¤ milky moon ¤

Apparently the reason why they do those crazy hand gestures is to sustain the sound of the string... So like the hands don't mess up with the soundwaves. Also the delay in immediately placing your fingers on the strings after plucking prevents that buzzing sound when you touch a vibrating string.

Also I've heard it helps the player keep in rhythm...

Salzedo style is a little too fluffy for me though. Not sure if Grandjany is any better though but at least there's less raising in that style.

PS: can't wait to actually get a harp teacher... At this point in time my current technique would give any harpist a serious heart attack.

Thanks, Mike! That makes more sense now. I had no idea there were so many different styles and whatnot . I think I'll stick with my flute . I wish you luck in your search for a teacher!

I'm tempted to go on my Salzedo spiel now - I had to write extensively about him for my comprehensive exams and it's all coming back now!

Thanks for the explanation, Scott!

It reminds me of back when I was looking for a piano teacher and tried a few out and one was trying to get me to basically do that raising thing with my arms "like an elephant trunk!" and I was like "eff this ess" and chose a different teacher.
Of course everything has its place and I won't say I've never done a schmaltzy arm movement like that on piano or guitar, but it just seems excessive with those girls. But like you said, it might be because there's two of them and they look like barbies.

I don't know how it works with piano because I've never had a REAL piano lesson, I just kind of learned on my own. But I can't imagine it would be the same kind of reasoning on piano since the whole reason Salzedo developed it was the whole harp-is-the-only-instrument-you-play-by-moving-away-from-it thing.

Watching them again, they seem to be starting the raise with their elbows, which ISN'T how you're supposed to do it - at least that's not how I learned it, and from what I've read it certainly doesn't appear correct. Salzedo was all about every action having purpose, and the raise is supposed to be lead with your hands - i.e., it's as if your elbows are the pivot point and your forearms move - the twins are actually leading upwards with their elbows instead of away with the hands, which is why it looks SO excessive (because it is).

What book?

If you're talking about plucking, then I suppose guitar/pizz instruments count as well, though I imagine the size comparison makes a difference. Perhaps it is because harp is the one where you are ALWAYS moving away? Since the others can be played differently (like if you're talking violin, the bow has to come in and contact the strings, or if you're strumming and NOT doing fingerstyle, you are coming at and striking the strings instead of plucking). It is a mystery! Then there are all the winds, where you aren't coming away OR going towards them... ha ha.

Yes, it's totally possible I just forgot the sound interference thing - it wouldn't surprise me since there's always been more emphasis in my mind on the technical aspects of it. I'm pretty sure I actually USED that book when I was studying for comps (ha ha). If it's Yolanda, it's legit lol

Keep in mind that when you're doing fingerstyle, your hand isn't really moving away that much, it's really just your fingers.

Speaking of Kaki King, this is probably blasphemy for some, but I saw her live in it was the best show I'd ever seen - wayyy more satisfying than the JNew shows I saw. Oh noes!

Well, usually fingerstyle is often intricate or fast, so you don't really have time for any extraneous arm movement...and I think the same could be true for some harp stuff, like what Joanna plays. A lot of the time her fingers are just constantly moving, so there wouldn't be time for that fluffy stuff. I think if you were to pluck a sustained note on guitar, however, it wouldn't be totally out of line to do something fluffy like that. But regardless of the size of the movement, you're still pulling away from the instrument, which was all I was trying to say, I guess.

Well, I've never seen Kaki King so I can't say anything about that. I would love to see her, it seems like it would be a really fun show. I can kind of see how it might be a more energetic show than Joanna's, just by the nature of the music. But, for me anyway, there is something magical, or transcendent even, about watching Joanna play.

It may have been that I was expecting a LOT more from the Joanna shows - they weren't BAD but I think I expected to explode with emotion and I didn't... the Kaki crowd was a lot smaller and it felt more personal, so that may be why I liked it more.

As far as fluffy stuff, the Twosome is being fluffy, but the Salzedo method is really not that fluffy - I think the Twosome is just a bad example of Salzedo (or a good example of being fluffy?). The thing I noticed about Joanna is she actually does a sort of backwards Salzedo thing with her hands - instead of playing and raising up and away, she tends to pull out and down (I'm not saying it's bad, just saying what I noticed).

That's interesting. I think I notice that too (the pulling out and down). Well, I am perhaps a bit biased, but Joanna's style of playing just looks so much more badass. But she's always said she's not necessarily interested in the sort of generic "pretty" harp sounds. I like how she just sort of owns that bitch (the harp) in much the same way that Kaki owns the guitar.