Harp Tips Interview: 
Nancy Bick Clark    


Nancy Bick Clark has taught workshops at harp conferences, retreats and Scottish Games for over a dozen years. 

When Nancy was teaching at the Gaelic College in Baddeck, Nova Scotia,  she and her husband Frank performed at the 55th annual Gaelic Mod opening ceremonies in 1993.  Nancy performed with The Chieftains in 2003.

The first President of Scottish Harp Society of America, Nancy has judged harp competitions at Scottish Games throughout the South.  Her five CD's contain many of her compositions, and selections of her work have aired on Thistle and Shamrock.    
 

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I would like to be able to hear a piece and instantly be able to play it on the harp. What is your advice for ear training?


You might wish to try learning to hear intervals by playing a series of a given interval up and down your harp.  Starting with fifths would be a good one to begin to feel the sound.  You could then try playing a note and see if you can sing the note a fifth above that and then play the note to see how close you came. This can be done for fourths, thirds and sixths. 

On a keyboard, it is easier to tell the "minor" thirds or seconds from the major ones than on a harp.  If you have a keyboard available, by all means use it to help with ear training.



What can that do?

Once you learn the sounds of intervals, you may be able to pick out a song by knowing the starting note and working your way up and down.  There are elements of pitch, interval and rhythm.  Sometimes if I'm learning something by ear, I find the rhythm the most elusive to figure out initially.



What about ear training for learning rhythm?

For learning to feel rhythm, I highly recommend a class in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, which I was fortunate to take at Oberlin. We walked to drum beats and also beat drums. We learned to feel the space between the beats. Rhythm is so important, and something that will aid every harper  in learning or performing a piece.




What are common mistakes any of us can make?

Here are a few things that come to mind.

Keeping the upper arms and elbows glued to the rib cage.  This creates tension and restricts the movement.

Putting your face close to the strings, or even tilting the face horizontally to face the strings.  This will bring about back pain near the rib cage.

Not giving the music its full note value.  I have heard people at all levels, even professional, chop off a small portion of a cadence note to rush the next phrase.  Honor the silence between the notes. Harp strings ring.

Not releasing the hand after a long phrase to let the music breathe and to let the hand re-group momentarily.  Whether one is trained Salzedo or French School, the release is important.

Not keeping a consistent tempo.




What are hand mistakes we have to look out for?

Not closing the fingers completely into the palms for maximum tone.

Letting the thumb drop under the index finger after playing a string.

Not replacing the fingers in a bracket.

Replacing a finger too quickly to create a buzz or an unintentionally muted note. This breaks the flow.

Pinching the thumb to the webbing between it and the index finger.  This will restrict the movement of the thumb and any sound one might get from the thumb.

Bending from one of the first two knuckles instead of the large knuckle.  The fingers cannot then go into the palm completely.

"Plucking" the strings and letting the fingers go backwards instead of forward into the palm; in general having the hand in a position of a "claw"  instead of a relaxed closed hand after playing notes.


What a helpful list!  Are there finger mistakes to look out for?

Not placing the fingers ahead of time, or forgetting to place all the fingers again following a scale cross-over.

In finger placement, either not putting enough fingers down when needed or placing extraneous fingers that are not needed, which can cause a pretzel effect of the hand.

Not opening and closing the whole hand when the index finger is playing, representing a "trigger finger." Some people keep their fourth and fifth fingers "glued" to the palm if using only the thumb, index and middle finger. Try it and feel the tension between your third and fourth fingers. This will compromise the freedom of movement of all the fingers.  Also, using all the bottom fingers along with the finger playing the note will give added power to the hand and the finger playing the note.




Share with us a couple of things that make learning easier.

A violin teacher of my friend and colleague Jude Jones always said, "Sing what you play and play what you sing."  I advise my students to listen to the tune, to tape the tune in their lesson and then try to sing the tune while driving and waiting at a traffic light.  When you remember how the tune is supposed to sound in your head, you will have a better sense of where it is going and what finger patterns and brackets are coming ahead.
 
As for "Play what you sing," you want to make the tune sound as if it's being sung.  This means very smooth finger placements and re-placements.  This may sound basic, but it's very important to let each harp string ring out as long as possible before replacing the fingers.  Otherwise, that particular string may sound chopped or muted.
In closing, have you ever had any "miracle" experiences associated with the harp?

In 1986, I was playing my earliest composition "Cairn Tune" at a nursing home and a man blurted out something.  I was a little disconcerted but kept on playing.  Later, a nurse told me that this was the first word she had heard out of the man in the past six months.  Apparently the harp unleashed something.


Nancy will  be teaching "Fun for Beginners" and "Elements of Chording" at Southeastern Harp Weekend 2012.