Today I had my first harp lessons!! It was very exciting for me because I have wanted to learn how to play the harp ever since I was a little girl. I still remember the exact moment I fell in love with the instrument. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember going to my grandpa’s house (The Clark House) and in the living room, right next to the dining room, there was (and possibly still is) a picture of a golden angel (or a woman) playing a golden harp (I think it may have been an Irish harp, because it was quite small, but I’m not sure). That picture was sooo beautiful to me. The way the woman’s hands touched the harp strings, stroking them so delicately, there seemed to be a beautiful art to it. The instrument itself was gorgeous, only a golden outline of a harp, but to me it was still so beautiful. I imagined what the instrument must sound like, particularly coming from the hands of that woman, so delicately playing it. I loved that painting, and very much wanted to learn how to play the harp myself!
When I was about seven, my mom signed me up for piano lessons without asking me if I wanted to learn to play, and before she knew about my desires to study the harp. I took piano lessons for a couple of years before I told her that I wanted to learn how to play the harp. Why I took so long to tell her this I can’t exactly remember. When I told her she was surprised, and then said that no one in the area taught the harp. I was very disappointed, and continued to play the piano, which I did get some joy from admittedly, but never gave up on my dream to learn how to play the harp.
As the years went on, I got better and better at the piano, and while I did get joy from it, I never felt any of the passion that some of my other friends felt from playing it. When I had played the piano for enough years that I should’ve been able to be able to sit down and play just about anything I couldn’t. At least, not with the passion and excitement and expression that some of my other friends could. I never really felt the desire to. I remember sometimes listening to my friend Bryant talk about his love for the violin and what joy that instrument brought to him, and the love he had for it. It was fun listening to him, and feel his excitement, but sometimes I wondered why I too couldn’t feel that love for my instrument. This is not to say that I didn’t get enjoyment from playing at times, and I did sometimes just sit down and play for fun, and I am glad that I learned how to play it as knowing how to play the piano is a valuable skill in many areas (besides just for church). I competed with the piano at a Junior Miss pageant and performed very well in front of an audience of at least 1,000 or more people. But I still never felt the passion for the instrument.
I remember getting online and looking for harp teachers in Idaho when I was 15-17 years old. I did this every once in awhile, just to see if any of them had moved up North. They were all in Southern Idaho. No one did, so when I moved down to Provo for BYU when I was 18, almost 19, I went to that website again, and looked up harp teachers in Utah. There were plenty!! And four lived in the Provo/Orem area!! I sent emails to all of them, asking how much they would charge for lessons, and what I needed to do to take lessons for them. One lady was particularly helpful to me. She replied: “Hi Kristen! I would be happy to teach you how to play the harp in my own home! However, I’m also a harp teacher at BYU, and since you are attending school there, I think it would be wise for you to use BYU as a means for your harp lessons. The question that arises from learning how to play the harp is, where are you going to practice? If you’re taking lessons through BYU you will have access to their practice harps. Let me know how else I can help you!” She then added how much it would cost to take lessons from her (about $400/semester).
Close to that same day I had run across a BYU students blog in which this student talked about how excited she was to be taking harp lessons at BYU! I left a comment on it, briefly explaining my desire to learn how to play, and asked her to please email me more information. A few days after the above harp teacher emailed me, this girl emailed me too, and told me the class was Music 160R-Harp.
A few days later my roommates and I were invited to eat dinner at a boy’s dorm, and one of the boys said he was taking harp lessons and that he was really enjoying it. I immediately jumped all over that.
“Seriously?” I asked him.
“Yep!”
“Do you have to audition to get into the class? Or can you be a brand new beginner?”
“You don’t have to audition. They’ll take anyone from beginners to experts. You just sign up online. Music 160R-Harp.”
So that settled it. I went home, found the course, and put it in the Winter 2009 box to sign up for that upcoming semester.
A couple months later my roommates and I went to Brittany and Brooke’s home in Sandy for something…possibly General Conference? Or just to get away, I can’t quite remember. But during those couple of days there, Brittany told me that her aunt wanted her to watch her boys for about an hour, and that her aunt had a harp! She asked me if I wanted to come with her and see it? This was okay with her aunt. I immediately replied yes, and slipped on my shoes, and was ready to leave at once! Brittany was excited for me, and we left about ten minutes later.
When we got to her aunt’s house, her aunt greeted me happily and uncovered the harp in her living room. It was so beautiful!! I looked at it with pure delight!
“Have you ever touched one?” the aunt asked me.
I shook my head.
“Well, today is that day then! Come over here and sit on the bench!”
I went over and sat on the bench behind the harp. It was so big! I’d never been so close to one before!
“Now lean it back and balance it on your shoulder between your knees.”
I reached out and touched the instrument, and did exactly as she told me to.
“Perfect!” she exclaimed. “Now, do you play any other instruments?”
“Yes, the piano.”
“Oh excellent! The harp is very similar to the piano.” She pulled out some easy sheet music and placed it on the easel next to the harp. She then pointed out the strings to me.
“C’s are red strings and F are black strings. The notes are in exactly the same order. ABCDEFG. The red and black strings just help you to find your place. Here is middle C,” she continued, touching one of the shorter red strings. “When you play the harp, there’s a certain way you want to pluck the strings too. Go ahead and pluck some of them.”
I plucked middle C and as I did so and listened to the music that came from it, pure excitement ran up my spine. I plucked other strings, always in an out and away motion, and did a couple of glissandos as well.
“You’re a natural,” she told me. “You plucked them perfectly. Try some songs.”
I looked at the sheet music, which was some Hymns made easy, and played the right hand of a song.
Although I was slow going, trying to make sure I plucked the right strings, I was still able to play it, and I heard the melody as I played (meaning, I was playing it fast enough, even if it wasn’t quite the tempo the sheet asked for). I was so excited! I was playing the harp! Not just messing around on it, but actually playing a song!!
After I finished, Brittany’s aunt quickly told me about the pedals, and wow are they different from the piano! Each note has its own pedal, and you use the pedals when you want to make a note sharp or flat. They’re in a strange order too. It was confusing, but I got the jist of it. Brittany’s aunt then left and I played songs on the harp for awhile, just with my right index finger plucking the strings. I didn’t know how fingering worked on the harp. I was just thrilled to be playing it, and to be able to read the music for it! As I continued to play, I realized I was feeling something that I hadn’t felt while playing the piano—passion.
When Brittany’s aunt came back, she asked me if I wanted to hear something really pretty? I said definitely, and she pulled out some more advanced sheet music, and played “Have I told you Lately?” by Rod Stewart, which I absolutely loved! I had never heard it before on the harp, and it was sooo beautiful! The way the aunt’s hands seemed to just glide over the harp, and the way she plucked the strings with such precision was beautiful too, and I was reminded of the painting in my grandpa’s house, and the art of playing the instrument. I loved it. She played one more song for me, another love song I think, and then told me of how she often played at weddings. She said the harp is an expensive hobby, but well worth it if you love it, and plus, it was nice to make some money every once in awhile at weddings, and perform occasionally at church, although she did warn me it takes some effort to move a harp from place to place.
I played at her house on one other occasion and loved it again. I couldn’t wait for Winter 2009!
When my turn came to register for Winter classes however, all the spots for the Music 160R-Harp class had filled up! I checked back almost every day to see if someone had given up their spot, but to no luck. And the class couldn’t be added after the first day of classes, so I thought there was no chance of me going to the teacher with an add/drop card. So, I decided to just wait another semester. The class had a $380 fee anyways, and waiting a semester would give me a chance to make sure I really had the money to take it.
So, when the time came for me to sign up for classes for Fall 2009, the first class I went to was the Harp class. There were two spots left when my turn came, and I signed up for one. I was so excited!!
These last two months I paid the class fee, filled out an information sheet, went to an informational meeting, emailed the coordinator for the class several times in my anxiousness to get started (and, also, she was taking a long time to get everything set up, and I really just wanted to get started ASAP!), learned my teacher’s name, Annie, emailed her, she emailed me back, and then this morning she called me while I was asleep to set up a lesson time. I called her back, and we set up a time for 3:00 today!! She asked if it would be okay if we did the lesson at her house for today, and that we could arrange something else later if I wanted. So I got her address, and arrived at her house at about 2:55.
Annie opened the door and was very happy to see me. She seemed as about excited to teach me as I was to learn! We walked over to the harp, and she asked me questions about my music background, some that she had obviously gotten from reading my information sheet.
“So you’re brand-new to the harp then, right?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“But you play the piano, correct?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you played for?”
“I took lessons for about ten years, but I’ve played for about two more years. So twelve years.”
“Oh wow. So you’re really good then?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
She laughed. “No need to be modest. If you’re really good, it’s okay to admit it. I play the piano too.”
“Oh you do?” And then I noticed a piano sitting right next to the harp.
“Yes. I’m a harp major over at BYU though. I’ve only played the harp for about six years, but I love it!”
“Six years? Wow! And you’re already teaching?”
“I had one of the best harp teachers probably in the world. Seriously, people fly in to take lessons from her, and I was just fortunate enough to live about an hour and a half away from her. She actually wrote the book that I want you to buy—I do want you to buy some music. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Oh no, not at all.”
“Okay great. Yeah, so, I want you to buy this book: ‘Harp Olympics. Stage 1’ by Susan McDonald and Linda Wood Rollo. Linda was my teacher, and she is seriously amazing, and has written many books for the harp. This book is incredible too.”
I looked at the cover and saw a teddy bear holding a balloon on it.
“They’re a bit juvenile,” she said apologetically, “but that’s just because they’re written for students much younger, because most students start when they’re younger. But no worries, I had to suffer through it too. Remember I only started playing six years ago. However, this book is amazing and explains everything you need to know about the harp in it, including technique, how to replace a harp string, how to tune your harp—everything! Plus it has some great exercises in it. So, just ignore the bears, and you’ll be fine.”
I laughed and I would do that.
“Plus, with your piano background, I think you’ll get through this book within twelve weeks. I also want you to get Suzuki Book One, for harp obviously. Although the Olympic book has some great stuff in it, Suzuki just has some better-known stuff. I’ve never used Suzuki before in my lessons, but I’m excited to try it.”
“Okay,” I told her.
She then asked me how much I knew about the harp, and I told her about playing it informally with Brittany’s aunt and that I knew a little bit about it. Annie listened, and then reminded me of the different colored strings (which I had actually forgotten), the pedals (which she said are actually amazing, despite how confusing they can be at first), the balancing of the harp on your shoulder, and other things as well.
Then we moved onto something Brittany’s aunt hadn’t shown me, and that was fingering. Annie told me that the fingering on the harp would not feel natural to me, but told me to just have some patience with it.
“With the piano, it’s fairly easy because you have gravity helping you. With the harp however, you actually build some muscle.” She then showed me in midair the position I would place my fingers in on the harp. I tried to mimic her, but failed.
“Hmm…all right, let’s try this,” she said, still smiling. “I always forget how hard this is for new students. Make a thumbs up.”
I did.
“Now, place your thumb on the harp. Place it on this C,” she said pointing to one of the long red strings.
I did so.
“Now, place your other fingers on the other strings wherever you think they should go.”
I did, placing one finger on each string, keeping my thumb high and my other fingers well below it while still keeping that nice open C shape she had showed me between my index finger and thumb.
“That’s pretty good. Now, don’t rest your arm on the harp though. Keep it nice and up.”
I lifted my arm up, and tilted it this way and that until she told me it was good.
“Now, sometimes you might be able to rest your arm on the harp just slightly, but don’t depend on it for support. Keep it nice and up. Also, you never use your pinky when playing the harp. It just sort of relaxes next to your fourth finger.” I took my pinky off of the harp.
“Good. Now do the same with your left hand.”
I did, and she approved. The fingering really did not feel natural at all though.
Once I got the placement down, she opened the Olympics book and asked me to place me fingers on the string according to how the book was asking me to do it (just the right hand). I saw that the book wanted me to place finger 1 on F, finger 2 on E, etc.
“Um…which finger is 1?” I asked her. I remembered numbering my fingers years and years ago when I first started piano lessons, but I couldn’t remember at all which finger was which.
“Oh! Sorry. Again, I forget that new students don’t know this. Your thumb is finger 1. Index is 2, and so on.”
“Okay,” and placed my fingers accordingly, and she again helped me position them and my arm just right.
“Now pluck F.”
I did, and it sounded just fine to me. But apparently it did not to her, because she said: “Hmm…let’s do an exercise.” She placed her left hand on the harp. “Squeeze the strings together like this, 1, 2, and then pluck,” she then plucked the string and a much louder, richer tone sounded from the harp.
“Okay,” I replied. 1, 2, and I plucked it much harder.
“Better!” she said. “Try again.”
I did so, and she liked it again, and assured me it was something that just came with practice. We worked on that for awhile, moving on to finger 2 eventually, and a little bit with 4 and then finally 3. She said 3 was the hardest, because as you pluck, that finger is supposed to move back into your hand, as though you’re making a fist, and 3 is the hardest one to control, especially not to touch other strings in the process.
“Do you always pluck the strings this hard?” I asked her.
“Well, no, not always, but you always want that rich tone coming from them.” She then played one string softer, but it still had that amazing tone to it. “Do you hear that?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“It’s that tone that we’re going for.”
Throughout all of this I started feeling frustrated. This was so similar to the piano, and yet so different all at the same time! Here I was looking at notes that I knew, and could play with perfection without any problem whatsoever on the piano, and yet was struggling to play them to my teacher’s satisfaction on the harp. Although my teacher was very encouraging, I was still disappointed in myself. I had wanted to learn how to play this instrument for so long, and here was my chance, and I couldn’t even play a simple note correctly!! My teacher noticed me tensing up as I continued to play, and she had me stop, and told me to just relax. She said relaxation was important while playing the harp, and that tensing up just caused problems. She said if I ever felt tense to just drop my arms and shake them out. She also said that there was no pressure with any of this, that she didn’t care if we had to go slowly, she just wanted me to enjoy the instrument.
I realized that she was right, and that I was putting too much pressure on myself. I wanted to smack myself as I realized, “Of course I’m not going to play perfectly on the first lesson! I can’t expect to be a concert harpist on day one! Besides, this is just for fun. I’m not a harp major or anything, and though I’d like to play like one someday, I need to remember that that’ll take time.” I remembered my first piano lessons, and how frustrating those had been, but how in time I had mastered all of those songs, moved on to more advanced songs, and could now sit down and either play, or teach myself, pretty much anything.
I relaxed and continued practicing plucking the strings. At the end of the lesson, Annie answered some of my questions about the practice harps in the HFAC at BYU, and how to sign up for practice times, and then we decided that we would have my lessons at her house on Thursdays from 3:00-3:30. She then told me what she wanted me to do for practice that week. Since harpists, especially new ones, tend to develop blisters on their fingers, she said she didn’t want me practicing for more than 30 minutes a day for now, so that my fingers could get used to playing the harp strings. She told me she wanted me to practice my plucking, particularly fingers 1 and 2, and move on the 3 and 4 if I felt like I had those ones down. She said to practice the technique of holding the harp as well, back straight, balance between knees and shoulders, and my finger placement. She was going to move on to more, but decided that was enough for one lesson.
As I got ready to leave she expressed her excitement to me, and I told her I was very excited too. Annie also showed me some very soon upcoming lessons, including one in glissandos (ah, how I love those!!). She also reassured me that by the end of the semester I would be playing some pretty well-known songs, using the pedals, and playing both hands at once, and that was encouraging for me. Annie’s such a sweet girl too, and I can tell that she’s going to be a great teacher. I like that she immediately points out what I’m doing wrong, but gives me encouragement at the same time. It feels so weird starting at ground zero for an instrument again. Well, perhaps ground one because I can read the music, but still, even though the harp can in some ways be described as a vertical piano, it is also very different. I felt a bit out of my element while playing it. Even though I still love the instrument, it was a bit strange and frustrating for me. I didn’t like not knowing how to play it, when I already play another instrument so well. But, that’s just how it is. I have to start from somewhere, and of course it’s going to have to be at the beginning. I’m going to keep at this though. I really do love the harp. It is so beautiful both in looks and sound, and to master the art of playing it really would be a dream come true! My love for music in general has already grown as I listen to songs and wonder how they might sound on the harp. And even though I can’t play it perfectly yet, I’m still excited about learning how to play it, about practicing it, and for my lesson this upcoming Thursday! This is something that I’ve waited a long time for, and I plan to take it as far as I can go!
