Long time no post!

Since my last post I have been practising....well, if I told you *HOW MUCH* I have been practising, you wouldn't believe me. I knew it would happen...it always does at some point....I hit the panic button. Not merely that, but my finger has been depressing said panic button continually since I last blogged. Here is a brief summary of recent events, including some milestones reached, some inspiration from friends, teachers and colleagues and (wait, what's that smell....ah yes, I know it well...) FEAR.

1.
'Real life' (inc housework, correspondance, dressing in the morning before taking son to school, etc etc) has been put firmly on hold. House is nurturing some odd smells and is essentially going to ruin, garden is threatened with deforestation, emails and phonecalls are being emailed and phoned to me umpteen times due to lack of response on my part.

2. Good news, I AM making ground with my preparation for Gaudeamus, I am loving my repertoire more and more every day and am feeling more inspired than ever to be performing this wonderful music.

3. Bad news, progress report (marks out of ten) fell a little by the way side but has now been firmly reinstated. I will capture the delights of this on camera asap for your amusement. Here's a taster from 2 weeks ago:

4. I went to the Netherlands and had an inspirational weekend with Erika Waardenburg. I won't pass on any of her tips via this blog as they are priceless, but do have a price, and I thoroughly recommend to any harpist a weekend with Erika or her Summer or Spring course. All details are on her website, www.erikawaardenburg.com

I was so motivated by this weekend with Erika that even after the long journey home, I went immediately to my harp on my return and practised for 2 hours before I had to cease fire for the neighbours. This motivation is absolutely keeping me going all the way through, now. THANK YOU, Erika!

As an aside, Erika had a fun and ingenious selection of percussion instruments for me to sample...here's a taster of them:

'Bell tree', mini cymbals, beater...

'large triangle' (sort of understudy for large triangle!...aka Big Brass Bowl - well it does have a beautiful ting)

Bongos, woodblocks, beaters.


Having to ad lib with Erika's selection of instruments, instead of my utterly boring ones, was illuminating, great fun and rather liberating. It showed me that the music is far more important than having the exact selection of percussion instruments and that often the sound of an antique bell, or a big bowl, can be far more attractive and evocative than a specially bought percussion instrument. I was particularly inspired by Erika's ingenious use of a banana holder to hang bells off (photos of my copy-cat version in next post)









Between practise sessions I now find myself walking or driving along tapping out R.M. Schafer's insanely complex 13/8 rhythms on the steering wheel/umbrella/my nose whilst grinding my teeth as a rhythmical replacement of the insistent ankle bell motif....apologies to anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, all will be revealed when you hear me perform this fabulous piece! Which I did, for the first time, last night :) At least, half of it....but it's a start - a breakthrough in fact.

Here's a poster for another performance I have coming up of my whole Gaudeamus programme:

I am aware that I'm rambling on a bit, so I'll sign off now and endeavour to be back soon. However, with only a month to go til Gaudeamus, I'm using every available second to live, breathe and feel this music. That doesn't always leave time for a blog post but sometimes it's fun to be able to share a few bits and bobs with you and to draw a line under something that I may have achieved...this week, definitely Ariadne's Dance!

Til soon, thanks for reading,

Ellie