Beth Kollé 

Like many young girls, I was captivated by the sight and sound of the harp. It was a treat to drive past the home of 'The Harp Lady', which one could easily identify by the large gold harp centered just inside the beautiful stained glass window of the living room. How gorgeous! But I was learning piano, and then flute and guitar. And I was mentally hobbled by the odd notion that I must be angelically perfect in every way to play the harp, so just forget about it, Beth.

Then I met a harpist at my university, and she was a real person, not some angel, with the same foibles and questionable behavior that any other 20-year-old has. Although we played music together for years, it took me a long time to wrap my mind around the possibility of me playing the harp. It wasn't that I doubted that I'd like to learn harp, it was that I was afraid I'd love it, and that the harp would change the course of my life.

Well, guess what! That's exactly what happened when I finally sat down for my first harp lesson from my dear friend Tudy. As Harper Tasche, whom I met some time later, told a mutual friend: '...and she was launched out of a cannon on a harp!' Wheee!

Soon, like within weeks, I was composing and arranging music for the harp -- not great music, but it was at least a good first attempt. I listened to as many harp recordings as I could find, learning the best way to arrange a tune to bring out its best qualities. Along the way I discovered the harp community, found just about anywhere if you look hard enough: pedal, lever, wire, double, cross, triple, Latin....an amazing community of musicians unlike any other.

I also discovered gig-playing and found I loved playing harp in public. It's so much fun to play for people who have never been close to a harp before. But I wanted to break new ground on the harp, play unusual music.  What could I possibly play that would be unusual and still delightful? On the sage advice of Harper Tasche (just do anything he advises you to do, it will be worth it!) I started the process of melding two of my interests: harp and Scandinavian music.

Delving through my memory of folk music from multiple years of teaching Scandinavian dance, I started arranging those exquisite tunes for the harp. In short time, The Northern Folk Harp collection of arrangements was born. I printed a few copies and handed them out to friends for critique, but someone wrote a lovely review and posted it to the Harplist. Orders started flowing in and I had to scramble to finish the book and bind my first hundred copies.

Several books and CDs followed, and I was invited to play and teach at several harp conferences around the US. A chance meeting with knitter and author Annemor Sundbø led me on a two-week trip to Norway, one of my favorite countries, where I played a concert at a festival in the valley called Setesdal.

That trip inspired the idea that within a year gave birth to the Harpa Tours. In 2006, 2008 and 2013, harpers from the US and Canada came together to tour Norway, and in 2006 we included a festival in Sweden. We put from 6 to 10 harps on the stage during our whirlwind two-week tours, playing in exotic settings and beautiful medieval churches, gaping at the scenery, and jamming with the locals wherever we went.

I've just finished my tenth book of harp arrangements, Songs for the Midnight Sun (Afghan Press). It's funny -- just about the time I think I've run out of gorgeous Nordic tunes, along comes a batch of new ones I've never heard before. I find I just have to stop right now and put them on the harp.

To get the 15% discount on Beth's PDFs (listed below), enter the code word beth in the Promo Code box on your shopping cart page and click "Enter Code" by August 25, 2014. For more information, see the "Save 15%" section at the bottom of this newsletter.   

This PDF by Beth Kollé includes 15 Nordic Dances, Songs and Ballads for Every Occasion. Some of the pieces also include flute parts. Keys range from 1 flat to 4 sharps, and a few pieces have some lever changes. The pieces are arranged for advanced beginner to intermediate lever harp players. Chord symbols are included, but no fingerings. 30 pages of music in a 40 page PDF.

Author's Note Songs for the Midnight Sun comprises fifteen Nordic folk melodies, dance tunes, songs and ballads that have captured my imagination over the years. I am completely enamored with the depth and beauty of the music from Scandinavia. It is with great joy that I offer them to you. For me, Scandinavian music is the expression of the unparalleled beauty of the Nordic countries. The exotically different modes and harmonies evoke wild nature, and unseen beings of the ancient folk beliefs. This is music meant to be sung, danced to, or crooned to sleepy children, preferably in an age-old log cabin redolent of sweet, mellow resin and many years of comforting fires. As with all my other books, these arrangements are meant to be adjusted to your own playing style. Use them as a stepping-off point for making the arrangement your own, or use some of my ideas in a different song. Consider yourself warned: many Scandinavian tunes are addictive and tend to roll around in your head. The cure for that, of course, is to find another tune to replace the one in your head. And so on . . . good luck with that.