Notes of a Nervous Harpist

More on Harps of Note

Here's another luthier innovator. Andrew Thom of Australia. His harps are leather covered welded aluminum alloy monocoque. ...I have no idea, before you ask, what that last word means. Read about it here. The engineering is very thoughtful. He says the harp will bounce long before it will break. And that you can get any welder or metal worker to fix the harp. I would like to see that scene in an American metalworking shop. Hey, Bubba, drop that ol' trailer hitch. I got a harp here needs fixin.'

His harps are certainly colorful - he uses automotive paints - and the designs are fantastical. I haven't heard these, either, but I would love to!

Thanksgiving Miracle!!!

I can't remember if I've written about why this blog is called "Notes of a Nervous Harpist." If so, I'll recap: Last Christmas, after about three decades of performance of one kind or another - voice, piano, speech - and a successful year 2002 Christmas harp concert, I developed a crippling case of performance anxiety. Faced with my harp and a large audience, my hands sweated so much I could barely keep them on the strings. My mind was blank. I fared a bit better on pieces I had completely memorized, because muscle memory can take you a short way, but my left hand, which is my "weak" hand, began to tremor slightly while performing and by January I could no longer use it because it shook uncontrollably in performance.

The worst moment was a wedding in January when I had to put my badly shaking left hand down and play only the melody of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." When I got home, I sat down again at the harp and played the piece through flawlessly, both hands flying. After that, I did not touch the harp again for two or three months. Through the summer I played my harp periodically, but not often enough to keep my callouses in place.

Then a couple of months ago my holiday harp duet partner, Carla, insisted we prepare Christmas pieces. We've been working on them, me with much less enthusiasm than last year, I'm afraid. Three weeks ago she said we needed to prepare a Thanksgiving piece, too. So, zombie-like and unable to comprehend why I was even doing this, I watched almost helplessly as Carla picked a simple arrangement of "We Gather Together" and we arranged it for two harps for the offertory at this morning's service at her very large church in Dallas. A church, I might add, that has a wonderful pipe organ played by a music Ph.D., multiple choirs, handbells, opera singers, and many talented musicians.

Sheer folly!

I did make one change that I hoped would help my anxiety. Instead of using my big concert harp, I used my small Braunwen folk harp, which at 29 strings is even smaller than Carla's 34-string folk harp. I've had it longest, it's less intimidating and probably creates less expectation on the part of the audience because it is plain and smallish. But you know I think it has the best sound of the two harps, even though it cost about 1/12th as much as the concert harp. My husband bought it for me because of its sound, which I hope you can sample here.

What happened?

I did try to keep calm, and tried to talk myself into sanity, but I tried doing this during last December and January and got nowhere with my own mental powers. We were playing the offertory, which was near the end of the first service, which is kind of sparsely attended at 8:30 a.m. Sometime during the sermon, I decided to look up "We Gather Together" in the hymnal. The churches I grew up in did not sing that hymn, and I was curious to know the lyrics (not to mention cribbing a few extra minutes going over and over the melody notes of the piece). Here is where my miracle struck me.

In the first verse of "We Gather Together" there is this phrase, "The pow'rs that oppress us now cease to distress us." I was stunned, because my performance anxiety has been a huge oppression, bearing down on me like a train that I could never outrun. I looked at that lyric phrase and sent a silent thought up to God: "I will take this as a promise."

Then we took our places at our harps, my hands only slightly moist, and played through the piece without any anxiety whatsoever. Nobody fell off their harp, nobody died, and it was a peaceful experience for harpist and listener alike.

I was overjoyed. In the second service, with a very full church (and it's a huge church), the anxiety did not return -- it "ceased to distress" me.

Now, was our performance perfect? No. Near the ending of the second performance, I became a bit giddy because I was so happy to have lived through the day, and I missed a note.

But we are not professional harpists, we're not in a symphony, and although perfection is something to be strived for, it's not a failure for me if I'm not perfect. If I was perfect, I would not need God. And if I did not have God, I would forever be Martha, Shakiest Harpist in the (South)West.

Happy Thanksgiving!

See you on Monday back in the trenches.

Beauty and the Strings

Let's take a break for a moment from politics and puppies to look at the Apollonia by Salvi Harps. Beautiful! Fifty grand! I wouldn't turn it down, even though it would make me even more nervous than my $15,000 harp!

Love For Sale

In Japan, people are renting pets by the hour. This is possibly a new revenue stream for our household accounts, which are consistently drained by hungry pooches and cats.

Media's Spin Outed in San Francisco

Another person twigs to the fact that the media is not covering the war on terrorism. They're covering an election, and trying mightily to influence the outcome. Attention, newsrooms! This was published in San Francisco, of all places:

"Stay quiet, and you'll be OK." -- Mohammad Atta, 9/11 terrorist, speaking to the passengers and crew of the airplane that was flown into the first of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Atta's admonition to the ill-fated people aboard the doomed airliner sounds as though it applies equally to the American press as it communicates to its readers. Don't ask questions, and listen calmly to us, and everything will be all right. Not!

A draft report from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was released two weeks ago, and the media declared, in near unison, that the commission found no al Qaeda connection with Iraq and 9/11. The media had already been doggedly pursuing the "Bush misled the American people" theme this year. Call me cynical, but isn't this an election year?