#199: Making Music Sing: A Phrasing Primer for Harpists

I’ve been playing concerts with my flutist friend Joan Sparks for more decades than I care to admit. Our work together has included concerts, being Artists in Residence at schools and retirement communities, producing our own concert series, recording multiple CDs (actually even a couple of cassette tape recordings back in the day) and commissioning some significant works for the flute and harp concert repertoire. In fact, one of those works turned into an actual question on the TV show ”Jeopardy.” I’ll tell you that story at the end of the podcast.

Of course, our collaboration hasn’t all been about work. We don’t travel as much now for concerts as we used to, but we did a lot of traveling earlier in our career and naturally we are very close friends. In that time, I also learned a lot about the flute. 

One of the biggest revelations I had was listening to Joan practice her long tones. Now this won’t surprise any of you who have played melody line instruments, but as a harpist with some years of piano lessons in my youth, long tones were practically a new concept. On the harp, we don’t hold a note. We simply play it and it goes effortlessly into the ether. No need to practice long tones. 

But this also means that we have no control over a note once we’ve played it. We can’t make it crescendo or decrescendo. We can’t add vibrato to intensify it. We can’t create a true legato, where one note connects seamlessly to the next. 

I think this is partly why we harpists tend not to pay enough attention to phrasing. Yet, phrasing is the breath of the piece. It’s the living component of the melody. It’s what makes the song sing and the piece flow. 

So today’s podcast is essentially a guide to phrasing for harpists. We’ll talk about everything from what a phrase is and how to identify it, to how to practice it so your melodies can sing. If you’ve been wondering how to get that “flow factor” into your playing, this will be important information for you, so stay tuned.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode: 

• Join our March Seminar, “Variations on Bendemeer’s Stream”
• Announcing the Finish It Course with The Quick Start Guide to Learning Like a Pro
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]

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