The Happy Thread IV

[Rían]

I highly recommend it! I just love it - I was so glad to feel well enough to sit down and play for a while. I'm looking forward to playing some more tonight after dinner and clean-up

I just love how you "embrace" it while you play it and the tones are so lovely. I don't care for classical harp music much - just the lovely Celtic tunes, mostly.

[Valandil]

Happy! Got a family vehicle today after going just over two months without, since our accident on vacation. PLUS - it's much more than we thought we would be able to afford - newer model, etc. We have another minivan, which we really wanted to stick with. Just barely able to afford it - and we were able to buy without borrowing on it (with my present employment situation, I didn't want to even try to get a loan!).

Happy, happy!

[Voronwen]

Originally Posted by Valandil

after going just over two months without

Wow! I hadn't understood that you had been without a vehicle at all during this time! Well that makes this even happier, then!

Rian, i love Celtic music. I'd love to hear you play!

[Valandil]

Well - we were able to share. My in-laws live in our first floor apartment - and we were able to use their car.

[Rían]

Great, Val! I like minivans, but we need something that can tow and can hold an electric scooter in the back, so we stick with Suburbans.

Voronwen - you probably wouldn't like to hear my playing very much, because I just don't have time to play a lot, but I think I'll try to get a link up to one of my fav Celtic harp players ... *goes off to hunt it up*

[Rían]

Here she is - Grainne Hambly - here's her site.

in this one, watch her left hand - she does this really cool damping of the strings thing to get a staccato effect.

I don't think this one is Grainne, but it is a super-cool angle on the hands - shows absolutely classic harp technique, the kind that lets you play the right hand as quickly as she is doing (although I like this particular piece played a little more slowly) and this player is using damping on the left hand strings, too.

[Rían]

This lady doesn't seem to be a great harpist like Grainne, but I just love this song

Here's Charlotte Church singing the same tune, with more of a real harpist (see his thumbs? They're up, like they should be)

[Mari]

I would like to try playing the cello but with my musical abilities, I guess I'd better stick to choir-singing or listening

[Tessar]

My sister always plays the guitar in the morning before she goes to work... it's so beautiful . She plays fingerpicking style, so it's not that annoying strumming that most people play. >.< I'm sorry, but that stuff really gets on my nerves after a while.

It always makes me feel a little like I'm in Rivendell . I don't know why, but it does. I guess I imagine elves as classical guitar players .

[katya]

That's what I was thinking, is Celtic harp playing. I wonder how I can learn though? There has to be someone who can teach me, now that I'm in the big city. I'm pretty serious about this. I can't believe I never thought of it before. Going to the other computer in a minute to listen to Grainne.

I'm jealous of your sister's guitar playing, Tessar!

Happy for me: I love my job. At least, for now. I haven't started to get sick of it yet, actually I like it more every day! (I'm a substitute middle school / high school teacher.)

[Voronwen]

Lovely links, Rian! Thank you so much.

[Rían]

You're welcome!

Katya, you can google for harp teachers in your area, and just tell them that you like the Celtic-style music and do they teach that. You probably want a lever-harp, like mine (and like the ones in the link, but mine is smaller) instead of a pedal-harp, which is the big honkin' kind you see in orchestras. You can always move up to a pedal-harp if you want to, but that would pretty much be only if you decided to be a professional harp player.

[katya]

RÃ*an, do you have any other advice? It doesn't really matter specifically what kind of harp I find because I don't know anything about it or have anything in mind... but I want something small and something I can play celtic music on. Any suggestions? Do you know any place I can find one inexpensively (couple hundred dollars or so?), even if it's not good quality, used, whatever? I might see if I can find some sort of teach yourself guide or something like that too, because I can't afford lessons right away. I did find a lady in the area who gives them, though.

[Tessar]

I hope I'm not jumping the gun here, but I am really, really, really hugely proud of myself.

After spending years flunking out of classes, and getting really poor grades, I decided last semester to turn it around. Last semester I got straight A's and B's (including one math class which I had failed four different times in two different versions of the class), and that really helped haul my GPA back up.

Well, I'm sitting here doing my homework now, which is already partially done, instead of waiting till late tonight or tomorrow afternoon. So far I have one homework back with 100%, I think I'm understanding the concepts better, AND I just got my posted grades that I passed a timed test with 97.5% accuracy . We had three minutes to label 40 major and minor key signatures. I'll bet I know what I did, too. >.< I probably forgot to make it B major/g SHARP minor... I'll bet I wrote B/g instead of B/g# >.<

Soooo... I'm pretty proud of myself. Still got a whole semester's worth of time to turn it back around and fail horribly all over again, but fingers crossed that I'm determined enough not to return to my old lazy habits .

[Mari]

Go for it! I intend to make this a good year for me too. It's my final year after all.
If I manage to graduate with good grades, that would be great.

Speaking of good grades, the Dutch system goes from 1 (bad) to 10 (good), but realistically it goes from 5 to 9, 7 being good, 8 being distinctive and 9 being incredible and near impossible (there's always something to improve upon). It's hard to explain foreign students that getting a 6 is pretty okay and average. The only bad one is a 5 and even that doesn't always mean that your work sucks, just that you need to add some things. A 1 means you've done absolutely nothing worth grading.
I had to explain this today because we got a grade (not-counting though) for a practice task and some of my international classmates were upset not to have scored a 9 or 10.
The happy part in this story is that I got an 8.

[Tessar]

Of course then you have people like some friends of mine... They'll be like, "OH MAH GAAAAAWD I GOT A 95% ON MY TEST INSTEAD OF 100% THE WORLD IS FALLING DOWN AROUND MY EARS AND I CAN ONLY GAZE AT THE SKIES AND ASK, 'WHY GOD, WHYYYYYY?!'"

[Earniel]

Dude, 20/20 was just never given in our college unless you were effing Einstein reincarnated, 18/20 was already A+, and I don't think I recall anyone ever getting a 19 in my college years. But it has been rather depressing to meet with people on the internet who study under a different grading system and whose grades just sound a lot higher than the ones I graduated on.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by katya

RÃ*an, do you have any other advice? It doesn't really matter specifically what kind of harp I find because I don't know anything about it or have anything in mind... but I want something small and something I can play celtic music on. Any suggestions? Do you know any place I can find one inexpensively (couple hundred dollars or so?), even if it's not good quality, used, whatever? I might see if I can find some sort of teach yourself guide or something like that too, because I can't afford lessons right away. I did find a lady in the area who gives them, though.

katya, I started a thread here

[Tessar]

I did better than I might've expected on a transcription exercise in class this morning, I got to hear a trio from a modern opera I'll be trying out for at my school in October, I had a great voice lesson, I kicked butt in Pirates rehearsal, I had fun doing some voice lessony stuff with a friend to help her out, then I came home and had pizza, then I gave my sister a voice lesson, and I got to play some Knights of the Old Republic.

This has been a THOROUGHLY kicka** day. ^_^

[Voronwen]

Yay, Tessar! I remember days like that in school. Thursdays in particular were 'power' days where i had nothing but performance workshops, lessons, chorus, coachings, and then opera class in the evening, where we rehearsed scenes until about 10pm. I came home on a Thursday night so high on life that i couldnt shut myself down and sleep until about 4 am! I'd usually come home still singing, too, much to the dismay of my roommates But those were the nights when i would get so much done towards 'mental practice', memorizing arias, researching music and composers for my performance materials, and putting together the program for my senior recital.