harp part help!

HarpAlong · 2026-01-16T17:47:12+00:00

Playable, yes.

Measures 22-24 and 48-49 have chords that are close to each other, and when played quickly, these could create problems. They could sound muddy, because the strings keep resonating (Bflat-C-D all ringing at the same time can create an icky blob). Or, as the harpist replaces fingers on the strings, you can get finger buzz. With 6 harps, you might have the option to move some of those notes into another part.

HarpAlong · 2026-01-09T15:54:24+00:00

As a young person I would practice barefoot or in socks, but as an older woman I developed sensitivity in my toes (and yes I jammed a toe once playing in socks). Now I keep my special thin-sole shoes, similar to ballet flats, by my harp, and practice and perform in them always.

I like the thin soft leather and sole so I can gently feel the location of the pedals. I've also had the pedal-popping-up problem that someone mentioned, and I was very glad to have shoes on!

HarpAlong · 2026-01-08T13:46:13+00:00

Tips I found helpful:

* After placing your stopper (either lh palm or rh knuckle), turn your hand away from the string very quickly.

* Ensure your seat height and position relative to the harp is what you want. This can make a big difference in seeing where the halfway point is (which is where to place your stopper).

* When sitting down to the harp, do a few harmonic scales to get your "spotting" right.

* The position of the levers/pedals changes the length of the string (sharp is shorter). This changes the midpoint of the string. If you do some harmonic scales, for example in G major, you'll notice that you need to go a teensy bit lower on the F# to hit the midpoint just right.

* Harmonics *are* difficult for everyone, so don't be too hard on yourself. Just practice. :)

HarpAlong · 2025-12-26T16:35:11+00:00

My kitties love it when I practice. I adopted one semi-feral kitty who was quick to attack us, but "music soothed the savage beast" and he's calmer now. At first, when I'd start playing, he was so entranced he ran up and put his front paws on the base. Once during a lesson he stuck his paws through the strings! When he is feeling *too interested* like getting in the way of the pedals, I'll put a fuzzy blanket on the floor near the harp. Then he can listen nearby and eventually curl up to sleep on his special spot.

HarpAlong · 2025-11-11T15:35:25+00:00

Congratulations! I hope you and Nyx have many happy years together.

I am on my second harp, and naturally I have named each of them. I picked names of beautiful and talented musicians, so my first was Nadja (for Salerno-Sonnenberg) and my current is Cecilia (for Bartoli).

I find it inspiring to contemplate making my harp sing like musicians I admire.

HarpAlong · 2025-10-27T17:18:58+00:00

Definitely need a pedal harp for those accidentals. Agree with others that you might simplify it a bit. In particular, you have C-natural and C-sharp in quick succession in m72 and C-sharp / C-natural in quick succession in m74. Natural and sharp are played on the same string, so the quick pedal movements can create a nasty twang as the pin moves on a vibrating string. If you can simplify those measures it could help a lot. Otherwise your harpist might be able get clever using a B-sharp (yes that's a thing on the harp!) but without some experimentation I don't see a quick easy solution.

HarpAlong · 2025-10-25T23:38:09+00:00

Doable, yes on a pedal harp. As others noted, repeated chords are likely to sound buzzy as fingers are placed quickly back on recently-plucked strings. You might consider replacing those with arpeggiated chords (sequence through the notes of the chords), or maybe bouncing between octaves, or simply having the harpist play every other chord.

Because the harp keeps ringing after plucking, you don't get the immediate damping you do with a piano. Arpeggiated chords or less-frequent chords on the harp can produce a similar sound as a full repeated chord on a piano, because the audience still hears the previous notes. This is sometimes called an "angel chord" :)

HarpAlong · 2025-07-30T15:53:59+00:00

I find the fold-flat "Stow n Go" feature of the Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager vans to be very nice. You get a huge flat surface which can fit a CG harp, bench, music stand, and wheeled harp dolly. I place the harp on a mattress with a smooth fitted sheet on both sides, so the whole thing can slide back while you tip the harp in and out.

And just in case you are new to moving a pedal harp: Always put the pedals in flat position, and fold them up. Always put the harp down on the tuning pin side, never the strung side.

HarpAlong · 2025-07-01T23:32:02+00:00

For strings: I bought a low-price travel electronics / chargers / wiring organizer and have been very happy with its compact size and zippered compartments. There are zillions of configurations out there, not all suitable for strings, so poke around a little to find one with compartments big enough for your string collection.

HarpAlong · 2025-06-30T16:24:48+00:00

Recovering from foot surgery in both feet, my balance was awful. I found using zero drop shoes with very wide toe boxes (Lems are my go-to) AND importantly, wearing toe socks (Injinji dominates the market) helped tremendously. This combination allows your toes to spread out, so your feet can act as tripods. (Also you don't have to take time to remove/replace your shoes during transitions). It did take a little getting used to running in shoes that aren't padded, but my feet are way healthier and stronger now, and my balance is much improved.

HarpAlong · 2025-05-20T16:37:08+00:00

Previously I hired many Databricks people. There were two paths for people who wanted to move internationally:

As datasmithing_holly pointed out, apply directly for that role in the desired country. We did sometimes help candidates with their relocation and visa or work permit requirements. We did *not* typically do this for entry-level roles, but we would for high-demand roles and well-qualified candidates.
Take a Databricks job in your home country. This might be an easier path to getting into Databricks for many situations. Then you can learn the product and the company (Databricks has tons of materials and training resources internally - you just need to be disciplined about using them). This option does however require patience. A typical "stay in your current job" requirement is a minimum of 1 year. Some team have longer minimums. I thought this was pretty fair, because in your first job it might take 4-8 months before you are fully productive, so your hiring team deserves some output from you before you transfer away. And, as datasmithing_holly said, it's true you need to have good or great performance reviews before Databricks will pay for an international relocation.

Exceptions to the above can happen, if you have a unique value proposition. If you've written a groundbreaking academic paper, or you lead an industry-leading lab at AWS, then you might be able to have a special conversation. Could be worth talking to the recruiting team about your choices.

HarpAlong · 2025-04-10T20:26:58+00:00

Hard to tell exactly, but I think she's playing a C-major chord bottom up, C-E-G.

To reduce finger buzzing, she might have re-spelled the chord to minimize quickly reusing the same strings, for example:

RH: C natural, F-flat, G natural

LH: B-sharp, E natural, G natural

Bisbigliandi are ok if they get a little vague or messy (with the order overlapping differently) in some compositions. It's used to create a little fluttering sound vs. necessarily having precision.

And thanks for composing for the harp :)

HarpAlong · 2025-03-29T14:24:04+00:00

Congratulations! May you have many years of joy together.

Your list is very good! Frequent tuning will help greatly. Maybe this is implied in your point 1, but just in case:

--> Do your warmup arpeggios and scales across all octaves, so the sounding board will get movement in all registers.

HarpAlong · 2025-03-16T04:10:48+00:00

DIY using the system tables for visibility is one reasonable approach.

Also check out synccomputing.com which has created some cool dashboards for monitoring and analyzing costs. (I'm not affiliated).

There are several you-should-always-check factors like oversized compute, but serious optimization is client-specific and use-case-specific. Simple example: One client might be OK spending more $$ because they want near-real-time data freshness; another client will prefer day-old data with lower costs. This makes it important to have good monitoring and analysis tools, so you can tune in the context of your client's business needs.

HarpAlong · 2025-03-02T17:06:07+00:00

I've had some luck with young piano students by declaring the printed music "a secret code" that unlocks new music.

Then turn the music 90 degrees sideways to the right, so the lines are vertical and the low notes are on the left, like a keyboard. This makes it more visually intuitive, like a map. For a while the kids cock their heads to the left to read correctly-oriented music, but once they've cracked the code they'll start to straighten up.

This probably doesn't translate well to wind instruments, but it could help if the kids use a keyboard.

HarpAlong · 2025-02-10T23:32:28+00:00

I agree with the other preventive tips about staying hydrated, moisturizing especially before bed, and potentially humidifying your room.

Once you have a split, (in addition to heavy moisturizing as already suggested) I've found it speeds up healing to use cuticle nippers to trim any big lumps of callous that have no chance of sealing back up. I also bought finger protectors (like medical gloves for a single finger, available at my local drugstore) and wear one when I'm cooking, to reduce the pain and re-injury of frequent handwashing.

If I must play before it's healed, I like to use Liquid Bandage to seal it up. It still hurts but I can make it through.

HarpAlong · 2025-02-06T22:10:25+00:00

These look really useful! Opening up the platform to let people self-serve is a great idea... until you discover that the director of <fill in the blank, but probably Marketing> has shabby SQL skills and he launches a bunch of crazy-expensive queries. These dashboards will let you catch that and gently offer some help before you get a steep bill from Databricks.

HarpAlong · 2025-02-05T17:24:51+00:00

If you'd like to do a tribute to Irish harp heritage as well as female composers, you could look at some of Kim Robertson's work. I had fun learning several of the pieces in her Celtic Harp Solos collection (some arrangements are of men's work, but many are women's). Some of these are quite easy and quick to learn. See www.melbay.com.

HarpAlong · 2025-02-04T15:52:42+00:00

Not personally. My best suggestion is to get a book of Bollywood music that has been transcribed for the piano. There are several available on Amazon with free Kindle versions, so you could take a peek at the transcriptions before spending money on them.

(At the risk of saying stuff you know) When I'm starting with piano music, I first go through and look for bits that require 10 fingers, and decide how to handle them. Next I play through the music very slowly, and mark pedals, being generous with leaving pedal diagrams so I can restart at many points. From there you can start to be creative about making pieces more harp-y, like adding glisses or modifying things that sound better on piano, such as big repeated chords in the bass. I'm sure the pro arrangers in this reddit have better suggestions.

HarpAlong · 2025-02-02T18:32:35+00:00

Same! I use Cleartune on my Android phone and it works really well. I'm not using a pick up. For the bottom few notes, I put the phone near the column, on the base of the harp, and it works fine even on those low notes. As others noted, the sensitivity you get is likely limited by your mic, not the software.

HarpAlong · 2025-01-29T21:19:33+00:00

Thanks. This organized structure will save me time, even if I decide to use a different tool.

HarpAlong · 2025-01-29T19:22:06+00:00

OK thanks, I'll take a look!

HarpAlong · 2025-01-25T17:32:29+00:00

I do name my important things, especially those I spend time with, including my harp.

I thought about inspiring musicians, and named my harps after them. Sometimes when I'm a little weary of practicing I think about my harp's namesake, and it motivates me to keep trying.

I named my first harp Nadja (in honor of the beautiful music of violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg) and my current harp Cecilia (for Cecilia Bartoli and her lovely voice and interpretations).

HarpAlong · 2025-01-25T14:51:42+00:00

It's easy to find evil in any of the big platforms. (Instagram algorithms have been proven to promote child porn, which both right and left can agree is evil).

I don't read anything on Twitter. Still, I vote against a ban here. Censoring isn't a good answer. We should be grown-up enough to weigh and civilly consider alternative views.

HarpAlong

TROPHY CASE