Live no 8: Placing two fingers, with practice plan

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Today we’re going to talk about PLACING, and about…

 why this will be especially helpful for any self-taught harpist
 how many fingers you should start with when starting to learn

All materials used today come from “First Harp Book” by Betty Paret which you can buy here.

Playing with two fingers
– exercises 1-4
– what to do if you feel that your thumb is not strong enough just yet

 Wooden-Shoe Dance (music from 12’13”)

Practising Wooden-Shoe Dance
– look beyond the first note and place both fingers (connecting lines)
– why playing the two notes as chords will be helpful

Cuckoo (music from 15’13”)

Practising Cuckoo
– what makes the left hand simple
– 3 types of fingering in the right hand
– how to look at the lines connecting fingers in bars 3-4
– try to separate PLACING from PLAYING
– why is it important to let go of the fingers that don’t play
– how to read the colours in the PDF table

List of other pieces you can play to work on these skills are in the PDF below.

Next week we will carry on talking about placing, this time with 3 fingers playing!

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