Harp and Strings

In the summer of 2017 I had unwittingly set myself up for a trap by requesting to learn Rights of Man, a tune I didn’t have sheet music for but which my instructor was happy to show me. Except not the left hand. Coming up with the chord progression was going to be my homework assignment. Little did I know, but that growth opportunity had been lying in wait all along, ready to attack. That summer I ran away from the learning opportunity because my mind boggled at the idea of developing the accompaniment myself. I became overwhelmed and decided to move on to something else. Besides, isn’t there plenty of harp sheet music out there that includes material for the right and left hand?

Over the next several months, I reflected on this failed project and attempted some amateur psychoanalysis. There had been a brief, two-month period in high school when I took harp lessons. I remember fearlessly and spontaneously trying to pick out tunes then, so what had changed? On the flip side, there was also that period in first grade when I refused to learn how to read, so the school was going to hold me back a grade. (Don’t get me started on learning math.) As an adult music student, I’m familiar with the stereotypes of adults being slower to learn, less physically capable of utilizing good technique, etc., but a look back at my own history reveals that I’ve always vacillated between openness to new input and a total lack thereof. Recognizing these two poles is helping me parse roadblocks when I encounter them. Is there a practical barrier involving resources, processes, information, etc.? Or am I limiting myself? Is there a combination of factors at play? When I apply these questions to the situation with arranging Rights of Man, I find that there were no practical barriers in place. I had a supportive instructor who had even supplied me with a chords cheat-sheet. My initial sense of being overwhelmed by the task, which was understandable, quickly calcified into a refusal to work on it at all. I became my own barrier. While I continue to make these refusals all the time, the difference now is that I’m faster at identifying them and I’m becoming better at picking apart the threads to undo the knot.

First Arrangement: King of the Blind

Fast forward to summer 2018. Trawling Youtube for samples of early Irish harp music, I came across Ann Heymann’s rendition of King of the Blind for the wire-strung harp. The sheet music was available for free online from the Irish Traditional Music Archive, but it only included the melody. A year had passed since my first disastrous non-attempt at developing my own arrangement. Thankfully, a lot had changed in that span of time. I had gained a sliver more confidence and better tools for dismantling roadblocks, so I decided that the time was ripe to make a fresh attempt at arrangement. Going slowly, bar by bar, I identified chord options and wrote them on the sheet music. For this first arrangement, I kept things simple so that the end goal would continue to feel achievable. Part of this approach involved dispensing with the trills in the original music and deciding up front that I was not aiming for a historically-informed arrangement. Another component of this approach was the half conscious, half unconscious decision to stick with arpeggiated chords with an occasional rolled or block chord. Trying to inject too much variety bogged progress down and brought me to the brink of feeling overwhelmed. Lastly, I kept the arrangement short and did not come up with variations for a second play-through. This was the end result:

Second Arrangement: The Clergy’s Lamentation 

If I had expected the experience of arranging King of the Blind to cure me of the dreaded overwhelm, I was sadly disappointed. The Clergy’s Lamentation brought its own set of challenges to the table. I love the tune and it’s much more well-known, so the pressure to create something unique, interesting, and authentic felt much higher. I began by watching Youtube videos of others’ arrangements to simultaneously find inspiration and ensure that I would be creating something different. After that, my process was much the same as for King of the Blind. I went through the tune bar by bar, identifying potential chords and writing them on the sheet music. Once that was done, I worked on deciding how I wanted to play each chord in the A section (e.g., rolled, block, arpeggiated), and then did the same for the B section. With these decisions complete, I played the A and B sections to make sure they flowed together effectively, and then began work on creating new variations for the second play-through of the tune. The final step was making edits (e.g., pruning rolled chords when I felt there were too many, replacing chords with single notes, etc.). There were many starts and stops throughout the project and periods of feeling stuck, but I ended up with an arrangement that is a step up in sophistication from my first one. Here’s the final product:

On to the Next Arrangement!

Now that I’ve completed a whopping two arrangements, I’ve found myself wishing I had done some things differently with King of the Blind, i.e., a longer arrangement with greater variation in the chords. That’s one of the nice things about folk music, though—you can always revisit your arrangement to change things up. I wasn’t able to appreciate this flexibility before. It seemed like an obstacle, rather than a feature or benefit. I’m now willing to take on the task of arranging, and am even grateful for the opportunity to exercise some creativity.

Down with sheet music! Just kidding. My ear isn’t that good. (That’s another long-term improvement project.)