 Trade In this Item for up to £5.85
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Small Harp: a Step by Step Tutor for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £5.85, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
The Small Harp (Clarsach) - a step by step tutor, by Alison Kinnaird. This book contains - Advice on buying & maintaining a clarsach, Tuning a clarsach, A basic guide to musical notation, Instruction on sitting at the harp, arm, hand & finger positions, Lessons & exercises for two, three & four fingers, Chords, scales, arpeggios & moving around the harp. The enclosed CD demonstrates - tuning your small harp, Lessons & exercises 1-6, Beginner's tunes, Simple ornamentation, & more.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
This is a great book for those who are just starting to learn this beautiful instrument. The instructions are simple and there is a gradual progression in difficulty through the pieces. The CD is a real benefit too, it helps so much to have some idea how the finished product should sound. Also, because the rhythm of Celtic music is so different from modern music, the CD helps you understand how the grace notes should fit into the pieces.
The music is lovely too, which is helpful - it's encouraging to feel that you can play something pretty as soon as you start to learn.
My only misgiving about this book, and the reason that I have not given it five stars, is that the music is handwritten rather than typed, so you need good eye sight and a little bit of patience when you first start to practice. But it's not too difficult and it'll get you used to handwritten music, useful if you want to play a lot of folk music!
The music is lovely too, which is helpful - it's encouraging to feel that you can play something pretty as soon as you start to learn.
My only misgiving about this book, and the reason that I have not given it five stars, is that the music is handwritten rather than typed, so you need good eye sight and a little bit of patience when you first start to practice. But it's not too difficult and it'll get you used to handwritten music, useful if you want to play a lot of folk music!
Alison's book is brillaintly through with its hand positions, diagrams, maintance instructions, selecting tuning style to suit you. The book progresses very slowly between each piece of music, so its therefore excellent for dummies like me.
The book desperately needs some updating, its dated 1989!... and it shows. The text is small and close knit, making harder to browse for certain passages. Personally i'm not a Scot, and not really interested greatly in playing old scottish folk music, and therefore there aren't many tunes in this book that I've learnt that I'll ever want to play again. However there is a history with each Etude (of which there are many), which if your a history lover- you're bound to adore.
The music notion is hand written and therefore it feels like your reading someones notes, even for someone like me who has perfect 20/20 vision- struggles to read the finger positions becuase they are so tiny.
The CD is vital to learning any of the tunes in this book, becuase you'll never find a harper on youtube thats done a cover of any of her songs. The songs are pleasant enough, but not exactly very exciting!
If you want a book that progresses slowly, then its brillant.
The book desperately needs some updating, its dated 1989!... and it shows. The text is small and close knit, making harder to browse for certain passages. Personally i'm not a Scot, and not really interested greatly in playing old scottish folk music, and therefore there aren't many tunes in this book that I've learnt that I'll ever want to play again. However there is a history with each Etude (of which there are many), which if your a history lover- you're bound to adore.
The music notion is hand written and therefore it feels like your reading someones notes, even for someone like me who has perfect 20/20 vision- struggles to read the finger positions becuase they are so tiny.
The CD is vital to learning any of the tunes in this book, becuase you'll never find a harper on youtube thats done a cover of any of her songs. The songs are pleasant enough, but not exactly very exciting!
If you want a book that progresses slowly, then its brillant.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Yes, You Can Learn to Play the Harp!
4 Jun 2001
Amazon Verified Purchase
Having just bought a 19-string Celtic harp and not having an instructor near-by, I purchased Ms. Kinneard's book and CD. Within one week I was able to play some tunes and can actually keep the thing tuned..Both the book and the CD are very clear and the "exercises" she provides are actually pretty fun and good for learning basic techniques. The only criticism I have is that there are a lot of tunes in the book that are not played on the CD and for those of us who are not adept at reading music, it will be difficult to figure them out. And this is a shame, because her selection of music is a delightful assortment of traditional Celtic tunes that have been beautifully arranged for the harp. This is a petty complaint, though, because this was an easy, painless, and delightful way to learn to play this instrument. I have never been a musician so I was really starting from scratch - and I am very grateful to Ms. Kinnaerd for making competency with this rather intimidating instrument accessible and enjoyable. I highly recommend it!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
A great book for getting started with the harp...
21 May 2001
This book will take you from absolute basics like "how to read music", "replacing a string" and "tuning your clarsach" to more difficult tasks like "ornamentation and decoration" and hints for arranging music with the harp in mind. The book begins with small songs for two fingers, working up to three and four fingers, and progressing through the skills you'll need to play more difficult songs. It's written in a straightforward manner, and the CD is an invaluable resource (starting off with tuning--useful if you've started into all this without having a tuning fork, tuner or piano handy--and giving demonstrations of all of the songs in the book). As a beginner, I found the pace just slow enough to get me off the ground with a bit of confidence, but fast enough to actually get me somewhere if I was willing to commit to practicing.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
