Ladies' Guild Meeting - April 2009
There
was no fooling on the first of April 2009 as we waited to hear our speaker
for the evening. Knowing that
we were to hear from a harpist, we were pleased when we heard the harp being
tuned in the corridor of the village hall.
Then
in walked an angel, casually pulling a huge harp on a very smart version
of a sack barrow. Elegant
dress, high heels, a huge smile and an infectious laugh came with the lady
who proceeded
to amuse us for the next hour or so.
Geraldine McMahon had driven from her home in St Albans but was a
little late because it was her birthday.
We heard that she had learned to play the harp due to her
mother’s encouragement. She
learned at school and became very interested in it, in spite of the fact
that she needed to practise after school and at the weekend.
After a divorce, she needed an income to keep her two children, so she returned to her harp playing as a career. She was visiting us to fund raise funds for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. Geraldine has been a fund-raiser for the charity since the death, from breast cancer, of her dear friend Sue. She has raised a lot of money, the initial intention being to raise £1,000 to have her friend’s name put on the remembrance wall at The Royal Marsden Hospital. Having achieved this, she continues to fund raise for the charity, talking and playing for groups such as ours. There is no government funding for breast cancer research and so, without public support, there would be little research into a cure for the deadly disease.
Geraldine
talked about the different kinds of harp.
Hers is an American Concert Grand, the
biggest and is taller than herself. It
is very ornate, with gleaming gold and polished wood. It has 47 red, black and white strings and seven pedals.
The red strings are C and the black ones are F, arranged like that
so the harpist knows the area to reach for as the music is played.
The pedals, three on the left B C D and four on the right E F G A,
are used to provide sharps and flats.
The mechanism inside is complicated with 2,000 moving parts.
Harps
are made in Germany, Japan and Russia as well as America.
The harp is in great demand, due to the writing of many famous
composers and the popularity of the music in both Wales and Ireland.
We are used to seeing the harp played in orchestral settings or
alone. The sizes vary from
the smallest for children to learn to that of Geraldine’s, which weighs
90 pounds. The strings are
made from gut or wire wrapped in silk or from nylon, depending on the
length required. They break
frequently and can be expensive to replace.
Geraldine
teaches both children and adults to play.
She also plays for a variety of events in venues here and abroad.
The most requested
piece is Greensleeves; the oldest are the best!
When performing in the UK or Europe, Geraldine drives with the harp
in her large estate car. While
travelling the harp is wrapped and placed in the huge bag.
She then wheels it to her car where she uses cardboard rolls from
the inside of carpets to roll it into place in the back of the estate.
The trolley is easily disassembled for travelling, as is the
harpist’s stool. Then the
journey begins and often ends with problems caused by parking restrictions
as unloading the harp takes time.
Flying with the harp means sending it alone in a cargo plane.
These days Geraldine borrows one when performing in America as she
once arrived to perform in Seattle but the harp did not arrive in time.
Driving
is not the only hazard of the work. Calluses
appear on the fingers as the harp is played with the thumb and three
fingers, the small finger is not strong enough. To start playing, the harp is tipped to a balance point and
then rests on the knees. The
feet have to deal with the pedals and so
heeled shoes seem most comfortable for the playing process.
The stress to the body can be considerable, as is the stress on the
harp. One fact that astounded
me is that harps last for many years but eventually explode; as they
mature the sound improves, the oldest harps are best, they give their
sweetest music before “dying”. Harps
seem in the mind to be associated with the mystic; maybe the fact that
they have a finite life could explain this, even if it is 200 years.
Each harp is different. The
dynamics depend on the make up of each part and with the touch of the
player.
Her talk, punctuated with laughter and funny stories amused us but her playing enchanted us all. The interaction between hands and harp produced beautiful music, which took us to our own worlds of memories and appreciation. We loved the music but also enjoyed Geraldine’s delight when she was given a collection we had taken for the charity and a birthday cake because she had kindly driven to talk and play to us on her birthday.