Two years ago my eldest daughter Laura insisted that it had to be the harp she wanted to play out of all the orchestral instruments offered by the music school. Quite a high proportion of ladies play brass in the Basel and Baselbiet, I think this is mainly due to the link with Fasnacht, and the Gugge bands which are pretty much all brass; trumpets, euphonuims, cornets and trombones. I remember the day Laura went to the open day. Hoping that she would change her mind about the harp when we got there, her face said it all. She had chosen cello as her 2nd choice if it was not possible to get a harp lesson space organized. She tried out the cello, and sat apathetically stroking the bow back and forth. When she plucked a few strings on the harp, her face lit up. I think even at an early age, connection and will to learn an instrument is important. I am not sure whether despite the best intentions of my grandmother, that my sister, Emma ever had that connection with the piano. All I remember is her frustration at having to learn eternal scales and at the peak of frustration, slamming both her arms and elbows flat onto the old ivory keys of our upright piano creating an awful noise. This was our signal, she had had enough. She always remembers the teacher constantly saying ,’feel the weight, feel the weight’ and her spindly fingers dug into her shoulder. After a while I think everyone realized that Emma was not going to become a concert pianist!
Laura has completed two years of playing, and her progress has been quite surprising. She is too young to realize the relationship between effort in = progress made. However, hopefully in a few years time that may come if she is still playing. Our return to the UK has meant that we now need to find a new teacher, and a new harp, as we rented a fairly bashed up Aoyama lever harp bought off Ebay by our 1st teacher in Switzerland for the princely sum of 1000CHF, about 800GBP. It had fallen over, and had a number of vertical cracks running into the soundboard. However, it was cheap to rent as a first instrument, and saved us 30CHF a month for 2 years rather than renting an equivalent from Musik Hug in Basel. Before moving back, I explored the various alternatives, and found a family firm which are based in Lechlade, and have been connected with harp making since the turn of the century. We met the knowledgeable owner, Clive Morley, at the weekend. We walked away with a sturdy Hempson 34 string lever harp: http://www.morleyharps.co.uk/acatalog/info_00hempsonnypl.html . It’s heavy, and I will have to take it into school every week for orchestra. Thankfully, we have a big enough car boot in Steve’s Audi A6 with some of the seats flat in the back. Compared with our bashed up old harp, our new one sounds great. We could have spent more, a lot more, however, we want to give ourselves enough to save for a pedal harp if that has to happen. We also found out about a great scheme called the Assisted Instrument Purchase Scheme, which allows you to order your instrument though your school, and they claim the VAT back on your behalf. We pay VAT free, which will hopefully save us about 300GBP! Thanks also to my grandfather and my mum who are both supporting the purchase of the harp for Laura. Harp does sound lovely, it’s a calming instrument, but it is a pain to move, and there is a lot of tuning to do, and even more when you add on the octaves to a 45 string concert harp!
After visiting the harp workshop, Laura said, ‘this is my heaven, a room full of harps!’. They had 2 rooms, one with lever and one with pedal and concert harps. We will have to see where our UK harp journey takes us, but Laura is keen to involve herself in the school orchestra, and this is a real mix of abilities. Meanwhile, Alice has her eyes on piano, another nice small, cheap instrument too ;-), well let’s hope we don’t have both arms crashing down on the keyboard….
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