Sounds and senses

Tonight I have my first performance of many pieces....Mirror by Edward Mebius, Reminiscences of Tranquillity by Yinam Leef and Tratti by Ig Henneman. My scores are still too low but I'm working so hard and trying my best - sounds obvious, but there it is!

Since my lesson the other day with Di Xiao, I have really committed myself to the interpretation of Leef's Reminiscences of Tranquillity, which is a really spiritual piece that requires a deep tranquillity to flow from within the performer. Tranquillity is not something that comes naturally to me, whilst running round like a headless chicken and feeling a bit panicky about a big competition, so finding my inner calm and allowing this music to flow through me has been immensely theraputic and beneficial to the rest of my practise, as well as my mental well-being!

I have also taken a lot from Di's inspiring advice on 'Mirror' by Edward Mebius, one of my two Dutch pieces. This piece is like a miniature play about a relationship that shifts through phases of peace, conflict and emotional numbness. It can quickly shift about ten gears and go from crystalline single harmonics...to rapid virtuosic feats where the hands seem to be trying to conquer opposing technical mountains!..and back to static, steady, semiquaver numbness. It's a really unusual piece. My son designs objects on Lego Digital Designer on the net, where you can build a model on the screen, watch it explode in 3D and then watch the pieces rebuild to form the model again. Mirror reminds me of this, in structure and meaning.

I have been emailing with Ig Henneman - the only female composer on my programme - about 'Tratti'. I should mention that I have a lot of music by female composers and I love playing music from the woman's point of view. However, when I was constructing my programme, there were certain pieces I had to include - for the requirements and for my personal passions about them - so it was a case of trying lots and lots of other pieces and finding the greatest possible variety of styles and expressions.

I am enjoying playing 'Tratti' for myself, and will find out in a mini preview of my programme for a few friends tonight, what it is like to perform it! 'Tratti' is Italian for 'features' and this piece has incredibly controlled, distinctive features - there is no room for interpretation here, I have to do exactly what the composer says!

Anyway, my practise beckons again, I was just taking a tiny break, and so back I go....

Ellie

Less than a month to go...things are hotting up!

I'm getting excited now about performing all this music. Just a few things to share with you today:

1. As promised, the scores so far:

I think there's now nothing lower than a 4, but obviously still a LOT more work to be done!

My new pride and joy, big orchestral bell tree:
and the new banana tree with three small 'bells' hanging from it.

My new ankle bells (vintage Indian dancing bells...they're already shedding bells left, right and centre and I shall need to get my needle and thread out very soon!)

 

Poster for first preview performance...only a week away now!

and last but certainly not least, a beautiful example of Practise Fuel, created by my lovely boyfriend Alex. 

PIE!

Coming up this week.....

Lots of practise

Lessons with Di Xiao and Alan Thomas, contemporary guitar hero who WON the Gaudeamus competition many years ago!I am so excited about these lessons :)

Also , a 4 Girls 4 Harps concert in Broxbourne on Wednesday 16th March (Hertfordshire, I think)

Bye for now!

Ellie

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

Lesson with Di Xiao, recording with Tommy and chicken pox strings!

Hello!

It's been another eventful fortnight of not enough practise, not enough sleep and....a puncture for my ill-fated car! Due to computer issues I've not been able to upload my latest practise schedule 'marks out of ten' but I promise to give you a full report at the end of THIS week (not long now!) when I'll be heading off to Holland for some lessons with the wonderful Erika Waardenburg!

The first important thing to report is a brilliant lesson I had with Di Xiao (Didi), a wonderful musician who I met at one of my concerts last year. I am so blessed that Didi came to hear me, with her husband Adrian, and introduced herself to me afterwards. I thought she was lovely (which she is!!) but had no idea of her immense talent and world-class status until I checked out her website, ordered her debut CD and then played it from start to finish, without being able to switch it off for a second. Of course, she's also incredible live in concert, but I was particularly impressed that even on a CD recording her charisma, immaculate phrasing and crystal clear tone shone out with such vibrance, when so often a recording is a poor substitute for the real thing.

To cut a long story short, Didi agreed to give me a lesson and it was a total inspiration. After hearing me play Tommy's 'Shades of Grief' only once, and it being absolutely new to her, Didi got an instant impression of the shape of the work, pointing out structural markers and phrasing that I had missed after two years of studying the piece. Particularly valuable to me was Didi's advice on staying physically still at a very transfixing moment of the piece - very high on the harp an eerie but beautiful version of the lament sounds - a sort of lullaby with slightly sinister harmonies. I had been overcomplicating a simple, melodic line (typical of me, I'm ashamed to say) and Didi showed me I could express it more plainly and clearly to the audience through a simple delivery, with no physical gestures or making it over-emotional when Tommy's music alone was so perfect and beautiful. Didi politely and subtly suggested (she could never be overtly critical!!) that I was doing the musical equivalent of putting make-up on a baby's face; not enhancing, but in fact spoiling the delicate features.

I went away from my lesson with a real skip in my step and hundreds of new ideas for the music and with renewed enthusiasm for the recording session with Tommy that happened a few days ago at Eastcote studios in West London. Here's a photo of Tommy and I next to my harp and studio owner Phil's fabulous vintage ribbon mic!

 Other news fresh in.....

Caught my boyfriend completely of his own accord nailing my woodblocks together for the Crown of Ariadne. Thank you, Alex, amazingly intuitive of you to know that I needed that doing ;)

Poorly harp! Has my harp aquired the cordine strain of chicken pox? Or have I been marking the strings ready for whizzing up and down with the metal bit of a lovely Camac tuning key (having hacked the sensible rubber coating off it with a stanley knife!) to create the 'rocket' effect in Crown of Ariadne?

Like staring down the barrel of a gun. Ironically, how I still feel when I open the score....
Here's the afore-mentioned stripped Camac tuning key!

Sadly, I've spent too long already on the faulty PC and must go and chain myself to the harp for a few more minutes before tonight's steady flow of students begins.

Bye for now!

Ellie

Remembering inspiring concerts :)

I have just done a concert with Rowena Calvert , my cellist duo partner, and it was great to see some young faces in the audience. There were even a couple of harpists, one of whom even sent me a lovely email after the concert, which has prompted me to get on with another post....

There are many reasons for doing things, aren't there? I am often asking myself, at the moment, why I am yet again subjecting myself to the rigours of preparing for an international competition, whilst finding it very hard to make a living being a professional musician! There are so many great reasons but I'd like to share just three with you.

1. Learning about other cultures through music, with the competition as the incentive for doing the learning!
I am fascinated by our different cultures, attitudes towards music and what part it plays in our lives. To what extent does our classical music reflect our own society, our own personalities and our own passions? Within my Gaudeamus programme I am celebrating my own love of dance, theatre and Greek mythology (I used to be obsessed by my Myths and Legends book when I was about 12!), through Schafer's 'Crown of Ariadne'.

I am learning to understand some of the emotions experienced by Israelis throughout the awful uprooting and destroying effects of war, through Yinam Leef's 'Reminiscences of Tranquillity'.

Practising 'Tratti' by Ig Henneman is revealing to me some of the typical characteristics of Dutch classical music, presented in a very stark, obvious manner. I am learning to enjoy the solid-as-a-rock delivery of the striking rhythmic motives, the simple yet organic changes that Henneman masterfully crafts into the music  and the unemotional and sometimes ugly sounding patterns note patterns, or even just the blob-like notes that sound fat, round and heavy!
Somehow this music has its own honesty and the performer has to express that through an accurate, clinical rendering of the notes that are on the page...I suppose that sometimes, in life, the mundane events can amount to something meaningful and even beautiful over time.

2. The second great reason for doing this is that I get to learn more about myself and what music means for me; how it enables me to express things that I cannot express through any other means.
A great example of this is Thomas Hewitt Jones's 'Shades of Grief'. I will never forget the first time that I played it through after Tommy had emailed it to me. Despite stumbling through it stodgily, it was a momentous and really moving experience for me. The intensity of the chromaticism, the thickly woven threads of melody, countermelody and 'accompaniment' - far too intricate to be called accompaniment! - and the occassional sudden breaking through of lightness into the texture and the harmony...it touched me immediately upon playing it and working hard at it is still like therapy for me.
.
 3. Inspiring other harpists (or other musicians) to carry on, to achieve great things and to play from the heart.
All I will say on this point is that when I was about 13 and on the Andover Harp Course (which used to be run by my teacher Daphne Boden and another harpist, Miriam Keogh - this course no longer exists, sadly!) Lucy Wakeford came to give a private recital for the harp students. The only piece that I remember specifically from the recital was Benjamin Britten's Suite for Harp, but her excellent and heartfelt interpretation of that piece alone was enough to inspire me for many more years. It is still a vivid memory and was a life-changing experience for me. It affirmed in my mind and my heart that the harp was a wonderful. powerful instrument that I really could fall in love with and use to touch other people in the way that Lucy's playing had touched me.

So, this week I shall be playing from my fingers and my feet....and my heart!

Thanks for reading!

Ellie

 

Malcolm Arnold Harp Fantasy

Last night, I 'discovered' the Malcolm Arnold Harp Fantasy!!!!
Thanks to a suggestion that annoyingly popped up when I ordered another piece of music on musicroom.com the other day (I think it was that site, anyway) I ended up ordering a piece that I didn't think I really wanted, but thought I should try......

And, lo and behold, it is the most wondrous piece and I heartily recommend it!
I am going to perform it for the first time during my recital on Ruth Faber's harp course for 14-18 year olds at Millfield School in Glastonbury. As soon as I got my fingers around the first set of chords (which, incidentally, were written for Osian Ellis and must have sounded fantastic under his fingers!) I was in love with the piece.

Arnold was born in Northampton, which is near where I live! Also, my excellent student Elizabeth Bass happens to live there and I cannot WAIT to hear what she thinks about this piece, too. It is beautifully written for the harp and composed so well, structurally, that it is really satisfying to play and listen to. I also love the 'March' section with the Shostakovichy staccato repeated chords.

I am not going to have Arnold's Fantasy too far from my music stand for a while :)

I also have the Prelude by Herbert Howells which is so beautiful, but really challenging, and what with the Britten Suite too....and my new piece by Tommy Hewitt Jones...

OUR BRITISH COMPOSERS ARE AWESOME!!!!

Ellie

Points out of ten!

Hi,

I've started the league table for my practice progress! Every piece will be given a score out of ten every week from now until the competition....the contest starts around April 10th.
Here is my very makeshift table of scores, ranging this week from a paltry couple of 1 out of 10s, to a rather confident 10 out of 10 for Thomas Hewitt Jones's recording-ready 'Shades of Grief'.

The lowest score this week is 1/10...I have only just started work on Reminiscences of Tranquillity by Yinam Leef and The Crown of Ariadne by Schafer. Here are a couple of pics of what my percussion set-up looks like so far!

Left table - the CD player is to play my pre-recorded backing track for the Labyrinth Dance. I recorded the backing track ('Recorded Harp' rather than 'Live Harp' in Schafer's score) last year, when I hadn't really had a chance to get to grips with the percussion set up at all! I had to hire a set of crotales (large, heavy, circular antique cymbals - thick ones that are 'ting-ed' with a beater, not crashed together!) mounted on a special stand. They cost about £300 to hire for a couple of days...to buy them would cost well over £1000 so I am making do with my son's glockenspiel and a few chime bars for now. However, for the pre-recording, it HAD to be the real thing and they do sound magical!

This is a really bad view of just a few of the things that are on the right hand side of the harp....including said glockenspiel! Also, my electric tuner, lots of pencils in a pot and several different triangle beaters. So far, I have discovered that one triagle or finger cymbal has as many different tones and personalities as you have triangle beaters/wooden sticks/fingers to 'ting' it with!

So, off I go for some rest. In my next post I hope to share with you some progress about Ariadne's Dance - coordinating the 7/8 and 6/8 alternate bars of the feet tapping away (with their ankle bells attached) in one repeated rhythm, while the fingers of both hands do other complex rhythms is NOT easy!

I am now going to bed to seek some inspiration for Dance of the Night Insects...in my dreams only, NOT in my bed, I hope!!!

Ellie