Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment

Subject: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: Tirlan
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 01:32 PM

I'm trying to find a number of tunes which can be sung and accompanied by a celtic harp, ideally with the harp notation as well. I don;t seem to be having a lot of luck looking for harp sites, maybe the other way around may be better? I'm open to suggestions!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: Susan of DT
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 04:38 PM

You could do almost anything on the harp. Pick music you like, I think of the slow melodic Scottish and Irish songs and play it on the harp. You don't need special harp music - regular music notation should be fine. There are some harp books - I'll look on my shelf in a minute- but any music would work.

Are you aware of the various harp societies? The International Society of Folk Harpers and Craftsmen produces the Folk Harp Journal [ISFHC; 4718 Maychele Drive; Anaheim CA 92807-3040], Scottish Folk Harp Society produces The Kilt and Harp journal [Sandra Sparks; 1243 Druid Place #1; Atlanta GA 30307], The Welsh Harp Society produces Y Delyn [Karen Mueller; 838 Elgin Ave; Forest Park IL 60130]. All of these addresses are several years old.

some books:
Alison Kinnaird The Harp Key
Deborah Friou Renaissance Music
Sylvia Woods 40 O'Carolan Tunes
Taigh Na Teud Traditional Tunes for the Clarsach
but any book of Scottish, Welsh, or Irish songs should work.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 08:10 PM

I agree with Susan, you don't really need specal harp notation unless you mean for specific harp effects like glissando etc. Any piano music is fairly close. If you know how to do chords on the harp then any guitar music will work as well, but the important thing is to find music without lots of accidentals if you don't have a pedal harp - you spend more time flipping levers than playing the actual music.

I have a lot of the books from Sylvia Woods and many of them are songs with accompaniment. She has a website with an on-line catalogue.

Click here

http://www.harpcenter.com/Merchant/index.html

Also there is the harp e-mail mailing list - the easiest way to subscribe is to go to:

Click here

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/harplist

Helen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From:
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 09:21 PM

Please don't limit yourself to the slow airs. I have encountered several harpers/harpists/harpies who play the fast pieces on their harps. Corrina Hewat from Scotland as well as Maggie MacInnes (daughter of Flora MacNeil) both play the reels and jigs.

There is a young lady, whose name I can't recall, playing with the Bumblebees and I'm sure she's playing fast tunes more than a few times.

Here are a couple of web-sites you might want to check

Harp Net
Harp Column

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: emily rain
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 11:00 PM

when you check out Sylvia Woods' stuff, don't miss her book on arranging music for the harp. it's not hard to arrange for the harp; the fullness of the tone and the extra long resonance makes it so you don't have to play as many notes as the piano. in fact, really complex arrangements can get muddy. less is more.

when i first started singing with my harp, i picked simple folk songs (both fast and slow) from my Joan Baez records and just fiddled with the chords. mix up blocked chords with "figured" chords (where you play the notes individually instead of simultaneously), leave out the third sometimes to make "open" chords, and you'll have something very passable. easy as pie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From:
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 11:15 PM

There is also the harp mailing list, which you should be able to check out at Harp Mailing List

Here is a web-site for Taigh na Teud. Literally, that means House of Strings

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From:
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 11:18 PM

Try again! Sorry

Taigh na Teud.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From:
Date: 14 Jan 00 - 11:41 PM

From what I can gather, "period wise", mostly chords were used on the harp to accompany voice; use them after the vocal phrase, or just barely before; I have seldom heard anybody actually play the melody at the same time they are singing it.If you are doing a ballad, use minors, and discords to "highlight" the vocal, and "pre-sage" the story. Listen to Ann(e) Heyman......she does REALLY fast stuff on a Welsh triple strung, and some vocals on a double strung..........beyond me. I just sort of fake around the chords if I want to sing, I can't think about that many things at once.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: black walnut
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 05:36 PM

i don't know how long you've been playing the harp, tirlan, but i think that finding a songbook with simple guitar chords is a great way to start to improvise accompaniments. it's a good idea, like emily said above, to keep things unmuddied, and let the harp resonate. for example, keeping the 3rd out of the left hand much of the time helps to keep things clean. when working up a song with many verses, it can help to write out a simple chord pattern for a verse, then basically repeat the pattern, but substitute certain chords on occasion, in the following verses. one can vary the pattern by incorporating different rhythm patterns as well. it doesn't have to be really fancy...the words should have the priority, at any rate, in my opinion. i'm quite a new harper, myself, but these ideas have worked well for me. ~black walnut

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: Helen
Date: 15 Jan 00 - 09:18 PM

George,

The harp mailing list has moved over to Onelist now, so the blue clicky thing I gave is the latest address.

I agree about keeping it simple, als I agree about checking out sylvia Woods' book on arranging for folk harp.

Tirlan, it might help if you were more specific about the types of songs you are interested in, and also to let us know if you are just starting out on the harp or how far you have advanced on it.

Helen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From: CE Morgan
Date: 16 Jan 00 - 02:03 PM

I just ordered a book called "Three Ravens and Other Ballads", which is written specifically with accompaniment by lap harp. Sorry I don't know the publisher, I ordered it from Harp and Roses in B.C.

I quite agree with the earlier "less is more" comment. Especially if you are singing older songs, leaving out the third is modally accurate and also gives you a nice, clean sound. I do use full arpeggios for variety, though, at whatever line of the melody I want to have more dramatic impact.

Cindy Ellen Morgan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyrics with harp accompaniment
From:
Date: 16 Jan 00 - 02:16 PM

Thanks, Cindy. That was the only site I could find for it. It looked suspiciously like it had moved.