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Harp Pedal Exercises
I'm a firm believer that repetition is the key to learning, which is why I first devised this series of pedal exercises back in 2016 for my students. It's a set sequence of simultaneously moving two pedals, whilst playing a seventh chord pattern with your fingers. By working through the repetition of the pedal changes with your feet it helps to really focus on the mechanics of what you are doing; thus enabling a better, faster and noise-free pedal action. I published a couple of videos explaining how to do these exercises on YouTube in 2019. You can watch them HERE
Recently an adult student of mine went from playing lever harp to pedal harp and I promised him that I'd formalise my pedal exercises for him. SO this exercise book is for you Malcolm!!
If you have already tried my exercises from the video on YouTube they will be familiar. However, this formal written out version is much clearer to use and has more 'layers' or subtlety.
ALL the 2 pedal combinations are here in this PDF. I've laid them out so there is a handy tick box at the end of each sequence so you can have the satisfaction of ticking the box as you work through them.
This set of exercises is for all harpists - beginners to advanced - students to professionals. I have written out a few examples of finger patterns but as it says in the PDF, you can vary your basic finger patterns to make it as simple or complicated as you like (for advanced harpists think of all the finger patterns in the Larivière study book!!).
If you want to just work on the mechanics of perfecting changing the pedals then just do that, and that is absolutely fine - that is the whole point of the exercises. You'll get lots of benefit from working through the book, do the pedalling as clearly marked throughout and concentrate on making quick and clean pedal changes.
But, as an optional extra, if you want to expand your harmonic and aural knowledge I have written the chord symbols above each chord. Huge thanks must go to my husband, Andy Scott, for his help with this as a lot of these chord symbols were well above my pay grade. Please play them whilst looking at the chord symbols and just go through & focus on one sequence each time so you can really take on board, and learn to recognise aurally what these wonderful chords are. Some of them are extremely complex, but that's the joy of messing around with the pedal possibilities on the harp. However, I must stress this is a by-product of this set of exercises and not the main ingredient. If at any point you start to find some of the chords symbols baffling, please ignore the chord symbols and go back to just enjoying the lush sound and working on your pedal action. This is not a harmony book and there will be plenty of good sources on the internet to help you if you want to discover more about harmonic theory.
BACK TO THE PEDALS.
All of us harpists just want to be able to make quick, clean pedal changes with no buzzes or twangs. That just takes a little bit of practice of the mechanics of moving the pedals, and doing these pedal exercises gives you the opportunity to do that. Practice makes perfect... Let's get those feet moving!!!
Recently an adult student of mine went from playing lever harp to pedal harp and I promised him that I'd formalise my pedal exercises for him. SO this exercise book is for you Malcolm!!
If you have already tried my exercises from the video on YouTube they will be familiar. However, this formal written out version is much clearer to use and has more 'layers' or subtlety.
ALL the 2 pedal combinations are here in this PDF. I've laid them out so there is a handy tick box at the end of each sequence so you can have the satisfaction of ticking the box as you work through them.
This set of exercises is for all harpists - beginners to advanced - students to professionals. I have written out a few examples of finger patterns but as it says in the PDF, you can vary your basic finger patterns to make it as simple or complicated as you like (for advanced harpists think of all the finger patterns in the Larivière study book!!).
If you want to just work on the mechanics of perfecting changing the pedals then just do that, and that is absolutely fine - that is the whole point of the exercises. You'll get lots of benefit from working through the book, do the pedalling as clearly marked throughout and concentrate on making quick and clean pedal changes.
But, as an optional extra, if you want to expand your harmonic and aural knowledge I have written the chord symbols above each chord. Huge thanks must go to my husband, Andy Scott, for his help with this as a lot of these chord symbols were well above my pay grade. Please play them whilst looking at the chord symbols and just go through & focus on one sequence each time so you can really take on board, and learn to recognise aurally what these wonderful chords are. Some of them are extremely complex, but that's the joy of messing around with the pedal possibilities on the harp. However, I must stress this is a by-product of this set of exercises and not the main ingredient. If at any point you start to find some of the chords symbols baffling, please ignore the chord symbols and go back to just enjoying the lush sound and working on your pedal action. This is not a harmony book and there will be plenty of good sources on the internet to help you if you want to discover more about harmonic theory.
BACK TO THE PEDALS.
All of us harpists just want to be able to make quick, clean pedal changes with no buzzes or twangs. That just takes a little bit of practice of the mechanics of moving the pedals, and doing these pedal exercises gives you the opportunity to do that. Practice makes perfect... Let's get those feet moving!!!
DOWNLOAD THE PDF BELOW
| lets_get_those_feet_moving.pdf |
I hope you enjoy this PDF of my pedal exercises and
I'd love it if you could recommend it to friends or students!!
I'd love it if you could recommend it to friends or students!!
If you do want to recommend it, please could I ask you to direct them either to my web shop HERE, or HARP COLUMN MUSIC where I will have the book available to download for a very modest price.
I decided not to focus on HOW you should sit and move the pedals, or what shoes you should wear. I have very strong opinions on this, as I'm sure every harp teacher does. However, as I have been known to wear RIDICULOUS shoes, as well as impossible hats and bulky costumes whilst playing my harp on gigs, I thought I'm hardly in any position to lecture anyone on sensible clothing or footwear whilst playing the harp.
So I shall leave it to the ALWAYS impeccable, stylish, hugely talented and generally awesome Isabelle Moretti and her wonderful video on how to sit at the harp (I've watched this SO MANY TIMES!!!) which is an excellent starting point for good pedalling.
I decided not to focus on HOW you should sit and move the pedals, or what shoes you should wear. I have very strong opinions on this, as I'm sure every harp teacher does. However, as I have been known to wear RIDICULOUS shoes, as well as impossible hats and bulky costumes whilst playing my harp on gigs, I thought I'm hardly in any position to lecture anyone on sensible clothing or footwear whilst playing the harp.
So I shall leave it to the ALWAYS impeccable, stylish, hugely talented and generally awesome Isabelle Moretti and her wonderful video on how to sit at the harp (I've watched this SO MANY TIMES!!!) which is an excellent starting point for good pedalling.
Always wear sensible shoes for playing the harp. Examples of inappropriate footwear and harp playing attire below!
