For various reasons I spent the weekend in sessions without a harp. This proved very interesting as I realised many of my tunes were in my fingers, not so much my head. How very frustrating. This, plus various conversations, makes the mechanism of playing folk music much clearer:
tune in your ear (supported by memory, imagination)
=> tune out your fingers (supported by your technique)
as opposed to the classical
dots on the page (supported by your ability to fluently translate code i.e. score and imagine how to phrase it nicely)
=> tune out of your fingers (supported by your technique)
The last part is the same, it's just the musical intake and subsequent memory load that is different. You either have to learn to sight read or learn to memorise and develop your inner ear.
While performances allow time for preparation, sessions are fast, furious and for a harp player can be a bit of a nightmare if you don't just want to accompany. This means that your technique has got be good enough to cope with 'on-the-fly' playing - something that harpists don't naturally do. Generally, we find our tunes, figure out the version including ornamentation we want, and then finger and learn it (lots of prep). I think is because we have to think so far ahead with each tune (we have to place, then pluck) and the double action for each note gets too complicated to do on the fly.
This is where I think striking strings (one movement to get a sound) is inherently more folky than plucking (releasing the string to get a sound). Given that folk is so much more of a acquisition of technique to then be used unconsciously, striking (where you do not have to plan ahead so much) suits it much better.
As an exercise I think I might look at practising tunes in terms of building blocks, the little melodic fragments that add up to a tune. Those little blocks will be really well practised, the placing a well as the playing well rehearsed. That way I can have a rough and ready fingering at my grasp and allow my unconscious mind to take over without screwing up hand shape or creating loads of tension.
However, if I really want to play a tune for performance, that extra work to sort and assess and finger will still take place. It is through that extra conscious work and then unconscious wearing in of a tune that we make them our own.
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2 comments:
Some very good points, Miss West, but don't you agree that all instruments involve several movements to make a sound?
On a harp you have to put your fingers down and then pluck, but isn't this the same as on a piano, where you have to place your fingers on the right keys and then press?
Flute players have to press down keys and then blow - these actions aren't quite simultaneous, but must be accurately co-ordinated or they 'fluff' it.
Likewise, fiddle players have to put their fingers on with the left hand, and then bow with the right - and make sure these happen in the right order. I remember being told as a child to 'place' the bow on the string before playing, and to get my fingers 'down' faster, etc.
I would say that this is all akin to a plucking action. Of course I'm aware there are differences and some movements are faster more easily, but surely there's more than one movement on a lot of instruments??
I hope all your hard work is paying off! And keep posting - I'll be watching... ;)
Yes I understand that each instrument has a series of movements but I still feel that taking your fingers off something to make a sound is fundamentally different to placing them on. A negative action is odd to think about. Perhaps if I say that the harp sounds not when you pluck but when you release the string from the tension you have put it under?
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