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I recently played at an awards ceremony on my lever harp and had to play background 'processional' music as the dignitaries assembled on the stage. I was warned that there were a lot of people to walk on stage so this could take absolutely ages. Normally I would play my pedal harp for that sort of event, but because I need to be hooked into the halls PA system and my lever harp has an in-built pick up, it made much more sense to use my lever harp for this event.
When I was preparing for the event, I realised that all my processional music was in different keys and I'm not someone who can transpose at sight so I was going to struggle to play a single processional continually for 5+ minutes without a HUGE amount of repetition which I didn't want to do. Plus, I didn't want to have to do full key/lever changes in between pieces as that would have disturbed the flow of event I was playing for.
So I prepared 3 of my favourite recessionals and put them all into the same key so they could flow from one piece into the other. I deliberately did not include Pachabel's Canon, because we've all played that piece to death, and I wanted to choose more stately music that would work really well but not necessarily be known by the attendees of the event.
I did have Handels Chaconne (also in C major) on my music stand just in case, but in the end this REALLY LONG PROCESSIONAL worked very well, filled up the time and flowed musically without sounding repetitious at all. If you do need to repeat it, it won't be wearing on your or the guests ears and will fill a LOT of time.
I hope this might prove useful in your music pad in case you have one of those moments in a function where you have an enormously long pause of unknown duration which you have to suddenly fill with stately background music. It's emergency 'musical padding' which can fill up an indeterminate period of time and saves having to think up 100 different variations on a theme!
When I was preparing for the event, I realised that all my processional music was in different keys and I'm not someone who can transpose at sight so I was going to struggle to play a single processional continually for 5+ minutes without a HUGE amount of repetition which I didn't want to do. Plus, I didn't want to have to do full key/lever changes in between pieces as that would have disturbed the flow of event I was playing for.
So I prepared 3 of my favourite recessionals and put them all into the same key so they could flow from one piece into the other. I deliberately did not include Pachabel's Canon, because we've all played that piece to death, and I wanted to choose more stately music that would work really well but not necessarily be known by the attendees of the event.
I did have Handels Chaconne (also in C major) on my music stand just in case, but in the end this REALLY LONG PROCESSIONAL worked very well, filled up the time and flowed musically without sounding repetitious at all. If you do need to repeat it, it won't be wearing on your or the guests ears and will fill a LOT of time.
I hope this might prove useful in your music pad in case you have one of those moments in a function where you have an enormously long pause of unknown duration which you have to suddenly fill with stately background music. It's emergency 'musical padding' which can fill up an indeterminate period of time and saves having to think up 100 different variations on a theme!
| the_really_long_processional.pdf |