is a player as well as a technician which meant she handled the harps with prowess and a wrench with aplomb. And that can’t be said of everyone. I attended the pedal harp maintenance workshop and resolved to never, ever attempt to change a pedal rod myself, even though Liza kept assuring us it wasn’t as bad as it looked. I beg to differ.

An abiding memory of the event was seeing her sit astride a Salvi while putting some some pliers to work on the pedal mechanism. Wish I’d got a photo of that one. Instead here’s one of her demonstrating knot tying to an audience.

All up the Festival was a brilliant weekend of nerdy harp talk which I really loved. So much went on I can’t report it all without basically taking up so much of your time you may as well have come to the weekend yourself. And who knows? Maybe I’ll see you at the next one!

P.S. For more pics swing over to my Facebook page.

A Wrap up of the 5th Australian Harp Festival- Part 1

Well, it’s been a busy time around here- two performances of ‘The Queen’s Music’ in a week and then a paper for the 5^th Australian Harp Festival in Adelaide. And what a weekend that was.

The opening concert was held in the gorgeous Elder Hall at the University of Adelaide.

The guest international musician was Maria Luisa Rayan-Forero, a performer who I had heard much of but was still not adequately prepared for. She was amazing.

The programme was drawn from her latest CD ‘From Bach to Piazzolla’.

While I appreciated the incredible music and the skill that was required to arrange and perform the selections of Piazzolla, it was the Bach the caught me, and became the highlight of the whole Festival. It was one of the most exquisitely beautiful things I have ever heard. To describe it fully would see me descend into clichés and bucket loads of superlatives, so just take it as read that it was good. Very, very good.

Listening to Luisa play it I was reminded of a quote that I am fairly certain came from the great pianist Arthur Rubenstein and went something like: “The notes I play no better than anyone else, but the space between notes- there is the magic”. And so it was with Luisa’s playing- she commands not just the notes, but the space between the notes and there, definitely, is where the magic lies.

Saturday dawned crisp and bright and saw Rosemary Hallo deliver her presentation on the harp in colonial Australia with particular reference to Robert Nicholas Charles Bochsa, who of course famously died in Sydney in 1856. It’s great work Rosemary is doing in researching this and other early harp connections in Australia and fantastic to see and hear the single action harps being played. I had a particular interest in them after putting together the Marie Antoinette programme- it’s like hearing the sequel to that concert programme!

Following on from Rosemary was triple harpist Robin Ward who delivered a nigh faultless performance of music ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. I have only tried to play a triple harp once, and very briefly at that, mainly because I couldn’t cope. My eyes, fingers and brain went in to overload. There are 84 strings on that harp, people!

I really appreciated his later workshop as well looking at the use of ornamentation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, something which has remained a conundrum for a lot of my playing career. Having had a one on one session with Luisa on how she plays Bach, it was really interesting getting Robin’s take on transcriptions and the ‘modernisation’ of Bach and other earlier composers. Suffice to say the Bach/Grandjany etudes came up for discussion as did Grandjany’s arrangement of the C.P.E. Bach Sonata with some quite different viewpoints on the topic!

Saturday night’s Elder Hall concert featured two more international acts: I-Sis trio and Paige Su with Cody Byasse on percussion.

Here’s some YouTube clips to enjoy-

More from the Festival in the next post!

The Music Piles are back

Those who know me know that I love my piles of music. Well, not necessarily that I love them. I do love it more when my music room is neat and tidy and the floor is visible, but I also love my sheet music. And there is a lot of it.

As I’ve said before I buy music the way some women buy shoes. And yes, I have been known to stand in front of my bulging shelves of the stuff and declare I simply have nothing  to play.

To my credit I have had things under control lately. I had at long last abandoned the notion that I would find an entire hour to sit, sort and file and had been taking the Baby steps approach (thanks Flylady!). So with ten minutes here and ten minutes there I got it done. I was even good enough to cultivate the habit of putting music back on the shelf when I had finished with it. Whenever I got excited while teaching and pulled examples and follow on pieces off the shelf I made myself put it all away. There and then. Radical. Well, for me at least.

But the piles have regrouped and launched a new attack on my floor space. In my defence though I have had good reason for not countering their return. No, really…

It all started with Valentine’s Day. Yes, I know that was a while ago now but please cut me some slack here. I had a three hour gig for a Valentine’s Day dinner. That meant three hours of love songs required. My gig folders already contained a healthy smattering of the soppy stuff, but more was needed to fill in the time.

This I actually didn’t mind as it meant an opportunity to revisit some old faves and refresh the folders with something new. For my own sanity as much as anything. Change is as good as a holiday!

So out came my massive expanding file of love songs and dedications. Everything from ‘Annie’s Song’ to ‘You’re still the one’. (All the music is filed alphabetically by title and so I couldn’t quite make it an A-Z as I don’t own a love song starting with Z. I don’t even know a love song starting with Z. Anyone?)

I ended up with a goodly collection of charts. The gig went fine and then there was a huge pile of music to put back. Alphabetically.

‘So’, I reasoned, staring at the pile. ‘There’s a lot there I really should record soundbites for to put on the website.’ And there was my way out. I didn’t need to put the music away at that moment because I could go through it all piece by piece to see if it’s already on the website. And then determine if it should be on the website. And then either record it and then file it. Or just file it. Great!

Only I haven’t done any of it.

But I will.

Really.

Tomorrow.

Perhaps…

What's on the iPod- L'arome de L'est

In preparation for the upcoming Marie Antoinette concert (read more about that here) I had recently downloaded L'arome de l'est by Masumi Nagasawa, a fantastic Japanese harpist based in Maastricht. She specialises in music for the single action harp and has SO many CDs. I've already mentally spent an enormous sum of money just reading about them. You can check out her website here.

I'd ended up buying this CD because it was readily available on iTunes and I confess I needed it in a hurry. Things in the post can sometimes take a very long time to find their way to Australia. It was the only solo harp CD that came up when I was searching for music by Krumpholz. Lots of recordings of concertos, works with flute etc but not so many solo pieces. It's a great collection all round:

"L'arome de L'est"

Harp Music from Eastern Europe and beyond

Performed on the

Erard Single-action pedal harp (around 1820)

Etcetera KTC1362

Jean Baptist Krumpholtz (1747-1790)

Sonate en scene de stile pathétique op. 16 bis

dedicated to Madame la Comtesse de Rzewuska

Etude du Renforcement (Adagio from the Sonata op. 14)

Jean Baptist Cardon (1760-1803)

Sonata in F moll

Variations on the theme of “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman”

Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812)

3 sonatinas

from the six Sonatinas dedicated to Madame Krumpholtz

Andrei Sikhra (1766-1851)

Variations on the Russian theme “Au milieu des collines

John Field (1782-1837)

Nocturne Es dur

arranged by Elias Parish Alvars (1808-1849)

Louis Spohr (1784-1859)

Variations on the theme of “Je suis encore dans mon printemps”

from the Opera by Etienne-Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817) Op.36

Alexandre Varlamov (1801-1848)

Melodie

Michail Iwanowitsch Glinka (1804-1857)

Nocturne Es dur

Nocturne “Solitude/ Razluka” F moll

I fell in love with Krumpholz's Etude de renforcement and was able to find the original score through IMSLP. It's looks beautiful, and is readable for today's harpist, but contains a LOT of markings, some of which are unfamiliar for a modern player. I think they relate to the use of the swell doors that open and close at the back of single action pedal harps. There's a picture on Masumi's website.

I just wish iTunes includes the CD booklet notes so I could read all about it. Or does it, and I'm so technologically challenged I don't know it?

The Fluffy Dice

They’ve become an essential part of my teaching arsenal. Yep- the fluffy dice.

Just like you see hanging from the rear vision mirror of cars of a certain, ahem, calibre. Not normally what you would associate with harp playing, but then again it is an instrument of surprises.

So why the fluffy dice? Well, as every musician, beginner or advanced, knows, practice makes perfect. And practice by definition involves repetition. The challenge comes in making that repetition engaging and meaningful. Many a time I have congratulated myself on working on a passage for a substantial period of time only to realise on honest reflection that I spent a sizeable amount of that time mentally planning the weekly shopping list. Or thinking up blog topics.

**Embarrassed silence**

Well. Yes. But anyway keeping your mind on the job is a challenge for all of us. Keeping kid’s minds on the job can be doubly challenging. Sometimes it seems that from a child’s perspective everything should be fun. And entertaining. Not exactly words commonly associated with repetition.

And that’s where the fluffy dice come in. I have to admit at this point that the idea of using dice in lessons was not my own. I did knick it from was inspired by a violin teacher of my acquaintance who was terribly good at making lessons interesting for kids. How could I not learn from her?

The violin teacher in question used normal dice which the students could freely roll around the room. But she could pick up her instrument and move it out of the way. Obviously not so easy for me, hence the need for soft fluffy dice. Because even though I always direct the rolling to be done away from any instruments ‘accidents’ do happen.

It was actually surprisingly difficult to find said fluffy dice, but I eventually ended up with a lovely rose scented pair.

So how are they used? I’ve now come up with a few different ways to incorporate them into lessons, the first and most obvious being to get kids to repeat a passage and still find it interesting.

I always let the student roll the dice which makes for a good mental break as well as a chance to get up from their chair and move to the empty space in the middle of the room. ‘Do try to avoid the harps’, I always say to more or less effect.

Generally the rules of the game mean only 1 dice (die) is needed with the important proviso that rolling a ‘1’ means an automatic re-roll. This means that the tricky challenging bit in question will have to be played perfectly anywhere between 2-6 times. And that’s perfectly, otherwise it doesn’t count and, yep, has to be done again.

And contrary to rumour, no I haven’t loaded the dice so it always rolls a 6.

Pure coincidence…

So by the end of it all we’ve broken up the lesson a bit, refreshed the concentration, had a bit of a laugh and achieved some (hopefully) useful repetition. All with some fluffy dice.

I encourage my students to find some dice they have at home and try the same thing. Useful practice at home? What more can these fluffy dice achieve?!

Still more I can assure you. But that’s the topic of another blog. One that I thought of while mindlessly repeating that tricky bit in….

Just joking. Kind of…

Desperately Seeking Marie Antoinette

source

A few years ago I was playing through Betty Paret’s ‘Second Harp Book’ and came across the gorgeous ‘Queen’s Music’ by none other than Marie Antoinette, last Queen of France. It’s actually a song with the title ‘C’est mon ami’ written for voice and accompaniment, which could quite possibly have been the harp given Marie Antoinette’s love of the instrument. And as a further actually, it’s one of two songs written by the Queen, the other being ‘Portrait Charmant’.

I’m in the middle of putting together a concert programme at the moment with my good friend Sarah the Singer.

As an aside I have to refer to her as Sarah the Singer as I have 3 Sarahs in my life: Sarah the Singer, Sarah the Flute and Sarah with the Twins. What was really freaky was when they were all pregnant at the same time, especially when I received an invite in the mail to Sarah’s Baby Shower. But which one??!! Turned out to be Sarah with the Twins.

ANYWAY. Sarah the Singer and I will be doing some performances in September/October of music from France c.1780-1830 and we would love to do the Marie Antoinette songs. But to do so we have had to temporarily take of our musician hats and put on our internet sleuthing hats, for these songs are not easy things to track down.

So Dr. Watson, let’s work our way through the trail….

There is a beautiful YouTube vid of ‘C’est mon ami’ with Sandrine Chatron playing harp

I would love to get in touch with Sandrine but haven’t found an email address or anything like that for her.

www.marieantoinette.org is a fairly scholarly site to whom I have addressed an enquiring email. I’m yet to hear back but fingers crossed someone there can help.

There’s a site dedicated to all things Marie Antoinette which features a page of music connected with the Queen http://www.ladyreading.net/marieantoinette/index-en.html . From here we were able to get a copy of the vocal line and lyrics for ‘C’est mon ami’. When combined with the Betty Paret solo harp version we have enough info to put together our own arrangement. Yah!

Sarah and I have both tried to purchase Mayuko Karasawa’s recording of the two Marie Antoinette songs mentioned on the ladyreading.net page, but due to vagaries of the internet which I don’t get at all we can’t buy it as a digital download in Australia. How this can be I do not know. Mayuko has very kindly answered an email we sent her but unfortunately could only refer us to the same iTunes or Amazon downloads that won’t work for us. So at the moment we are scratching our heads to see if we know someone in another country who could buy it for us and forward it on. And this technology stuff is supposed to make our lives easier…

To be honest though what we really need is the sheet music of the second song ‘Portrait Charmant’ but it seems to be one very elusive little song.

Well, I really don’t know where to go next with this one, but I am loath to give up on performing the two songs. Anyone out there in blogland have any suggestions?

P.S. Since I posted this I had response from Clare at www.marieantoinette.org who is based in Melbourne- wow what a small world! She was very helpful but unfortunately we're still no closer to the elusive 'Portrait Charmant'

Sheet music- The Waters of Babylon

Greetings all! Hope you're doing well.

We're getting into winter here so it is cold and miserable. Melbourne does grey in winter like no other city I know, which is funny given everyone here wears black. And for those of you from out of town I'm not making that up. Everyone does really wear black. I frequently play at functions where you would assume the invitation listed a dress code of all black whereas in fact it's just a room full of Melbournians.

That really is an aside. The purpose of today's post is the arrangement of 'Waters of Babylon' promised a month or so back. You can read about my reasons for this arrangement here.

Hope you like it- feedback is always welcome!




The Waters of Babylon

What's on the stand: William Walton Belshazzar’s Feast

I wrote a few weeks back about my Mesopotamian month of May that began with Don Mclean’s Waters of Babylon. You can check out that post here.

Well the theme of the month was rounded off with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast.

I’m going to assume that Walton needs a little more introduction than Don Mclean. Either way he was a British composer who life lasted for most of the twentieth century.

source

He wrote Belshazzar’s Feast in 1931. And it is massive. 34 minutes long with an orchestra bigger than Ben Hur including 2 harps (yah!), massed choir, baritone soloist, an organ with literally all stops out, and not 1 but 2 off stage brass bands. And just as well they were off stage as there simply wasn’t any room left on the stage.

The sound of everyone playing was HUGE. Love it!!!

C.B.Rees commented on the man and this work: ‘No man, I thought, as slim and pale as that could possibly be strong enough to write music of such savage splendour’. I think that was a compliment.

Anyhoo, it’s roughly in 3 parts- the first has the exiled Israelites bemoaning their fate by the waters of Babylon (and it’s so hard to not suddenly start singing the Boney M version here but we can conquer that catchy tune and keep going. Can’t we??)

So after all the downcast lamenting set by Walton with brilliant heaviness we finally get to meet Belshazzar. He’s not nice. Not nice at all. During a wild party he profanes the artefacts of the temple that his father King Nebuchadnezzar took from Jerusalem.

And he gets his judgement in the form of a ghostly hand that writes on a wall ‘You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’

source

And so he meets his end.

The celebrations surrounding this form the conclusion of the work.

Here it is on YouTube so grab yourself a coffee and have a listen. Check out the three sections and how it all fits the story.

PS The lyrics are taken from the Bible so have a read of Isaiah 13 and 39, Psalm 81 and 137, Revelation 18 and Daniel 5.

YouTube Faves- Harp Autopsy

How to destroy dissect a concert harp in 4'35. What can I say?- some people have all the fun.

Many thanks to Mike at harptech.com for agreeing to share this one.

It does remind me in part of a concert two friends of mine gave for the Melbourne Fringe Festival which premiered a new work for piano, sledge hammer and wire cutters. It's the only concert I've ever attended where the performers wore protective eye wear and the audience had to sit behind a screen. And yes, I'm afraid the piano died...

What's on the stand- Don Mclean's Waters of Babylon

It’s been the merry Mesopotamian month of May around here. It all began appropriately with the opening of the new Mesopotamia exhibition at the Melbourne Museum

http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/

where I was really chuffed to play alongside the very nice flautist Taryn Richards

The only request they had of us was to perform Waters of Babylon from Don Mclean’s American Pie album.

It’s actually a rather old melody written by English composer Philip Hayes who lived in the second half of the eighteenth century. This is a completely unflattering cartoon of him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Hayes_(composer)

Nice.

Anyway, this simple little tune is not to be underestimated; it works brilliantly as a round. What this means for those of you sitting the exam at the end of this blog is that you can overlap the melody at certain points and it just all fits together. If you have a listen to the YouTube clip you can hear Don Mclean overdubbing himself always with the same melodic material, nothing new introduced. 3 Blind Mice and Row, row, row your boat works the same way.

Pretty clever isn’t it?

There didn’t seem to be any sheet music out there of Don Mclean’s arrangement, so I got creative and did my own for flute and harp based on the Philip Hayes’ melody. I was pretty happy with how it turned out so once I’ve polished up the look of the score I’ll post it for your general perusal.

And where Don Mclean leaves off William Walton picks up. We’ll tuck into that in the next instalment of ‘What’s on the stand’.

P.S. If you’re in Melbourne check out the Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia exhibition at the Museum. There are artefacts dating back to 5500 BC which are completely mindblowing. There were a number of carvings of ancient harps as well, though I seemed to be the only person at the opening night who noticed that which I think says more about me than the rest of the guests…

P.P.S The music is now posted here. Enjoy!

The Huntsman and the Harpist

A warning to the faint of heart- this story involves a spider. A huntsman spider. For those of you not familiar with a huntsman here is a picture for your further edification:

 Huntsman- australianmuseum.net.au

As you can see, they are the epitome of a yucky, hairy, multiple eyed and scary legged spider. And yes, I will declare my interests here and acknowledge that I am a fully signed up member of the Harpists Society of Arachnophobes.

Now the thing with huntsmen is that they won’t hurt you. They don’t usually bite. Having said that, one did bite my mother once, though admittedly she sat on it so there were extenuating circumstances.

However they have a habit of hiding flat in all sorts of places and then once discovered move like grease lightning. This makes the whole spider squashing experience unpredictable and especially nerve wracking. For this reason alone I would rather take on a poisonous red back or white tail because generally all they do is sit there and wait to get squashed.

Red back- museumvictoria.com.au

On one sunny and otherwise perfect autumnal day I was making my way out to the Yarra Valley for a wedding. I love going out to that part of the world and was happily soaking up the pastoral atmosphere of gourmet eateries and award winning vineyards. My destination lay down an unmade road, reasonably common to the area, so I bumped my way along the dirt and stones without much ado.

Unfortunately, just short of the venue, a large and rather active huntsman climbed out of the casing surrounding the driver’s side wing mirror. Obviously disturbed by the rough ride it then proceeded to scurry around the outside of the car looking for another hiding spot. This was, as you might imagine, a little distracting, even though I knew full well the wretched thing was on the outside of the car.

As I pulled up outside the wedding chapel it was spread eagled on the driver’s side window. Right next to my face. When the car stopped, it decided to stop too. And so began the impasse. There was no way I was opening the door and getting out of the car while that speedy spider lay waiting on the outside. It almost goes without saying that its full and obvious intent was to physically attack me as soon as an opportunity presented itself. And my full and obvious intent was to attack it. Preferably with a weapon sporting some kind of nuclear capacity.

And so we sat there. And sat there.

Time was ticking on. I really should have been unloading the harp at that stage in preparation for the nuptials to come. But there was no way I was getting out of the car. Not while that thing remained on the outside.

In desperation I started the engine again and began to drive around a little more on the gravel in an attempt to somehow shake the beast off. But instead it climbed onto the windscreen. ‘Aha!’ I thought and switched on the wipers, thinking it would be flicked off into the wide blue horizon. But no. It was simply shunted along a bit, and then ran back to the driver’s side door. And this time disappeared below the window.

Now I was truly stuck. I knew it was out there but I had no idea where. And it was unmistakably time to be getting set up for the wedding.

I pulled up again outside the chapel and screwed my courage to the sticking place. I also banged loudly on the inside of the door which I ‘m sure did something though I’m not sure what. And finally there was nothing for it.

I opened the door.

I looked very carefully all around the trim of the door which is just the sort of place a huntsman likes to hide. I made especially certain it wasn’t going to be above my head and drop down onto me as I exited. With breath held and heartbeat racing I got out of the car. I slowly stood up. Something tickled the top of my head. And I will admit it. I squealed.

It was an overhanging branch from a tree.

There was no sign of the huntsman. I looked all over the outside of the car. I bent down and looked under the car. I smiled at the groom who was wondering what this strange squealing woman was doing at his wedding. I couldn’t see the spider. And to this day I haven’t found it. But I still feel its lurking presence waiting to leap out at me when the time is right. And this I do not like. I do not like at all.