Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony.


Spot the difference between chord symbols and pedal markings on this hire part?

1. What is that harp part all about then? Pages and pages of badly written arpeggios that go at the speed of light with impossible page turns. The only way to play them is to cheat and read chord symbols instead.


2. Wouldn't it have been great to have been a fly on the wall and seen the confrontation between the first harpists who had to play this piece and Vaughan Williams? (I know what I would have said to him about it!)


3. Why is my own copy of this piece only partially marked up?




I try not to play this piece if I can all help it as it's not a joyous experience to play with it's constant fistfuls of notes, but I've played this three times now in the past year.


So I suppose it's about time I thoroughly marked up my own part rather than relying on scribbled on hire parts, so that I have a fighting chance of being able to actually read all that information on the page whilst playing it at speed..

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​I played at my mums funeral last week. She had been ill for a couple of years with secondary bone cancer, but had suddenly deteriorated and had wonderful care at the end from our local hospice. Everyone at St Luke's was truly amazing.


She had a woodland burial with a "humanist style" ceremony conducted by the family, and we all toasted to her with a drink.

It was.... really nice, peaceful, dignified and a lovely way to go.

I played my little harp; the groundsman had put up a big garden umbrella as it was raining a little bit, and the music drifted through the young trees, mixed in with the bird song, the drink and the chatter as we went about the woodland burial.

Schoolgirl Error - I forgot to bring pegs!!! So we held back the music on my (sturdy) music stand with a small bottle of Jim Bean bourbon and a tuning key.

My mum would have chuckled.

Ah!!! if only playing the harp was that easy.....


Lily Munster singing and "playing" the harp.