I played piano for years like a good technician—proficient sure—but lacking soul and texture. Notes made it onto the keyboard but I couldn’t do anything without printed music to map the way. Harp has been something of an improvement because, since I don’t have the skill to shift my eyes from strings to page and back at anything other than glacial pace, I’ve had to memorize. Who’d a thought… It would be nice to believe that I’m at least doing some of that brain training for an aging mind stuff. However, this month my new (most excellent) harp teacher says it’s time to detach from the printed page. I’ve got a dandy book by Susan Raimond called Making Music for Folk Harp that comes with a CD option for play along. In the first few pages she shows you a number of standard left hand patterns and then follows that with super simple melodies to work with. The only downside to super simple is that I’ve already played a number of the pieces with complete sheet music so it’s a little odd to try and un-remember what I know. The CD ensures that you get it sound wise and provides something to play with so you don’t go nuts running melodies through your head because you can’t (would rather be caught dead than) sing aloud. Even though it’s wierd to be playing from beginner books again it’s clearly a necessity because without all those (comforting) extra notes I’m forced to come up with something, anything, to fill in the empty spaces. (And yes I know that it’s the space between the notes that makes music etc etc.) What’s craziest of all is that there’s no one listening to me– no cackling audience shaming me into submission– nothing that should be as inhibiting as it feels.
Late Onset Harpist 