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Harp Ornamentation Workshop Series 2022

These edited excerpts from episode 6 (melodic variations) give you a flavour of this 7 part series on harp ornamentation. You can watch the series on my YouTube channel  (best to subscribe to get notifications when new material goes oline). The videos are free to view, and I hope you find them useful. If you'd like to buy me a virtual coffee to help me create these resources that would be grand, thanks!

Harp Ornamentation Video Workshops

This is the first workshop in a 7 part series of ornamentation techniques for harp by traditional musician and harper Karen Marshalsay. This hour-long workshop introduces the series with background on Karen and why ornamentation is so important to traditional playing. Then looks at cuts as well as ‘stopped style’ gestures, thumb chokes, forked chokes, short plaits and half scratches, demonstrating each technique and how to practise them in exercises and tunes.

You can download an accompanying PDF here.


Episode 2 Harp Ornamentation Series

This is the second workshop in a 7 part series of ornamentation techniques for harp by traditional musician and harper Karen Marshalsay. This hour-long workshop looks at the beat, the little finger plait, and 3 2 'dirrums' demonstrating each technique and how to practise them in exercises and tunes.

You can download an accompanying PDF here.

Episode 3 Harp Ornamentation Series

The third workshop in a 7 part series of ornamentation techniques for harp by traditional musician and harper Karen Marshalsay. This episode looks at how to play 432 triplets, aka bee's plaits, thistles, birls etc. , with examples from tunes plus an arrangement of a new tune by Karen, The Zoom Fire's Reel.

You can download an accompanying PDF here

Episode 4 Harp Ornamentation Series

The fourth episode in this series goes live on 27th May at 8pm, and features both gut and wire-strung harps. The focus is on gurglies - two handed composite decorations giving a pibrochesque feel to an arrangement.

You can download the accompanying sheet music here.

Episode 5 Harp Ornamentation Series

The fifth episode in this series, published on 10th June features both gut and wire-strung harps. The focus is on taking a tune from scratch, learning the phrases, adding ornamentation and building up an arrangement, going three times round the tune with increasingly involved decorations. There is a version taught on both gut and wire-strung harps.

You can download the accompanying sheet music PDF with full arrangements for both harps here.

Episode 6 Harp Ornamentation Series

The sixth, and penultimate, episode in this series, published on 1st July 2022, again features both gut and wire-strung harps. The focus is on creating melodic variations to tunes, using both the study exercise from episodes 1 and 2 and the Scots air Ca' the Ewes. There is a version taught on both gut and wire-strung harps.

You can download the accompanying sheet music PDF with full arrangements for both harps here.