Harpblog

Camac Voice, March 2013: MarieMarie

The clichéd image of the harp and harpists will be so familiar to most of Harpblog's readers that I won't describe it again. It's such a cliché that even "I want to dispell the cliché of the beautiful girl playing the harp etc. etc." has become clichéd.

Clichés are a funny mixture. Dulled by over-use, nonetheless they wouldn't exist without some basis in truth. And those who find themselves, like harpists, in particularly cliché-strewn fields, can't just throw them aside either. Whether you want to make use of them - to boost your wedding business, for example - or get away from them, they're hard to ignore. 

 The German pop harpist and singer (all her songs are in English), MarieMarie, knows about cliché. Her own music is “folctronic”, fusing elements of electronic music, like techno and dubstep, with folk, acoustic instruments and original, thoughtful lyrics. It’s music which is very much her own, for all that isn't as self-evident as it sounds. "The whole reason I started to write songs with the harp was to get away from cliché", she explains. "I started with a standard rock band combination. There's nothing wrong with rock if that's where you find yourself as an artist. But when you're desparate to escape a cliché, simply taking the most opposite direction you can think of isn't, in itself, any better. After a while I thought, this is no good - I don't like harp clichés, but equally I feel like I'm forcing the harp to sound not like a harp for artificial reasons. I might not be acting like a harpist, but I still feel like I'm pretending to be someone else."

 

Interview with Paige Su

The pop harp world is going from strength to strength: we never cease to be surprised and delighted by what artists from all over the world are doing with our electric harps. While Jakez was in Taiwan, he was very impressed by Paige Su, with whom he performed a concert as part of the Camac Harp Day. He emailed me afterwards about her, so I immediately set about the onerous side of my job that is surfing YouTube and iTunes.

Described by the Taipei Times as “one to watch”, Paige Su is a harpist, flautist, and singer-songwriter: an exceptionally diverse musician with equally broad formal training. Quite a lot of her web presence is in Chinese, so it’s great that she had time for an English-language interview with Harpblog. In any case, one of the best things about music is that ultimately there are no language barriers.

 

 

 

On her study background

“I started Western classical training at the age of eight (piano), picked up the flute at eleven, and continued studying with private teachers. I graduated from Taipei’s Hwa-Kang Arts High School (music department) in 2001, majoring in flute and minoring in piano.

Then I was accepted to the University of North Texas College of Music in 2002, majoring in Music Performance (Flute). In 2003, I started secondary study in Harp (I didn’t think about it too much at the time. I just loved the sound and the instrument so much), and soon I was accepted as a double major in Flute and Harp Performance. At the same time, I was awarded the George Moray Flute Scholarship.

When I was fifteen, I started dreaming about becoming a jazz musician.
UNT has a world-renowned Jazz program, so I was able to learn a lot and be involved in a very diverse musical environment. Other than Western classical and jazz, I was strongly influenced by world music, especially South Indian (Carnatic) music. I had a great teacher for that, Poovalur Srinivasan.

After graduating from UNT in 2006, I travelled to South India many times, for up to six months at a time, doing further research and studying the Carnatic flute. Currently, I’m also a founding member of a world- fusion group called “Coromandel Express.” This group combines Indian and Western music, and in the group I play flute and harp, as well as provide some vocals.

 

 

 

Tara Minton releases debut album, 'I harp you'

Genre: Pop, Indie

Region: Melbourne, VIC

Members: Tara Minton - vocals, harp, Jack Leftly - keys, production, Luke Shore - drums, Leonardo Caltabiano - double bass, Daniel Lynders - bass, Tim Di Stefano - guitar, Tom Benson - Saxophone

Influences: The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Jamie Cullum, Norah Jones, Life!

On April 2nd, Tara Minton will release her debut album, 'I harp you'. We're loving her delicate folk-indie-pop with lots of stories that tap into our own experiences and lives. 

It is much better-recorded than a lot of harp discs, which is all the more impressive when you consider that the album was recorded in a garage in the middle of the very cold Australian winter. Tara's car was outside with the engine running, and they all had to leap inside it between takes to warm up.

Maria-Christina Papadopoulou and Mr Fogg

Harpblog is happy to have news from Maria-Christina Papadopoulou, who won first prize in the pop harp competition at the Wales International Harp Festival in April 2010. Maria-Christina has been recording with Mr Fogg at the Maida Vale studios in London. British station BBC Radio 1 played an interview with the band, where they talked about having a live harpist, and how the harp is making a name for itself in the music industry.

Here is the video for one of the songs, 'Moving Parts'. Harpists will notice immediately that Maria-Christina also succeeded in getting her harp down the stairs inside that ship!