I recently purchased a Folk harp and I was wondering if harps had tabs or free music online or anything like that. Do I just need to buy a book?
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I recently purchased a Folk harp and I was wondering if harps had tabs or free music online or anything like that. Do I just need to buy a book?
Related posts:
I’d recommend buying the excellent book by Sylvia Woods, "Teach Yourself to Play the Folk Harp". It was my first book, and it was informative and easy to follow. Fingering is indicated throughout, although as you advance, you’ll find that intermediate and advanced-level books expect that you’ll find your own fingering and chord accompaniment. And that is part of the individual artistry–finding your own way of playing a tune, and the particular ornaments that you put into the playing.
Also, you don’t need to restrict yourself to harp books. You can follow anything that indicates a melody line–for instance, as an Irish traditional musician, one of my favourite books is "O’Neill’s Music of Ireland", which is a huge tome of 1,850 fiddle tunes. I can play the melody line of a tune as indicated in the book, and then I add my own chording and ornamentation, which is pretty common in Irish music–we all play our own ornaments, rather than playing in complete unison.
That being said, http://www.thesession.org is an excellent source of a vast body of Irish and Scottish music, and it is free. You can follow the melody lines and chord patterns you see on the page, and develop your own way of playing each tune.