I'm bearing my soul on this one!
Get ready... (this may be long)
So when I was in middle school/high school I played the harp. I started playing when I was in 5th grade. My school had a harp program and you had to be asked to play. One of the requirements was proficiency in piano. Another girl was asked before me, my rivalry. This was the one girl that was a better musician than me. No matter what she was ahead of me (lets face it, she had more talent.) When she declined I was asked. I gladly accepted. Lets face it, it was the one thing that could put me ahead of her. I started playing on a school harp that was loaned to me and after a few years of playing I had progressed enough and my parents purchased a harp for me. Unfortunately I do not have any digital picture of that beauty but it was very similar to this.
In 1997 I started preparing for college. I had always thought I would go to school for music. Music was what I was, outside of music I didn't really have much else. I had thought since I was a child that I would go to music school for piano. In 97' I lost my piano teacher to an unfortunate crime and had no one to help me prepare for auditions. I could always fall back on vocals but lets face it, singers are a dime a dozen and my chances of making it were slim. I decided to go to music school and major in harp. My third choice. After 2 years in school I couldn't take it anymore. I was the only harpist there, and the first harp major the school had seen in a long time, which meant every comp major would write for harp and I had to perform it for them. It was too much for an instrument that wasn't my favorite. That combined with the academic demands was too much and I dropped out. I continued to play the harp for weddings and such (making great money) but I always hated it. Every time a job was coming up I would dread it. I would pray that somehow I could get out of it. Finally one day I had had enough. Why did I hate this so much, it was then that it was revealed to me. I started playing out of jelousy and continued to play out of greed. Wow! AFter that day I didn't accept any more jobs and after awhile of not touching the instrument it was decided that it should be sold. A wonderful young girl now has my "baby" and I'm sure she loves it. I sold it to a teenage girl who loved music and loved piano. An unfortunate accident permanently injured her pinky which made it impossible for her to play piano. She was healing that emotional wound by playing harp (which does not require working pinky fingers!) It felt right. That left me with just my little harp. I had purchased a small lap harp wen I was in school for fun. This was all the remained of my harp "career."
Lately I've been feeling this itch to play again, something in me wants to rexamine this area of my life. I'm not sure why, I haven't thought about the harp in years.
But what do you do when you have an itch?
You scratch!!!
Meet the newest addition to my household!
(Sorry for the bad picture quality)
I thought about it for a bit and decided that I should give it a try. I rented a harp. This way if nothing comes from it I only have it for 4 months and did not wast a ton of money on this discovery. None the less, I am enjoying it so far. Let me tell you, playing the harp is not like riding a bike and it has not just come right back to me. I have to work at it. This process has revealed a lot to me.
I am different and I don't like being put in a box. The harp comes with a lot of sterotypes; beautiful, angelic, peaceful, gentle. These are not words that would typically describe me. I felt like being a harpist meant trying to be these things.
FAIL!
Then on top of that you're surrounded by lots of other harpist, young girls, who's parents wanted just that. Parents who wanted their perfect little daughters to be beautiful harpists. I was lucky. My parents weren't like that. But still, it was annoying. This time around is different. One of the things I've been doing is approaching it with a different mind set. A harp is not angelic. In the bible harps were originally used as primarily a funeral instrument, only used during grief. It was David who turned it into a something of joy and celebration. Beside that I keep thinking of David. David was crazy, he was not angelic, he was a bas ass. In his playing the harp he was basically rebeling against the norm and doing something completely different.
The harp is BAD ASS!!!
That's what I want.
I've been thinking of it as more of a percussion instrument lately. An instrument that adds to a melody and assists a songs, it's not the song itself. That's what I want. I want to use this to make someone else's craft sound better. I want to use this to back someone else up. I have no desire to be a solo instrument simply sounding and looking beautiful. What fun is that. Music is something that should be enjoyed together. My favorite part of music is playing with other people. Working together to get an amazing sound. So that's what I'm gonna try to do.
(Just for the sake of comparison.)
This has been some of my inspiration lately. This lady is Bad Ass!!!
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