An Advent Antiphon for Harp (2 of 7) O Adonái
Here is my Irish wire strung harp arrangement of the Great O antiphon: O Adonái: O Adonai (pdf score, one page). Like my previous arrangement, it uses free rhythm and so I intentionally blanked out the rest indications in the music notation. The tempo is approximate; feel free to play this at whatever speed feels appropriate to […]
An Advent Antiphon for Harp (1 of 7) O Sapiéntia
As promised, here’s a wire harp arrangement of the Gregorian O Sapiéntia (LU 340 in the 1934 Liber Usualis). I have the chant melody in the top staff and the text of the chant is below, in lightly shaded text, to help orient the melody in the overall arrangement. The bottom staff has an alternating […]
Update on downloadable Advent music I'm working on it! ☺️
Today I’m working on a wire harp arrangement of one of the great O Antiphons, O Sapiéntia. I’m arranging it in MuseScore, which is one of the more friendly notation programs to free rhythm treatment of chant and Early music. I’ve done this in Lily Pond but the learning curve is just too steep and […]
Christmas is coming! 🎄 Time to start learning carols on the harp now...
As you may have discovered by now, maybe from reading my last post on learning from pedal harp technique, I’m not exactly a conformist when it comes to the wire-strung harp! I do have a well-worn copy of O’Neill’s 1850 and these fiddle tunes are a lot of fun to play on the harp and lay […]
Pedal Harp Exercises for Wire Harp? Lots of great stuff there!
One of the perks of having a husband on the music faculty at Middlebury College is having library borrowing privileges. We hunt for interesting topics all the time using MIDCAT and check them out with George’s ID card or have library staff put them on reserve to pick them up later. One of the gems I […]
Recording Harpe Grégorienne (part 1 of many) Getting the recording studio set up first...
Back in 2016 I had planned on recording a harp album called Harpe Grégorienne that would draw from the 1936 chant album of a similar name, Rythmique Grégorienne. With 2021 quickly coming to year’s end, it’s never too late and my nicely restored analog tape based recording studio has been prepped and ready to go. […]
Esabelle Harp Goes to Church! & plays accompaniment to 1875 tracker pipe organ...
On Sunday, October 10 Esabelle harp made her first-ever appearance at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Middlebury, VT! This special cross-strung wire harp played an improvised arrangement of a medieval organanum, Benedicamus Domino (from the Abbey of St. Martial), accompanied by husband George Matthew Jr. on the church’s 1875 Johnson tracker pipe organ. The organ […]
New Video Camera for Church & Harp Videos!!
All of the videos I’ve made up until now have been filmed on either of my iPhones: 6s plus and 7. They’re really great for learning the basics and not so complicated you get overwhelmed quickly with features. However. Our St. Stephen’s church videos (and preparations for my harp videos as well) have grown a […]
Follow Me (and Jasmine Kitty) on Twitter!
After a hiatus of about four years (with the exception of stepping in briefly trying to come to the rescue of my troubled alma mater Green Mountain College in spring 2019), I’ve pretty much veered away from Twitter. I like Twitter. It’s a quick, easy place to grab news headlines, spot interesting trends in fashion […]
Lessons from Green Mountain College From Poultney to St. Stephen’s, Middlebury
I’ve really enjoyed making videos for St. Stephen’s this year, and I hope all of you have too! I’ve learned a lot along the way, from improving my production skills to learning how to integrate new video equipment with my long-standing audio recording studio. Until this past year I didn’t have much experience with it […]