Dr Karen McAulay of the Books Int/Adv score/videos £10
I wrote this tune for a friend in 2013 to play at the launch of her book Our Ancient National Airs, which is her PhD work on the early Scottish song collectors such as Alexander Campbell. Karen is also the music librarian at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, a musician herself, church organist and choirmaster, and very much a person of the books. I wrote it on my wire harp and always played it on that until I went into Temple Studios to record my album, and the producer Robin Morton suggested I try it on my other harp, and it worked so much better that I always play it on this one now.
This tuition package looks at having some freedom to really focus on a tune and how you want to play it at any one time, rather than having a fixed arrangement that is repeated exactly the same every time. This is very much the traditional way to play Scottish music and I am very much a traditional musician who just happens to play harp. This is also ideal if you would like to understand more about arranging for harp and how you can use phrasing, ornamentation and chordal support to really deliver a tune well.
There are 4 videos:
- teaching the tune by ear, going over every phrase and discussing fingering (c.12mins)
- the left hand - going over the chords, and giving ideas of how to play them (c,7mins)
- play through number 1 - the tune performed twice, the first time through is very close to the written score
- play through number 2 - another take, 5 minutes later, to demonstrate what I mean about subtly altering how and when you play the grace notes and chords
You can also hear the way I recorded it on my CD in the soundcloud link in the gallery to the left or on my bandcamp page.
There are 2 PDFs - the tune and chords with a blank bass staff for your own ideas, and a scored arrangement similar to the video in the image gallery (you also get the link to the video).
Key of C, no lever changes 4/4 Air
Grace notes, rolled chords, octaves, single notes, 5ths in the bass.
