Any harpist-pianists here? 🎹🙋🏻♀ Me too! I found there were definitely some advantages to knowing piano before harp, but I also think there are some challenges! What are your thoughts?
@@alannamcmahon2554 I'm finding the same thing too! I'm not a pianist but knew my way around the piano well before I started playing my lap harp and now I've noticed how much more accurate my finger positioning is on piano!
I play piano for nearly 30 years and also some other instruments. But I think especially the piano helped me really quickly to learn the harp. I started 3 years ago. Usually I learn with RUclips Videos- like yours 😉- but once I took a lesson with a teacher in my city. She was completely astounded that I learned everything by myself and via RUclips, especially the position and holding of the hand and fingers and asked again and again if I don't lie.🤣 But I think the piano was the reason for. And using two hands is the same. Also the C1 as "middle" note. But what I find difficult still is sometimes finding the correct note quickly. I figured out that I connect every note on the sheet paper more with a certain piano key then with the "name" of the note. That's why my head has difficulties to adjust it so quickly to the harp.
I can definitely relate with the wrists leading and not preparing the fingers prior to plucking the notes! Another thing that I'm trying to work on is the fingers pulling away into the hand straight and not curled, which I am used to from piano.
I was a pianist and musician before beginning the harp. I started harp when I was 65. I had made a comment to my husband about wishing I'd learned to play the harp. Next thing I know, my husband has bought me a Triplett Eclipse Lever Harp and arranged for lessons. It didn't take long, a couple of weeks actually, to get used to the difference between playing the piano and harp. Due to physical problems I have had to make adjustments to my technique with the help of my teacher. I've had both shoulders replaced and the harp has been a great aid in physical therapy. I'm now 74 and still working on good technique but playing now at an advanced intermediate level. Love your informative videos.
Thank you for this video! I've been playing piano for 15 years and recently bought a Guzheng (Chinese harp). I really want to learn the harp someday when I can afford one!
Had piano 🎹 lessons in my youth, played Guitar as a teenager, now in my 60's I'm learning the harp and using all my my musical 🎼 knowledge to do so like reading basic piano music and understanding cords. Thanks Christy-Lyn for all your wonderful videos💕
I'm originally a flautist. Learning the harp started off easily. I had a method book with photos, could read the music easily, and the hand position and finger placing wasn't hard to learn. Then I hit playing different things in both hands at the same time, while reading off two staves one of which was in bass clef. I'm used to assorted finger patterns, each of which gives a single note, and only treble clef on a single stave. It was like hitting a wall, and came as a shock. Really hard. After struggling for a while, getting distracted and putting down the harp for years, picking it back up again and running into the same issue, I went off and found a teacher, and she helped me work through it. I'm still not good at sightreading on harp, and bass clef is still not as solid as I'd like, but I did get over the hump okay and it was well worth doing. I've also learned a lot more about chords I never learned from flute, which is awesome when I want to try writing music. Apart from reading music and finger dexterity, I don't think playing flute helped me all that much with the harp. It's a treble clef only melody instrument, and very different from the harp.
Interesting. I see only advantages to knowing how to play piano (or any musical instrument, really) before learning the harp. There are challenges, yes, but that is with learning any new instrument. And I've discovered that learning the harp has actually improved my piano playing.
Definitely! 👍I think this has to do with the way one looks at it. I personally would not use the word "disadvantage" because it seems so negative. "Challenge" to me is a much better word. It is much more positive and something to work toward, not to become discouraged by or feel "less than." These challenges to me are not due to me having learned piano first, but just the normal challenges of learning a new instrument. Just how I choose to look at it.
I've only started playing the harp a few weeks ago but since I grew up playing the piano and multiple instruments and study music at uni it was really easy to adjust although I did find myself having to go back to learning the correct technique and basics after being able to improvise and play a few songs. I would also like to add that I watched your videos before buying one, so I knew straight away where the notes are and stuff. another thing I found difficult was calluses for this instrument it stung like hell for the first week I'm slowly starting to adjust to it now. but it truly is such a beautiful instrument and I'm willing to go back to basics just so i learn how to play it correctly
Thanks for this video! In my experience with 10 years of piano lessons, you steadily increase the complexity of the music toward classical music. Imitating that path on the harp became frustrating for me. So now after 5 years, I have learned it is better play much simpler pieces fluently and with confidence and less stress!
Hi Christy-Lyn! Thanks a lot for your videos! I love watching your channel, I like your way of explaining. Despite the fact that I almost finished my bachelor's degree in harp, I find some subtleties in your videos that work especially well with adult amateur students. But I would like to critically comment on your statement about the movement of the wrist. The fact is that the movement that you show as "wrong" is a very key element of French harp technique. It took me 2 years to understand how it works and I applied extra study in order to master it. My current harp professor said that the wrist movement I used to do (I also studied in Ukraine before and the harp playing style there is closest to the Russian harp school) is only suitable for a few ways of producing sound, but not for all. In theory, this "wrong" movement is used when a note sounds for a very long time and a soft deep tone is required from it. That is, for example, when you play big chords that last a whole bar. Or some single notes, but you still have time for this movement. It is responsible for a particularly smooth sound and long juicy sound. And of course, as in the piano, it should be relaxed and ergonomic. It seems to me that this is difficult to explain in a comment, since it is much easier to show it live. I hope my comment didn't sound too rude! I didn't mean to offend you, and I hope I got my point across. Just from the point of view of a professional harpist (I have been playing the harp for more than 15 years at the moment), this knowledge needs to be supplemented, since not everything is so simple!
Hi Anna, good to hear from you! Well done for going so far with the harp, that is a big achievement and takes lots of hard work. Very cool! Thanks for writing such a detailed explanation about French harp technique and the wrist movement, that’s very interesting! I haven’t gone into the details of French harp technique myself, but I know there are different approaches to raising movements so perhaps I should have phrased this differently since the main concern I’m talking about here wasn’t meant to be about how the raising movement is done, but rather the overall position of the wrist when playing. When I’m teaching these kinds of concepts, I’m specifically responding to common mistakes I’m seeing with adults teaching themselves, and often their wrists are raised into a “hill” even while they’re plucking the strings, which creates weakness especially in the fourth finger. And this seems to be more of a problem with pianists than those who are learning from scratch. Thanks for adding this helpful tweak to what I said in the video! 👌🏻
Great video Christy-Lyn ☺️. I have noticed a lot of people tend to ask harpists or harpers this question (does playing piano make it easier to play the harp and vice versa)? I've played guitar (mainly classical for 22 years), knew my way around the piano but didn't have lessons, and have taught myself how to play the lap harp (20 st) since October 2022. I haven't had an issue with the orientation of the harp (I guess that is due to the orientation of the guitar), but it has taken almost two months for me to get my hand and arm positioning correct on the harp. Learning both the piano and harp at the same time, I have found that they both really complement each other. If I do scales on either instrument, I barely stumble over my notes when playing a piece. It just feels easier to play on the other Instrument, which makes sense considering the fingers and hands have had a good warm up.
I'm a piano teacher and I pick up my harp during my year 3 bachelors. I find it's hard to fix my floating and twisting wrist. And yes! We need to read the music score further in advance when we are playing the harp compared with the piano in order to have a better fingerings position
Guitar/ukulele player here....and currently learning how to play the harp. And yes, I have experienced the dilemma of my hands and fingers constantly trying to "revert" back to a familar guitar position, because that is what they are used to...but I am making steady progress with the harpist positioning of the hands/fingers, the more I practice on the harp...I am excited about learning the harp, an instrument I have aspired to play for 20 years now, but was always afraid to learn, or just too busy with guitar all the time...peace!
Interesting to read all the comments below! I am a piano player but had never taken lessons so taking harp lessons from you has been wonderful! One difference I found was playing sharps and flats on the piano were much easier than having to put levers up and down on my harp in order to play those notes! But it's much more fun and challenging to do so! Also, being able to read sheet music made the transition easy to reading harp music. Also easier to move/carry around a harp rather than not being able to take a piano with me wherever I go! (I think everyone would agree with that! haha! - although that's how keyboards came about, I'm sure!) OH! but we can only use 8 of our fingers (including our thumbs) to play the harp instead of using all 10 for the piano! That was way different for me! It has truly been wonderful to learn the harp from you, Christy-Lyn, and now with Carrie as well! And now I drink my cup of coffee in the morning with my LTH mug, I talk on my iphone with the LTH phone cover - I love that! (but please note, if you are going to buy the iphone cover, I suggest to buy the inside part as well) And I have my LTH notebooks as well!!! Society 6 has done a great job with LTH products for sale! I may be a piano (& ukelele) player, but I am mostly a PROUD HARPIST (even in my infant stage of learning!) :).
I have played piano and guitar, and the advantages are that I already read music, and I know about Major and Minor keys, plus the different modes (like Mahogany Moon being in the key of C, but the placement of G sharps puts it into Dorian Mode). I know about triads and other chords, I’m familiar with accidentals (which can be problematic with harps, even lever harps, but that is possible with lever changes through the piece.) the biggest challenge for me so far has been getting used to placement and bracketing, which does not exist in piano or guitar. Thanks to Christy-Lin’s teaching in her courses, I am getting used to that, but I have to keep practicing. I’ve been playing about a month now, and I love Mahogany Moon! My fingers are developing muscle memory for the placement and as I play, I can hear in my mind Christy-Lin saying “Place!” I’m also practicing “Thumbs up, fingers down!” Thank you, Christy-Lin and Carrie!
Oh boy! I had a hard time with the hand position because it is completely different from playing piano. It took me 2 months I think for my fingers to really be comfortable plucking the strings. I also developed callouses at first and my fingers would hurt but I just keep on practicing. The biggest advantage is that I already know which string yo pluck since I already know how to read sheet music.
😂I can’t agree more probably that’s reason I have lots “hill” wrists movement at the beginning when I first learn the harp😅it really takes sometime for to let my brain get used to it. I definitely need to go back and focus on my technique 🧐
I find it confusing that I'm looking through the strings, instead of with piano where it's a solid range of black and white keys with nothing behind them to distract me. Takes quite a bit of getting used to. Also the perspective of the angle of the harp on your body, because piano is completely perpendicular to your body, whereas the harp is at a slight angle. Those 2 things coupled together really make my brain work hard. But I've only tried to play harp a couple of times, so I'm sure it would all become easier over time and I'd get used to it 👍
You didn't mention levers and pedals, which would confuse me. I have been around pianos all of my life but I never felt that the piano was my instrument. Plucking a classical guitar suited me a little better. Plucking a 5/7 cross-strung harp with light string tension is what my hands have always wanted.
Ah yes I totally forgot to talk about levers and pedals! 😆 I remember the concept being quite overwhelming at first, but it didn’t take too long to get used to the idea. Actually doing lever and pedal changes take a bit longer to become natural, but I enjoyed the challenge 😊 I’m glad you’re enjoying cross-strung harp. Such fun!
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Any harpist-pianists here? 🎹🙋🏻♀ Me too! I found there were definitely some advantages to knowing piano before harp, but I also think there are some challenges! What are your thoughts?
I played some piano before learning harp, and now after learning to play the harp, I am better at piano than I was before. It was very interesting!
I spent years practicing scales on the piano. learning to play scales on harp i have to actually THINK about using my right hand.
@@alannamcmahon2554 I'm finding the same thing too! I'm not a pianist but knew my way around the piano well before I started playing my lap harp and now I've noticed how much more accurate my finger positioning is on piano!
I play piano for nearly 30 years and also some other instruments. But I think especially the piano helped me really quickly to learn the harp. I started 3 years ago. Usually I learn with RUclips Videos- like yours 😉- but once I took a lesson with a teacher in my city. She was completely astounded that I learned everything by myself and via RUclips, especially the position and holding of the hand and fingers and asked again and again if I don't lie.🤣 But I think the piano was the reason for. And using two hands is the same. Also the C1 as "middle" note. But what I find difficult still is sometimes finding the correct note quickly. I figured out that I connect every note on the sheet paper more with a certain piano key then with the "name" of the note. That's why my head has difficulties to adjust it so quickly to the harp.
I can definitely relate with the wrists leading and not preparing the fingers prior to plucking the notes! Another thing that I'm trying to work on is the fingers pulling away into the hand straight and not curled, which I am used to from piano.
I was a pianist and musician before beginning the harp. I started harp when I was 65. I had made a comment to my husband about wishing I'd learned to play the harp. Next thing I know, my husband has bought me a Triplett Eclipse Lever Harp and arranged for lessons. It didn't take long, a couple of weeks actually, to get used to the difference between playing the piano and harp. Due to physical problems I have had to make adjustments to my technique with the help of my teacher. I've had both shoulders replaced and the harp has been a great aid in physical therapy. I'm now 74 and still working on good technique but playing now at an advanced intermediate level. Love your informative videos.
Thank you for this video! I've been playing piano for 15 years and recently bought a Guzheng (Chinese harp). I really want to learn the harp someday when I can afford one!
Had piano 🎹 lessons in my youth, played Guitar as a teenager, now in my 60's I'm learning the harp and using all my my musical 🎼 knowledge to do so like reading basic piano music and understanding cords. Thanks Christy-Lyn for all your wonderful videos💕
Fantastic, what a wonderful journey of music! It’s so awesome to keep learning no matter our age.
I'm originally a flautist. Learning the harp started off easily. I had a method book with photos, could read the music easily, and the hand position and finger placing wasn't hard to learn. Then I hit playing different things in both hands at the same time, while reading off two staves one of which was in bass clef. I'm used to assorted finger patterns, each of which gives a single note, and only treble clef on a single stave.
It was like hitting a wall, and came as a shock. Really hard. After struggling for a while, getting distracted and putting down the harp for years, picking it back up again and running into the same issue, I went off and found a teacher, and she helped me work through it. I'm still not good at sightreading on harp, and bass clef is still not as solid as I'd like, but I did get over the hump okay and it was well worth doing. I've also learned a lot more about chords I never learned from flute, which is awesome when I want to try writing music.
Apart from reading music and finger dexterity, I don't think playing flute helped me all that much with the harp. It's a treble clef only melody instrument, and very different from the harp.
Interesting. I see only advantages to knowing how to play piano (or any musical instrument, really) before learning the harp. There are challenges, yes, but that is with learning any new instrument. And I've discovered that learning the harp has actually improved my piano playing.
Agreed! 😃 And once we’re aware of the challenges we can take steps to overcome them 🙌🏻
Definitely! 👍I think this has to do with the way one looks at it. I personally would not use the word "disadvantage" because it seems so negative. "Challenge" to me is a much better word. It is much more positive and something to work toward, not to become discouraged by or feel "less than." These challenges to me are not due to me having learned piano first, but just the normal challenges of learning a new instrument. Just how I choose to look at it.
This is so incredibly helpful! Thank you so much ❤
I've only started playing the harp a few weeks ago but since I grew up playing the piano and multiple instruments and study music at uni it was really easy to adjust although I did find myself having to go back to learning the correct technique and basics after being able to improvise and play a few songs. I would also like to add that I watched your videos before buying one, so I knew straight away where the notes are and stuff. another thing I found difficult was calluses for this instrument it stung like hell for the first week I'm slowly starting to adjust to it now. but it truly is such a beautiful instrument and I'm willing to go back to basics just so i learn how to play it correctly
Thanks for this video! In my experience with 10 years of piano lessons, you steadily increase the complexity of the music toward classical music. Imitating that path on the harp became frustrating for me. So now after 5 years, I have learned it is better play much simpler pieces fluently and with confidence and less stress!
That’s great, I’m glad you found a way to enjoy it more and have less stress! Simple really can be so beautiful, especially on the harp 😍💕
I definitely agree with everything you said especially the orientation, my right hand is always going the wrong way!
Hehe it happens 😄But you will get used to it I’m sure!
Hi Christy-Lyn! Thanks a lot for your videos! I love watching your channel, I like your way of explaining. Despite the fact that I almost finished my bachelor's degree in harp, I find some subtleties in your videos that work especially well with adult amateur students.
But I would like to critically comment on your statement about the movement of the wrist. The fact is that the movement that you show as "wrong" is a very key element of French harp technique. It took me 2 years to understand how it works and I applied extra study in order to master it. My current harp professor said that the wrist movement I used to do (I also studied in Ukraine before and the harp playing style there is closest to the Russian harp school) is only suitable for a few ways of producing sound, but not for all.
In theory, this "wrong" movement is used when a note sounds for a very long time and a soft deep tone is required from it. That is, for example, when you play big chords that last a whole bar. Or some single notes, but you still have time for this movement. It is responsible for a particularly smooth sound and long juicy sound. And of course, as in the piano, it should be relaxed and ergonomic.
It seems to me that this is difficult to explain in a comment, since it is much easier to show it live.
I hope my comment didn't sound too rude! I didn't mean to offend you, and I hope I got my point across. Just from the point of view of a professional harpist (I have been playing the harp for more than 15 years at the moment), this knowledge needs to be supplemented, since not everything is so simple!
Hi Anna, good to hear from you! Well done for going so far with the harp, that is a big achievement and takes lots of hard work. Very cool! Thanks for writing such a detailed explanation about French harp technique and the wrist movement, that’s very interesting! I haven’t gone into the details of French harp technique myself, but I know there are different approaches to raising movements so perhaps I should have phrased this differently since the main concern I’m talking about here wasn’t meant to be about how the raising movement is done, but rather the overall position of the wrist when playing. When I’m teaching these kinds of concepts, I’m specifically responding to common mistakes I’m seeing with adults teaching themselves, and often their wrists are raised into a “hill” even while they’re plucking the strings, which creates weakness especially in the fourth finger. And this seems to be more of a problem with pianists than those who are learning from scratch. Thanks for adding this helpful tweak to what I said in the video! 👌🏻
Great video Christy-Lyn ☺️. I have noticed a lot of people tend to ask harpists or harpers this question (does playing piano make it easier to play the harp and vice versa)? I've played guitar (mainly classical for 22 years), knew my way around the piano but didn't have lessons, and have taught myself how to play the lap harp (20 st) since October 2022. I haven't had an issue with the orientation of the harp (I guess that is due to the orientation of the guitar), but it has taken almost two months for me to get my hand and arm positioning correct on the harp. Learning both the piano and harp at the same time, I have found that they both really complement each other. If I do scales on either instrument, I barely stumble over my notes when playing a piece. It just feels easier to play on the other Instrument, which makes sense considering the fingers and hands have had a good warm up.
I'm a piano teacher and I pick up my harp during my year 3 bachelors. I find it's hard to fix my floating and twisting wrist. And yes! We need to read the music score further in advance when we are playing the harp compared with the piano in order to have a better fingerings position
Guitar/ukulele player here....and currently learning how to play the harp. And yes, I have experienced the dilemma of my hands and fingers constantly trying to "revert" back to a familar guitar position, because that is what they are used to...but I am making steady progress with the harpist positioning of the hands/fingers, the more I practice on the harp...I am excited about learning the harp, an instrument I have aspired to play for 20 years now, but was always afraid to learn, or just too busy with guitar all the time...peace!
Keep it up, it’s so exciting that you’re finally doing this after all these years!! 😃🎉🙌🏻
Interesting to read all the comments below! I am a piano player but had never taken lessons so taking harp lessons from you has been wonderful! One difference I found was playing sharps and flats on the piano were much easier than having to put levers up and down on my harp in order to play those notes! But it's much more fun and challenging to do so! Also, being able to read sheet music made the transition easy to reading harp music. Also easier to move/carry around a harp rather than not being able to take a piano with me wherever I go! (I think everyone would agree with that! haha! - although that's how keyboards came about, I'm sure!) OH! but we can only use 8 of our fingers (including our thumbs) to play the harp instead of using all 10 for the piano! That was way different for me! It has truly been wonderful to learn the harp from you, Christy-Lyn, and now with Carrie as well! And now I drink my cup of coffee in the morning with my LTH mug, I talk on my iphone with the LTH phone cover - I love that! (but please note, if you are going to buy the iphone cover, I suggest to buy the inside part as well) And I have my LTH notebooks as well!!! Society 6 has done a great job with LTH products for sale! I may be a piano (& ukelele) player, but I am mostly a PROUD HARPIST (even in my infant stage of learning!) :).
I have played piano and guitar, and the advantages are that I already read music, and I know about Major and Minor keys, plus the different modes (like Mahogany Moon being in the key of C, but the placement of G sharps puts it into Dorian Mode). I know about triads and other chords, I’m familiar with accidentals (which can be problematic with harps, even lever harps, but that is possible with lever changes through the piece.) the biggest challenge for me so far has been getting used to placement and bracketing, which does not exist in piano or guitar. Thanks to Christy-Lin’s teaching in her courses, I am getting used to that, but I have to keep practicing. I’ve been playing about a month now, and I love Mahogany Moon! My fingers are developing muscle memory for the placement and as I play, I can hear in my mind Christy-Lin saying “Place!” I’m also practicing “Thumbs up, fingers down!” Thank you, Christy-Lin and Carrie!
Oh boy! I had a hard time with the hand position because it is completely different from playing piano. It took me 2 months I think for my fingers to really be comfortable plucking the strings. I also developed callouses at first and my fingers would hurt but I just keep on practicing.
The biggest advantage is that I already know which string yo pluck since I already know how to read sheet music.
can you recommend a good transcription program or app?
Sibelius is excellent but expensive. If you want a free app you can try musescore 😊
😂I can’t agree more probably that’s reason I have lots “hill” wrists movement at the beginning when I first learn the harp😅it really takes sometime for to let my brain get used to it. I definitely need to go back and focus on my technique 🧐
You’ve come so far already, you can do whatever you set your mind to! 😃🙌🏻
I find it confusing that I'm looking through the strings, instead of with piano where it's a solid range of black and white keys with nothing behind them to distract me. Takes quite a bit of getting used to. Also the perspective of the angle of the harp on your body, because piano is completely perpendicular to your body, whereas the harp is at a slight angle. Those 2 things coupled together really make my brain work hard. But I've only tried to play harp a couple of times, so I'm sure it would all become easier over time and I'd get used to it 👍
You didn't mention levers and pedals, which would confuse me. I have been around pianos all of my life but I never felt that the piano was my instrument. Plucking a classical guitar suited me a little better. Plucking a 5/7 cross-strung harp with light string tension is what my hands have always wanted.
Ah yes I totally forgot to talk about levers and pedals! 😆 I remember the concept being quite overwhelming at first, but it didn’t take too long to get used to the idea. Actually doing lever and pedal changes take a bit longer to become natural, but I enjoyed the challenge 😊 I’m glad you’re enjoying cross-strung harp. Such fun!
As a former violinist learning the harp my coordination is very imbalanced (My left hand can play better then my right hand)