Programme Notes

Flight - Harriet Adie
It is about a bird who is flying over the UK and what he observes on his travels before returning home again.’ The first and 3rd sections should be played with quite a wistful and free feeling, and the middle section should contrast strongly with this and be much more dynamic.

Two pieces for lever harp - Avril Anderson
In No. 1 the dotted barlines represent phrase endings. No. 2 freely develops melodic fragments from ‘La Bandoline’ by Francois Couperin. If the last note (A) of the 2nd piece is not available as a harmonic, play the A an octave higher (in brackets) normally.

Thinguma Jig - David Gough
The outer sections are almost a mini-study in falling and rising 4ths and 5ths, with a lively bouncy feel, while the middle section has a more gentle folk-song mood with the melody and accompaniment alternating between the hands. The C in bar 12 can be played an octave higher if your harp goes that high (shown in parentheses).

Carol - Nigel Springthorpe
Carol is an arrangement of ‘Jesus, Jesus, rest your head’ a traditional Christmas carol from the Appalachiam mountains of Kentucky, USA. It is gentle music which should never sound hurried. Aim for singing tone in the melody with a general pulse of MM quaver = 84-92. But, withinn this tempo be flexible and let the music slow naturally at the end of phrases.

Three Haiku - David Sutton-Anderson
These pieces reflect the aphoristic quality of the Japanese Haiku as well as its three line seventeen syllable structure; each piece is seventeen bars long and has three sections.

Skegness Rock - Eleanor Turner
Skegness Rock is about walking along the beach in Skeggy, with a stick of pink and white minty Skegness Rock, after a long day at work or play. You’re walking along with a swing in your step, enjoying the simple pleasures of the Lincolnshire coast. In terms of harp playing, this piece is all about funky syncopations and 3 and 4-note patterns to have in your fingertips. Enjoy those lever slides! Bars 25-30 Lever harp: Right hand plays everything, left hand changes C lever.

Four East Coast Sketches - Christopher Wright
These four miniatures depict scenes and experiences of the East Anglian Coast.
‘The Estuary’ charts the course of a river, meandering its way through the reed beds, boats and silted areas to the sea.; a struggle that ends in majestic reward. Watching a sunrise on the east coast is a unique experience. The music emerges through the differing colours of early morning mist, eventually to transfix the watcher in the union of sky, sea and land. Spits ans sand-banks make parts of the coast treacherous places for sailing and swimming. ‘Cross Currents’ conveys this through musical use of cross rhythms, tossing the listener around like a small boat. A walk along the coastal path provides enormous scenic variety. Paths themselves are a combination of sand dunes, shingle and earthen tracks. But the encounters along the way are as diverse as may be found in any a cluttered town. Wildlife in abundance, former wartime defence buildings, tiny hamlets - to mention but a few. But perhaps the strongest presence is the sea and the wind!

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A NOTE REGARDING LAYOUT OF LEVER CHANGES
Lever changes are shown as diamond notes enclosed in boxes, generally on the lower stave. Where there is a clef (usually treble) also inside the box next to the note, this relates only to the lever change, and the following normal notes revert to the existing clef. Of course, clefs not in boxes indicate genuine changes of clef which apply both to diamond and normal notes.

As levers will usually be operated one at a time, multiple lever changes are generally slightly spaced apart. However, in some cases, they may be shown as a ‘chord’ of diamond notes. This is purely for layout reasons and does not imply that the levers should be changed simultaneously although this may indeed be possible where they are close together.

The order in which multiple lever changes are actually performed may be decided by the player (or their teacher, where appropriate).