An alumna of Brebeuf (where I teach) is in El Salvador for a year on a Fulbright scholarship. Heavy rains on Nov. 7 created landslides and contaminated water supplies for one of the small rural communities she's been researching in. At this point, she and a few friends have been delivering handfuls of rice and beans and containers of fresh water to folks. The roads to larger communities are mostly out and the military, Red Cross, etc. are not helping. http://friendsofsantamaria.blogspot.com Please read, please help, please pass this on. As with most natural disasters, the poorest are hit hardest. Mudslides have killed people in this community and washed away houses. Please send thoughts and prayers if nothing else. Thank you all!!

Thanksgiving! AUGH! My mother suggested, two years ago, that it was really hard on our daughter to drag her to both my parents' and my in-laws' T-day celebrations in one day, and that we should alternate. Good idea! Last year we went to my parents' house for the entire day and didn't see the in-laws at all. Logically, this year we should go to the in-laws, yes? So I got ambushed this morning with a huge guilt trip from my mother because she bought a big turkey without checking with us first (and apparently because she can't count to two and realize that if we were at HER house last year, we would be at THEIR house this year). I hate Thanksgiving. I don't even like turkey. And I REALLY don't like my mother making the holidays into emotional tug-of-war. Grrrrr.

Money having become a huge stressor in my life, yesterday I hit the wall. Broke down several times AT WORK. Scared my little girl by yelling at my mom when I dropped off the girls and then slammed the door. Had to go back in and hug and comfort a toddler who hadn't gotten to say goodbye to Mommy. Realized that this is not the way my life should be. When the stress is messing up some of the most important relationships in my life and affecting my job performance, it's time to get help. My husband's company offers an Employee Assistance Program, and yesterday afternoon I enrolled and started the process of evaluation and then referral to a local mental-health professional (not sure yet what kind will be needed: psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor, whatever). Since the money is the trigger, they also gave me a toll-free number for financial services, so we'll see if I can in fact pay off this debt or if I really am in too deep to realistically ever pay it off, and all my budgeting attempts are laudable but doomed. If the latter, well, there's a solution for that too, and my credit's already bad, so. . .we'll see.

Feel MUCH BETTER today. Plus, there's actual SUNSHINE for the first time all week. I'm going to go outside and stand in the sun for a bit to feel better before going on with teaching the afternoon's classes.

Last night was a choral festival that my choirs go to every year at Marian University in Indianapolis. We're only supposed to bring one choir, so I always pick two of our mass numbers to do so that I can bring two choirs and have them sing together. :) Each Catholic high school choir performs two songs of their choice, and then the concert ends with a huge mass number. For never having sung these pieces together before, and only getting fifteen minutes of practice time together, I was VERY proud of my choirs. We did an easy Mark Hayes piece (3-part accompanied) that was very high-energy and fun, and then brought out the big guns: Darmon Meader's arrangement of the Coventry Carol, one of the most beautiful and haunting melodies EVER. Really dissonant harmonies (if that's not an oxymoron) in the second verse and then some very funky modern reharmonization in the last verse. Four-part and a cappella. We have worked our tailfeathers off learning this (Darmon Meader arranges for the New York Voices, a professional vocal ensemble), and last night we took it to a new level for us. Heard some really wonderful choral music from a couple of the other choirs too, which will hopefully inspire my singers when I rant about the importance of good vowel shapes, dynamics, and blend. Very satisfied with the whole thing. Just wish I didn't have to get up the next morning and come to work! <yawn>

I don't drink real coffee.  Not black, not with cream, sugar, or both.  Nope. To drink coffee, I have to add chocolate.  So I'm one of those froufrou "coffee drink" people who REALLY can't afford a Starbucks habit because it costs more than double a plain ol' cup of joe.  But I found the best cafe mocha EVER yesterday when I visited Books-A-Million for the very first time.  Selection was good; not as heavy on the scifi and fantasy as Borders, but good overall, with some fun accessory stuff I hadn't seen in other bookstores.  After picking up the newest Sharon Shinn to hit paperback (FORTUNE AND FATE: great book! Fifth in the Twelve Houses series), I wandered over to the requisite bookstore coffee nook: BAM's is called Joe Muggs.  Not only do they have cafe mocha, they have DARK cafe mocha, with Ghirardelli Mint Bliss chocolate, even!  That sounded too good to be true, but I ordered it anyway. 

For once, something wasn't too good to be true.  I can't describe how good that tasted.  I just can't.  Go buy your own.  Amazing!  Made my day, since Maddie had had a rotten night the night before and I hadn't gotten much sleep.  It almost completely made up for being a zombie on a day when I had to work a full day plus a rehearsal with a children's choir plus a music planning meeting for two upcoming worship services.  And it cost the same as the Starbucks version.  Too cool! 

Of course, now that I've relived the experience in text on LJ, I want another dark cafe mocha. . .

So I stayed up too late last night watching Castle (NATHAN FILLION ROCKS!) and had to rush around madly this morning on not enough sleep.  Wound up running right past my purse and shoulder bag, blithely certain I'd left them in the van last night.  Nope.  Halfway to work I realized I didn't have my driver's license, any money, PDA, iPod, Carmex, other makeup. . .AAACK!  Fortunately, my so-patient husband brought them to work with him, so on my prep I ran over there and picked them up instead of having to either go all the way home or go all day without them (since I also forgot to pack a lunch, this became fairly urgent by midday!).

I really need more sleep. . . and about a week to just focus and organize.  I swear, when both children vocalize at once it short-circuits my brain!  Even when they're both happy, it's just impossible to concentrate--and since they're usually out in our one main room (living room/dining room/kitchen/music room area) and so am I, nothing constructive gets done, and I mean NOTHING. I don't even get laundry put away!  Our house is the worst mess it has ever been in the nearly 10 years I've owned it!  I love my girls.  I want to spend time with them.  I just don't want to feel like such an unproductive loser.  Is that too much to ask??  :)

So after looking at the house, which turned out to have been inhabited by chain-smokers for 40 years (the wallpaper looked like that weird '60's orange, until you saw the cream-colored rectangles where pictures had hung and realized that was NICOTINE!  Ewwww!), we still thought that we could rehab it: rip out all the carpet, repaint EVERYTHING, etc.  Got the call from the financing guys and there will be no home loan in our immediate future.  My credit score is too low.  My husband's is great, but it will take both our incomes to buy a house, so my credit has just nixed that until I can bring the score up.  A bill went to collections last February; I paid it in full, but too late.  Here's the weird one: I have two late payments on my Kohl's card.  I knew there had been late payments, because they never send me a statement until I'm past due.  It's so weird: I only get statements from them every other month.  At first I thought I'd lost it, but over and over again, by the time I receive a statement about a purchase, it's already been over a month.  Good thing I've only used the card twice in the last year!  So I called Kohl's today and explained that I hadn't complained about this issue before, even when it cost me late fees, because I simply didn't think it was that big a deal.  I had no idea they were reporting it!  (Credit reporting is voluntary: they don't HAVE to do it, and many companies don't unless someone is majorly delinquent.)  Given that they're reporting me for late payments when they don't send me a statement until it's too late to pay it on time, I think they should remove that from my credit report, don't you?  Yes!  So they're going to "review" my account and send out a letter sometime in the next 3 business days.

Here's another "black mark" on my credit: it looks like I just took out my mortgage 8 months ago, because apparently that's when Chase acquired it.  That's clearly in error, because it's supposed to show your whole mortgage history.  It's not like you have a choice when your mortgage gets sold to someone else, and it shouldn't count against you on your credit.  SO FRUSTRATING!  So between the collection (which won't drop off the radar for 12 months: that's Feb 2010) and these other things, we can't get a mortgage right now.  <sigh> I was just saying how claustrophobic I was getting in my own house, and now it looks like we're stuck there for the winter. Time to totally reorganize again and see what we can live without.  Wish we could afford to rent storage, but that kind of sabotages saving up for a down payment or paying off debt.  :(

I am getting claustrophobic in my own home. (Warning: boring real estate stuff here: feel free to ignore this post unless you want to see a classic case of the mortgage crisis process in a nutshell!)

When I built this house in 1999, it was just me.  Oh, I had a roommate, but she only had furniture for her bedroom; the rest of the house (3 Bdr/2 BA) was mine, all mine.  In 2003 I got married, and my wonderful husband came with STUFF.  :)  Then in 2007 and 2009 our two children arrived, and they need lots of STUFF too.  Add to this my terminal case of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome), which has led me to acquire four more harps since 1999, and it's just too crowded in here.  I'm renting out two of the harps and would happily sell them, but haven't found buyers yet (if you're interested, send me a message!!  <g>), and I use the other three too much to sell or rent them.  Plus a bass guiter, plus an upright electric bass, plus piano, plus several thousand books. . .the little starter home just won't cut it any more.

Problem: in 2005 I refinanced on my home to consolidate debt (credit card debt, mostly,which accumulated in the wake of a car accident in 2001 when I had self-employed insurance which covered squat), and the company I chose was unscrupulous.  I didn't do my homework, and it bit me; they offered me a loan that would wipe out most of my credit card debt.  What they didn't tell me was that they committed appraisal fraud to do it.  So now I owe $20K more on my house than it's worth, and the only way to get out in the near future is a short sale, which is a Bad Thing for your credit, especially if, like me, you need to move to a bigger house, not just get out. Right now, if you short-sale, it's usually because you can't make the payments, and the banking industry now will not give you another mortgage loan for two full years after a short sale.  We can make the payments just fine here; I just can't breathe.  I wind up curling up on the sofa with a book to avoid looking at the mess and the tinyness of our house now.  (I realize that this is not a healthy or useful response to the problem, but neither is crying uncontrollably, and so I choose the lesser of two evils.)

Everyone (realtor and banking-type people) kept telling us we needed to make sure our current house would sell FIRST, before buying another house.  Finally, though, Phil and I made the decision to shop in a lower price range than we could technically get approved for, and now they're considering letting us get the new mortgage BEFORE selling the current house.  (We have absolutely no desire to be landlords, plus there's a neighborhood covenant against renting, so that's not an option for us.)  So now the plan is: get new mortgage, THEN short-sale on current house, since no matter what the paperwork says about our income, we can't maintain two payments for ANY length of time.  The hit to my credit (and mine alone, since the house is in my name alone) won't affect us as greatly, since there are no major purchases coming up for me in the next 2 years.  I have the van, which I will be paying on for another 4 years, I have my pedal harp, and we're done having children.  Phil will need a new car, but this won't affect his credit, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Yay VA loans!  My husband served 4 years in the Marine Corps and so he's eligible for that.  We truly wouldn't have a prayer for all of this to happen without him.  There's a fixer-upper on the NE side of Indy we're going to look at; supposedly it's got good bones but is hideously outdated: mostly needs new carpet (or hardwood!) and paint.  If that's true, we'll probably make an offer.  I'm so excited!  I finally have hope that I'll be able to breathe, and that someday soon we'll be making payments on a house I actually want to stay in!

Wow!  OVFF was a blast!  All I got to see was the nominees' concert, but it was so much fun!!  Big thanks to Barry & Sally for allowing me to crash in their room overnight rather than try to drive back in the wee sma's; to Judith for the two extra buffet tickets that fed me and my daughter the next morning; and to Bill & Gretchen Roper for the box of baby clothes--hand-me-downs rock!  Great to have a chance to at least say hi to and hug so many of the filk community whose company and music I enjoy so much!

Last night I got to hear the Skinny White Chick live for the first time.  I brought my daughter Maddie, and she was totally captivated by "Alligator in the House".  Throughout the evening, Maddie both embarrassed and amazed me, because she kept asking questions NOT in a whisper (embarrassment!) about the lyrics she was hearing (amazement!).  She gave Sooj and Betsy both big hugs after the concert, which tickled everyone who witnessed it, and overall just was ridiculously fun to have with me.  I love that she's getting big enough to actually enjoy things like this, although she's still way too wiggly to stay in a chair the whole time.  No symphony concerts for her for a while yet!

In other news, we finally have found a good house prospect (we think) and we'll be walking through it on Sunday.  Wish us luck!  Mama needs a new music room!  :)

So tomorrow I'm hopping in the van for a fun three hours of driving, to play one song in a concert and then drive the three hours back afterward.  But it's OVFF, and Wild Mercy has been nominated for the second year in a row for Best Performer; there was no way I could say no to playing in that concert!!  :)  Plus, I think all or nearly all of the filkers I know and love will be there, so even though I can't be there long (for financial reasons, I wasn't planning to go to OVFF this year and had taken a paying gig on Saturday back in Indy), it will hopefully be a huge fun thing.  One more addition to the insanity: I'm bringing Maddie with me.  Yes, she's technically a two-year-old (2 and 3/4 to be exact), but she'll nap on the way out and the way back and she loves music.  Plus I'm feeling some mom guilt, because of working full-time.  Maddie has had it rough: first Katie came along and Mommy's attention got divided between two children, and then Mommy went back to teaching and started leaving her at Nana's or at Grandma Sue's every day.  So she's starved for some Mommy time, and very excited that it'll be just the two of us.  At one point she proposed bringing Katie, but subsided when I explained that I couldn't juggle two children and a bass guitar.  At least, not well.  :)

So we'll be leaving for OH about noon, and hopefully Maddie will fall asleep by 1 and sleep till we get there, which should be around 3 pm-ish.  Concert's at 7:30, so there's time to meet up with the band and Amy, rehearse, eat dinner, and maybe even socialize a bit with some folks I don't get to see nearly often enough.  :)  Then the concert, which we will stay for ALL OF, because I want to hear all the music, and Maddie will be entranced by Judy's signing (at least, I'm assuming she'll be signing that concert, because it just wouldn't be the same without her and it's BEAUTIFUL to watch!!).  Then a round of not-too-quick goodbyes and then it's the long boring I-70 thing back to Indy.  Maddie will zonk out within 10 minutes of getting on the highway at that point, because the adrenaline party-girl high will wear off.  :)  Little sweetie! So it'll be me and the iPod all the way home.  See y'all Friday night!!

I see that the last time I logged in to LJ I promised I was going to keep up with stuff better.  That was in March, I believe.  Currently it's nearly the end of October and this is the next time I've actually logged in.  It would be silly of me to say, "No really, THIS time I'll check it more often!"  I'll just try to do it and we'll see if it works.

Lots of stuff has been happening, in my defense.  Baby #2 was born June 26th: Katherine Alexandra Midkiff weighed 6 pounds 13 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.  She was the spitting image of her big sister at birth (and only 2 oz heavier), and while there's still, at 4 months, enough similarity that we occasionally goof up the names, Katie definitely looks more like me at that age than Maddie did.  She's also going to have blond hair, we think; the little patch of dark hair on top of her head is outnumbered by the millions of little hairs that look like gold-glinting peachfuzz sprouting up all over her head!  She might also keep my blue eyes; I can't remember when Maddie's changed to be hazel like her daddy's, but Katie's are still blue, blue, blue at nearly 4 months old!  My two beautiful girls (sorry; maternal gloating here), and they look enough alike that you know they're sisters, but enough different that you'll never mistake one for the other, even when they're both adults!  We now belong to the club of Done Having Children.  Can't afford to raise/feed/send to college/pay for weddings for more than two.  Plus the concept of being outnumbered by small, intelligent, rapidly moving offspring is a bit scary for both us parents. . . :)

Anyway, this pregnancy was rougher.  Was totally exhausted most of the time, and although the birth itself was easy (induced; 6 hours from the start of the Pitocin drip to the emergence of baby Katie!), the recovery was tiring too.  I felt so much better after Katie's birth that I kept trying to do too much, then getting flattened by whatever bacteria was floating around near me.  Also, I developed mastitis, (OWWWWW!), then an abcess (EVEN MORE OWWWWW), which had to be drained four times and took two rounds of antibiotics to deal with the staph infection that developed (not MRSA, but still not good!).  You get the idea: no fun at all!!  Couldn't even hold Katie with my left arm for awhile because that side was so painful.  That was mid-July to the end of August.

This fall, I returned to teaching full-time with even less enthusiasm than in previous years.  I really miss my girls while I'm at work, and Maddie is being very needy this fall.  She loves her sister, but she misses having Mommy's undivided attention.  Still hope to return to freelancing on harp next year.  I need to work on a marketing plan for that, so I can get more of the corporate gigs and other daytime events.  I already do weddings on the weekends, so I don't need more events on weekends.  I have a couple of students who will be coming back to take lessons with me, but I think I'll have to find more new ones.  I sent all my students to other teachers when I went full-time at Brebeuf, and probably most of them will stay with their teachers.  A good thing; I don't want those other harpists mad at me for losing students and income.  :)

Still hope to move to a house with a dedicated music room so the freelancing thing will work better, but have no clue how that will happen since we're upside-down in our mortgage.  In debt up to eyeballs and beyond, but still keeping our heads bobbing above water.  Have had two sinus infections in the last month and I think there's another one starting b/c immune system is flattened and I work in a giant petri dish--I mean school.  :)  Ah well.  This too shall pass.  It's up to me to make it pass enjoyably or. . .not.  I choose enjoyably.  I've been knitting stuff: doll clothes, kids' hats and socks, etc, and plan to finish at least one of the many partially-finished sweaters in my closet this year.  

This weekend is OVFF--yay!  Band is up for Best Performer again, up against phenomenal musicians again, so this year (having not planned to attend OVFF for financial reasons) I'm driving from Indy to Columbus (Ohio, that is) on Friday, playing ONE SONG in the concert, and driving back--I have a rehearsal and a gig on Saturday.  Whee!  We have a fun song and WE HAS FIDDLER: Amy McNally has a rockin' solo in the middle (and she's also a Best Performer nominee)!

Whew!  Sorry for the long post; I'll try to keep them shorter after this.  That was the Giant Catching-Up post, and I'll do my best to check in oftener and keep posts shorter. Terminally Bankrupt Pants out!

Jen

Obviously it's been WAY too long since I posted anything or read LJ, for which I profoundly apologize from beneath my "to-do" mountain of undone stuff.  Quick update/excuse: for those who don't know, we found out two days before OVFF that I'm pregnant again.  Unfortunately, the week after OVFF (congrats especially to vixyish  and cadhla  for their Pegasus awards!) my morning sickness attacked.  While I've been able to keep working full-time, I pretty much have come home every day and crashed on the sofa or in the recliner.  This pregnancy is just a lot more tiring than I remember the last one being; of course, coming home to an active toddler every day wouldn't affect my energy levels AT ALL, I'm sure.  :)  Also, my Irish group worked very hard through December working on a CD: rehearsals, studio sessions, etc.  Still not done, as the holidays took over our lives in late December.  Maddie turned 2 last week (hard to believe!) and will attend her THIRD Capricon next month!

So please accept my apologies for being AWOL.  I miss my LJ friends (especially all the filkers, which is nearly all of my friends) and will try to get caught up somewhat, especially since Capricon is next month and I'll be seeing many of you again.  Please let me know if there's something in particular I should catch up on in your journal, since I'm pretty overwhelmed thinking about catching up with three months' worth of all my friends on LJ!

This is a banner year for Wild Mercy.  Not only did we go where no band had gone before (save for an exploratory partial voyage by the Black Book Band) in recording Barry's song-cycle "Dream of a Far Light" and then performing the WHOLE DAMN THING live at Marcon this year, we've been nominated for a Pegasus Award for Best Performer!!!  Also, and directly connected with this (I think), Barry Childs-Helton has been nominated for a Pegasus Award for Best Writer/Composer!!!!  These awards are voted on by the filk community:  this includes filkers and filk listeners, so go vote at www.ovff.org! 

Frankly, we in Wild Mercy are stunned (and very, very flattered) to be on the ballot this year.  We're on the ballot with amazing folks such as vixy & tony, Heather Dale, and Amy McNally!!  Seanan's on the ballot too, and lots more amazingly talented people!  You can hear all the selections on the ballot and then vote.  If you participate in filking in any way (player or listener!), you can vote: these are the awards whose outcome YOU directly control.  :)  Plus, you should go to the ballot just to listen to all the great music!! 

This ends my shameless plug.  Now for the condition.  Please, if you've never heard of filk before, don't vote.  Seriously.  This is for the filk community to decide.  :)  Thanks for understanding!

So earlier this month I went to the Somerset Folk Harp Festival, held this year not in Somerset but in Alexandria, VA, but never posted anything on my LJ.  Condensed version is sort of a compare/contrast with the American Harp Society conference:  less formal, more concerts that were actually fun (meaning, less classical, more Celtic and popular music), way more attendees who brought harps, way more workshops that used harps, mostly lower-level workshops.  Very friendly vibe on EVERYONE's part at Somerset; I met some friendly folks at the AHS conference, but the overall vibe was very different.   Saw Martha Gallagher again ("The Adirondack Harper"; Google her--she's great!), and saw a kick-butt concert by a Scottish harpist named Corrina Hewat.  You will LOVE her stuff--check her out!

Met a great couple: Jaque and Genevieve Davison.  Jaque plays harp and has a really cool virtual world dedicated mostly to the harp, with a gallery set aside to showcase images of his wife's stained glass.  We had some really fun conversations!  One of my favorite experiences came when I tried out a harp at the Sligo Harps booth.  What great instruments!  Lightweight, but really resonant and clear tone; the fluoro-carbon strings are a part of that sound, and the rest is the amazing woodwork and craftsmanship.  Sounded great, looked great; I raved positively about them to a harp-shopping family that came by while I was playing and asked me questions about the harps.  Afterward Rick Kemper thanked me for my sales pitch (completely unsolicited--they're great instruments!  www.sligoharps.com) and said that he planned to make me "an offer I couldn't refuse" to make sure I could go on promoting his harps.  He sent an email this week.  He was right; I can't refuse.  I have a 30-string Seang (pronounced "shang") coming in the next couple of weeks.  I'll get a trial period for FREE and then get to decide if I'm buying or not, plus he offered me a discount since I'd spent the better part of an hour talking with the harp-shopping people and explaining why Sligos, in my opinion, are wonderful harps (they are!!!).  Whee!  Gear Acquisition Syndrome strikes again! 

 On the way to church last Sunday morning, Maddie and I were listening to one of Wild Mercy's CDs; I think it was Furious Fancies--and one of the instrumental tracks started.  She heard the harp and looked at me (I spend WAY too much time driving while looking over my right shoulder, so I saw this look from her) and I said, "It's a harp! Can you hear the harp, Maddie?"  She nodded and then brought up both hands and played "air harp"!!  She plays my harp occasionally at home, so I recognized the gestures immediately.  She's gone from just touching the strings and smiling to actually playing notes with both hands, somewhat intentionally--she's mostly playing with her thumbs, anchoring her hands in place with the other fingers.  We play piano together as well; she wants me to sit next to her on the bench, and then she plays and occasionally directs me that it's my turn (usually she wants me to play the very lowest and very highest keys, since I can reach them both without scooching along the bench).  

Anyway, the 18-month-old playing air harp in the car was just too funny, so I had to share.  Can't stop the cuteness!  (She needs that on a T-shirt!)

 First, thanks to Tanya Huff for coining the swearword I used above; it's from her Torin Kerr novels, which I love dearly.

Second, and the actual point of this post:  I need marketing tips.  I want to get paid to play harp and sing.  What kind of venues should I be looking at, how much $ should I ask for, how does the whole land-a-weekly-job-at-a-club thing go anyway?  

Anyone?  Please help.  I've played for weddings since 1995, and I've got lots of 'em on my calendar.  Those of you who know me through Wild Mercy know that I am capable of more than The Wedding March.  

My favorite thing to do is sing and play, and I have a Big Damn (Pedal) Harp to pay off, so the decision to seek this kind of work was easy.  Implementing it. . .well, let's just say I was one of the lowest earners in those school fundraisers where you knock on doors and get people to buy stuff.  

Advice on ANY aspect of this would be very helpful; you don't have to know particular venues, just types of venues, since most of my LJ friends live nowhere near Indianapolis.  

Thanks in advance!

 What an amazing event!  The American Harp Society holds a national conference every other year, and this year's was held in Dearborn, MI.  It's mostly pedal harpists, but Dusty Strings and a few other folk harp vendors go too, because some pedal harpists are broadening their horizons to folk harp, mostly as "therapy harp" (playing in hospital/hospice settings for patients--very soothing and therapeutic!).  The first thing I went to was the dealers' room (they called it the "Exhibit Room", but everything in there was for sale, so. . .), and it was incredible.  I'd never seen so many pedal harps in one place: had to have been at least 60!  Add in about another 30 or so lever harps. . .plus sheet music, accessories, even "harp-friendly" vehicles--the local Subaru dealer had several vehicles, none of which passed my scrutiny as acceptable harp vehicles (wheel bases too high for me to lift the harp in, plus no room for second-row seating, so no children allowed in the vehicle when the harp is in. . .which is just impossible).  But it was all very impressive, and I bought some new sheet music and tried out a totally electric lever harp.

First concert was Sadie Turner, a brilliant 21-year-old harpist.  OMG she was amazing!  I watched her effortless pedal changes (mine look like I'm riding a bicycle, and at least 15% of my pedal changes are wrong to boot) and graceful hands and thought "I can't do this, and I'll never be able to".  That, plus a feeling of dislocation every time I spoke to a pedal harpist, pretty much made me feel at a loss for Monday and most of Tuesday.  Except for Monday night's concert, which was freakin' AWESOME!!!!  Calvin Stokes, Park Stickney, and Edmar Castaneda were the three featured harpists: all jazz and Latin harp stuff, with backing instruments (Calvin had bass, drums, & sax; Edmar had trombone and percussion) and all truly incredible in their unique ways.  High point of the concert for me was when ALL THREE harpists came out on stage together at the end, and jammed (with Edmar's percussionist) on Sting's song "Fragile".  A. Maz. Ing!  Afterward, there was a chocolate reception (mmmmm!) and more great music with Rizpah Lowe, who sang and played harp with a backing bassist & drummer.  

Rizpah was the only harpist I saw all week who both sang and played, and it helped me realize that what I enjoy most on the harp is singing and playing.  I saw more concerts that I won't describe; all were of the more formal variety, and honestly bored me silly.  I mean, yes, I play the harp, and I have immense respect for the skill of all these harpists, but I just couldn't keep my brain there to pay attention.  I attended some great workshops on effective practicing, on healthy posture at the harp (something I have struggled with forever, plus my messed-up rotator cuffs and tendonitis tendency), and even an ergonomic eval at the harp with a licensed PT!  But for me the best part of the conference were the open mics, held Tues. and Wed. night.  Read on: this is the best bit.

So I show up at 9:30 Tues night for the open mic, held at the little coffee place in the hotel lobby, hoping I'll make it on the set list (it's only running from 10-midnight), and there's NO ONE THERE.  The bass player and drummer are setting up (it was advertised as a chance to jam with live bass & drums, and there was a 15-minute max on performance time), and there are no chairs or tables.  Or a vocal mic.  Or a music stand.  And no harpists and no one, apparently, in charge.  A hotel employee came in to see what we needed, and I chivvied him into setting up chairs and tables, and wheedled another one into providing a vocal mic.  The harp was an acoustic/electric pedal harp by Camac, jet black and beautiful, needing only to be plugged & played.  Scrounged a music stand and we were ready to rock!  Except there were no other harpists there: they were all still at the evening's formal concert, which was offsite and ran over its scheduled time.  Since the open mic was advertised as being open to the public, though, there were a bunch of other folks there waiting to hear music.  So I wound up doing almost the first hour by myself, with Pete Sears on drums and Kurt Kronke on bass--they were awesome!  I played the four songs I had prepared and had lyrics for, and then did the few tunes I have memorized, and then finally another harpist came up and did two tunes.  She was Martha Gallagher, "the Adirondack Harpist", and she was very good!  Then no one would go up, so I went up and tried a couple of things I was pretty sure I had memorized.  One lyric bobble, but otherwise they worked.  Then Sam Milligan, author of several harp instruction books, went up and did a dirty song about the joys of masturbation.  WTF???  Then someone else did something (can't remember now) and then I went up again.  No one else would play, so I finished the last 15 minutes out, ending with Sarah McLachlan's "Angel", well, because I could.  Went up to my room and shook for a while--I mean, I was the worst harpist I heard all week, and I had to anchor the Open Mic?  Yikes!--and then worked up five more lyric sheets for Wed night so I wouldn't just be repeating, because that was just TOO MUCH FUN!!!

So Wed. night there was a goof-up regarding who was supposed to provide the harp(s) (added a lever harp for those who didn't play pedal but wanted to perform--wise decision!), and at 9:44 we still had no pedal harp.  Unlike last night, we now had a hefty crowd of teenage harpists eager to play at their VERY FIRST OPEN MIC!, and so I finally had to go up to the rotunda, crash an invitation-only event, and whisper the situation to the concomm chair, who promptly excused herself, grabbed her OWN electric/acoustic pedal harp, and amp, and cables, and we got underway only a few minutes late.  I sound-checked everything by doing the first number, but after that, I was basically the moderator (got to close out the night).  It was GREAT!!  The teenagers were really, REALLY good, and Calvin Stokes even sat in and did a jazz standard.  The place was totally packed, with folks standing in the back, along the divider wall, and even dancing in the lobby! Later,  in the privacy of my hotel room, I mused on everyone's willingness to accept me as the person in charge.  Even the concomm chair, as we hauled a** to get her harp downstairs, turned to me in the elevator and said, "So. . .who ARE you?  You really just came in and took charge and made it happen!" (in an approving tone; open mic had been her idea, but she hadn't known that those run better with a moderator).  Everyone came to me to volunteer for playing next.  It was a blast!!  Not the power trip, but the knowledge that I helped make it fair, to give everyone a chance to play, to keep hogs from hogging and to encourage the shy ones to get up there and try it!  I laid the "rules" at the beginning, because most folks there had never been to an open mic: be supportive of EVERYONE, remember it's NOT a competition, just a sharing of music among music lovers, etc. . . and it was beautiful.  Sweet to my ears, at the end, was a general request from the audience for ME to take another turn.  My buddy Bob had driven over from a meeting in Ann Arbor, so I had to do "Angel" again.  :)  

The open mics affirmed that I am going in the right direction. Almost no one sings and plays pedal harp, and folks really liked my song choices (thank you Mary Crowell: I did "Captain of the Guard" and "When I Grow Up"!), and it DIDN'T MATTER that I wasn't as good a harpist as anyone else: I was doing something different, and they loved it.  (I'm not being modest: I really was not even close to the caliber of any of the other pedal harpists, although I could hold my own with the other lever harpist that evening.)  So that is the direction I will be pursuing with my new pedal harp: singin' and playin'.  Any suggestions for songs I should cover are welcomed, by the way!  

Thursday was just a travel day home; I'd goofed up when planning my flights and was going to miss the final afternoon and evening concerts, and during the day there was NOTHING happening, because folks were supposed to use that day to see The Henry Ford area and downtown Detroit, etc.

So ended my first experience of the American Harp Society.  While most folks there spoke a foreign language (repertoire I'd never heard of, name-dropping names I didn't know, etc.), I found my place there after all, and discovered I have guts enough to make something happen, and that it's possible to be terrified and gleeful at the same time AND still sing and play simultaneously!!  Whooeee!  Now to get a full night's repertoire worked up and start hustling gigs!!

 So I realized that, between traveling without Internet access and having the cable modem go down intermittently once I got back, I haven't posted to LJ for forever.  Updates are coming soon.  First, though, I have to credit vixyfor pointing me to this link, and elizalavellefor the amazing vixy&tony icons she's created.  I swiped three and you'll see them start showing up in future posts.  Beautiful work!