Harpfest2

18. Ahh, the Edinburgh Harp Festival (Apr '05)

I love the Edinburgh Harp Festival. There are few things as lovely as spending five days immersed in a creative cocoon, where all you have to do is eat, sleep and pursue your passion. The Edinburgh Harp Festival is a lousy cocoon. Situated in a boys' boarding school, the cafeteria food is abysmal and overpriced, and the accommodation is spartan and smells like adolescent boys. But the pursuit of the passion, ahhh, the pursuit of the passion......that makes it all magical.

Meeting up with old friends, making new ones, hearing concerts by world-class harp players, taking workshops and five-day intensive classes, trying not to spend thousands of pounds buying cds and sheet music and new harps.... well, I liken it to the durian, that foul-smelling but delicious-tasting fruit that people either abhor or can't get enough of. Like David, for instance (the guy-half of the couple I'm working for). He's primarily a jazz pianist and finds the whole thing just a bit too intensely harp-saturated, and only showed up for the first night because Bachue (their band) played the opening concert. But for myself and Corrina and 400 or so others, it's harp heaven (is that redundant?)

My teacher in the five-day, intensive class this year was a guy called Hugh Webb. I was a bit apprehensive about the class because I'd never heard of him before, and his picture in the brochure conveyed the image of a Slavic despot: big bushy mustache, imposing nose, one tyrannical eyebrow below a stern forehead. Hardly the man you'd expect to teach you to swing a light jazz tune. But I was determined to keep taking jazz classes until my harp turned blue, so I signed up for it.

The first day of class I arrived early and tuned up -- not wanting to get sent to the gulag for a flat G -- and at the precisely appointed time, he came in........You'll notice that I didn't describe his fierce, thrusting chin in my verbal sketch. That's because the picture had been taken in profile, and in extreme close-up, so the frame excluded it. Or should I say, "them." My trepidation evaporated on the spot, because the man who toddled through the door was a round, pudgy, soft sort of fellow, more gopher than dictator, whose mustache and brow now seemed more "shaggy" than "bristling," and whose manner was humble and bumbling. Hardly the man you'd expect to teach you to swing a light jazz tune.

But the first thing I learned was: never judge a marmot by his coat. This guy knew his stuff, and he could communicate it in a simple, clear, inspiring way so that by the end of the five days I felt like I finally understood the whole theory thing. Well, maybe not the whole theory thing. But if music is a language, I felt like I could finally order a cup of tea or ask directions to the nearest toilet. You know, the basic, practical things. Hoorah!

Another highlight of the festival was the Open Session. Or rather, the synthetically-processed-replica of a session. A "real" session is a gathering of musicians in a pub or in someone's house where everyone brings an instrument (mostly fiddles, some guitars, maybe an accordion or a concertina and some flutes, pipes, and whistles) and people sit around playing the tunes they all know. This session was composed of thirty harp players, one fiddler and a flautist. It was a bit like having a fruit salad made up entirely of durians, with maybe a currant and a small slice of apple. Not really a salad. And since harps have such a wide range of notes, *everyone* can play both the tune and whatever sort of bassline accompaniment they come up with, but of course it's all spontaneous and un-orchestrated, so everyone ends up playing something different, which, with thirty harps, leads to the equivalent of an aural Jackson Pollock painting: lots of color and overlapping, dynamic splattering, but no real coherence or clarity.

Still, it has it's own charm. And many of the festival tutors were there, so there was a solid core of people who knew what they were doing and could create a throughline amidst the splatter. I must confess that I fall on the splatter side of things still. But I can at least identify the key that we're in, and know which chords won't clash too badly. And it can be quite tasty, if you happen to like durians. A lot.

But if you're not enough of a die-hard, one feature of the session that can restore one's shaken sanity is that interspersed with the free-for-all, take-no-prisoners group tunes, people play solo pieces. I had spent that afternoon fiendishly practicing a piece I've been working on: my harp adaptation of the Billy Joel song Vienna. It was written for piano, and thus takes advantage of the piano's capacity for chromaticity, which (for you harpers) means "lots of lever flipping," or (for you non-harpers) means "hard." But it's a nice tune and it has a good groove, and fits quite well on the harp, once you get the technical demands under control. I can get the technical demands under control maybe one time in three. Which led to little bursts of lava-adrenaline bubbling up through my mental mantle everytime a pause occurred and it seemed that a soloist would be...em, volunteered. I considered taking the safe route of playing something simple and playing it well (a commendable option, since the point is to make music, not to impress people with your ability to flip switches up and back at high speed). But if you can play something rich and juicy and play it well, well that's even better. And 1 in 3 odds aren't *that* bad.

So when the time came and the heads turned in my direction (including several professional harpers and idols of mine, remember) I surfed the erupting volcano of adrenaline and set my levers for the beginning of the piece. And an unexpected thing happened: usually adrenaline makes you shaky and stiff so that you can't control your fingers enough to pluck the strings you choose. For some reason this lava rushing through my veins made my muscles hot and loose, so although I was shaking a bit, my arms, hands and fingers did what my brain asked them to, and with the added energy, it ended up being the best I've ever played it. I wasn't practicing or attempting or even approximating. I was making music, the music I wanted to hear, and it was flowing out (almost) effortlessly.

It was an exquisite moment for me. It was the image I had in my head six years ago when I quit acting and set my goal of "learning to play this harp thing properly." I have been climbing the musical equivalent of Mt. Everest, one foot in front of the other, not really able to sense the progress I'm making, what with all the snow and clouds and things. And then I reach a small peak that I've been aiming for, and not only do I get that feeling of achievement, but suddenly, unexpectedly, the clouds part down below and I see how far I've come, and I'm stunned.

So.....eat a granola bar, sip some water, pick up my pack, and onward and upward. I can't see very far ahead, what with all the snow and clouds and things, but I sense another summit lurking there in the distance and I'm continuing my trek.

Love,
Andrea

Andrea Blumberg