![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Music news
Jul. 13th, 2006 09:02 amOn the actual-personal-news front, Saturday was a bit of a banner day for music and performance.
My only growly bit was one of the comments from the bardic competition - and it was on my harp, not on me! The vast majority of the comments were very valid constructive criticism, which I appreciate. But one judge, commenting on my "Greensleeves" on harp, commended me for "working around the limitations of a small harp." HWAET! Dude, do NOT trash the small harp! That's like congratulating a drummer on working around the limitations of his two-toned drum. The point and purpose of the small harp and its music are different from other instruments. You don't play piano repetoire on flutes. You don't expect a bass to play like a sax. You don't want to play the same things on a 19-string harp as you do on a 31-string harp. Especially a wire harp vis-a-vis a nylon or gut-strung harp. You try all those arpeggios and broken chord patterns and they sound like mud.
My favorite rejoinder to these assumptions comes (I think) from my current harp teacher: "You just don't ask Yitzhak Perlman [a violin virtuoso] when he's going to move up to a 'real' instrument like Yo-Yo Ma's [a world-renown cellist]."
- I performed on my wire harp for about 45 minutes straight, mostly actual repetoire with some improvisations thrown in.
- I gave a dramatic reading for a bardic competition. Although two judges caught on that I hadn't practiced much, one thought that my practice "clearly showed." I had read the piece once through that morning. :)
- Our local ad hoc musical ensemble played a nice processional for court.
- Even better, when we were unexpectedly called on by the baron to "play something" during some dead air, we blinked, arranged ourselves, and played one of the pieces we hadn't even rehearsed that day.
- A brief performance at feast by the ensemble also went well. I'd picked out three pieces we were most comfortable with - it wasn't until later that I realized we'd managed to foist off an entire short program of sacred music on the audience. (Laudemus virginem from the Llibre Vermell, Cantiga 109, and Dona Nobis Pacem for the curious.)
- We played some dance music. For dancers. And the only one we (well, I) seriously bobbled was Maltese Bransle, when it got too fast. I had been very worried about the dance music, that the pressure of the dancers would make me too nervous to perform well. But I wasn't nervous at all! Maybe the wine with dinner helped.
My only growly bit was one of the comments from the bardic competition - and it was on my harp, not on me! The vast majority of the comments were very valid constructive criticism, which I appreciate. But one judge, commenting on my "Greensleeves" on harp, commended me for "working around the limitations of a small harp." HWAET! Dude, do NOT trash the small harp! That's like congratulating a drummer on working around the limitations of his two-toned drum. The point and purpose of the small harp and its music are different from other instruments. You don't play piano repetoire on flutes. You don't expect a bass to play like a sax. You don't want to play the same things on a 19-string harp as you do on a 31-string harp. Especially a wire harp vis-a-vis a nylon or gut-strung harp. You try all those arpeggios and broken chord patterns and they sound like mud.
My favorite rejoinder to these assumptions comes (I think) from my current harp teacher: "You just don't ask Yitzhak Perlman [a violin virtuoso] when he's going to move up to a 'real' instrument like Yo-Yo Ma's [a world-renown cellist]."
