She's Back?

No way! Am I really back? For real this time???



The worst part of this is that I could write about SO many things (because I've been "gone" for SO long). I could write about moving (uggghhh). About hiking (and nearly killing my poor toe). About family (one of the best subjects sometimes). About my nursery-age baby (weep weep).

Nay, I shall write about the harp.



If you've read Rae's blogs about her cello passions, you'll have an idea what things have been like with me and my harp.

The above picture is the only one I can find; I am sorry the harp is covered. At least this time I actually put up a picture! Yay!


Dot dot dot.



Well, I'm afraid I won't wax very poetic here, but basically, I've not touched the harp much. If I took the dust cover off (which makes the harp uninteresting to Ender and his toys), I would sit down for perhaps ten minutes to run some boring arpeggios and try to think of a memorized song. First Arabesque? Oh, but I play that ALL the time. Noel Provencal? No, same deal--and that's a Christmas song. Chanson dans la Nuit? A favorite! Alas, I've been so neglectful that I have forgotten even that one. I think I used to play it every day, too. It was engraved in my finger muscles' memory. (By the way, did anyone else notice that all those song title are in French? Maybe it's just such a pity to put an ugly English title with a harp song since the harp is notoriously romantic). If I actually got out the music, I felt frustrated that my fingers didn't pick up as automatically.

But enough! GUESS WHAT?!!! I've been practicing! Really! Almost every day! And tuning the harp, too, which is sometimes more than half the battle. 47 strings, guys. You violinists think you have it hard. Silly people.

So today I played a number of songs, among them (yes, in French again) La Joyeuse and Le Bon Petit Roi D'Yvetot. With La Joyeuse, I played it slowly through the first time, and it simply felt good to re-remember it. The song is entirely made of descending arpeggios with the top note sounding the melody. I promise it's beautiful! Just as I was about to put it away, though, I decided to run through the beginning (which I have never unmemorized) as quickly as I could.

*goosebumps*

I sounded like the virtuoso albums.

*shivershiver*

Please don't laugh at my description, I'm just telling how it felt: my fingertips tumbled over the strings and beautiful, rippling, bubbling harmonies rose from the depths of the harp! One of those exhilirating moments when the vibrating sound waves literally (I'm not using that word for the heck of it) enveloped me. Mmmmmmm. Music. Art. Passion. Heaven!

Then I played Le-etc. (The Good Little King of Yvetot. I know there are some really hokey arrangements out there, but mine is rather the coolest by Marcel Grandjany). Fun, fun. And then the END!!! Weee! I ripped out this whizzy-fast scale thing with bestartling chords erupting inbetween and finished with a zip down the strings and a most gratifying grace-noted finaleful blOOM of a chord.

I smiled. :)

And I thought,



"I'm back!"