Pipe Organ and Wire Harp A How-to for Your Church!
Almost every Sunday, unless husband George has to be away (substituting at another church, playing the carillon for Convocation or Commencement at either of his two colleges), he’s playing the historic pipe organ at our church. Preludes, postludes and hymns. With, of course, wire harp accompaniment! If you happen to have a spouse, friend […]
Irish Wire Harp at Communion Source of Melody...
My favorite time to play my harp during Sunday morning church service is at Communion. At our church, members are invited to come up and gather in a circle around the altar after our priest elevates the Host, breaks it and begins to distribute it to each in turn, saying: “The Body of Christ, the […]
King David’s Psalms What he might have actually played...
In my continuing research for interesting liturgical music to play on my three Irish wire-strung harps in church, I recently came across the work of the late French archaeomusicologist and organist Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912-2000). She is best known for her book La Musique de la Bible revélée (1st ed.: 1976), a study in which the cantillation […]
Polish Liturgical Music on Wire Harp Roman Catholic Hymn Collection
In recent months I’ve become aware of a fantastic collection of kolady (Christmas carols) and hymns and service music for Mass on the website of the Polish American Liturgical Center at Orchard, Lake Michigan. Under Śpiewnik (hymnal) you will find a fabulous collection of Polish language hymns in PDF format to download! As I am […]
Winter Reading
It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s January. I’ve got some books on the subject of learning to read pre-Gregorian neums (c. 800 A.D.), which is fairly substantial material and not casually absorbed in a few days (or weeks). But before I got into those, I thought maybe a little bit of context was order. Specifically, the […]
Playing Gregorian chant on wire harp (Part 4)
In one of my earlier posts on reading Gregorian chant I promised to discuss staves and clefs later on. They’re a little different in Gregorian. Modern music notation uses five lines, like this: Gregorian chant, in contrast, uses four lines: The range of Gregorian chant doesn’t usually go beyond an octave, so you won’t see […]
Notre Dame Cathedral Reopens!
A friend very kindly texted me a live stream video link of the reopening ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, celebrating five long years of monumental reconstruction after the devastating fire in 2019. Here is an archived YouTube video from Friends of Notre Dame de Paris: It’s a four-hour long video… the beautifully restored […]
Playing sacred music on the Irish wire-strung harp From reading neums to playing strings...
Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm. – Psalm 98:5 My preceding posts on reading Gregorian chant didn’t go into how to play it on the wire-strung harp. Gregorian chant is a vocal music, not an instrumental one. So there’s a little bit of re-interpretation here. […]
Playing Gregorian chant on wire harp (part 3) Beginning reading two- and three-note neum groups
Here is a very beautiful illuminated antiphonary from Bern, Switzerland, created in approx. 1485 to 1490 A.D. Most of the square neums shown here are the single note punctum type but there are also several of the two and three note groups: podatus, clivis and torculus. From the Liber Usualis, here is a chart showing us […]
The Latest News on My Harps Triplett Luna and Stoney End Rebecca
Time for an update on the latest from my harp studio: my beautifully rebuilt Triplett Luna harp arrived home safely in September after being masterfully rebuilt by Steve Triplett in his shops at San Luis Obispo, CA. This is a harp that I had accidentally knocked over while recovering from Covid and was still too […]
Playing Gregorian chant on wire harp (part 2) Comparing neumes to modern music notation
Medieval chant neums look very different from today’s music notation… until you get to know them better and discover they’re what made the language of modern sheet music possible. They do however, have their own arcane code, which has been left by the wayside, perhaps in part because few today write anymore with quill pens and […]
I wish I was the composer of this…
This extraordinary work is not a harp piece but is worth a listen. It’s by Vatican composer Father Marco Frisina, who has composed and recorded hundreds of organ and choral works over the decades. The first time I heard it, I wished I had written it. It is really that profound and that beautiful. A […]
Playing Gregorian chant on wire harp (Part I) Introduction and a little historical background
Every Sunday for our service prelude I play the liturgically appropriate Gregorian chant for the day from the Roman Catholic Liber Usualis (this is a fairly conservative traditional New England Episcopal church). I also play another one for the Communion, sometimes with husband George accompanying on the pipe organ. Usually I start out by playing […]
Willow Kitty March 2009 - October 6, 2024
On Sunday, October 6, 2024 our beloved 15 year old Willow Kitty passed away from kidney failure and complications of DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis). She was the beloved feline sister of Toni and Daisy, the much-loved kitty of my late father (d. 2019) and favorite feline friend of Jasmine Kitty. She is also greatly grieved by husband […]