This
whole discussion is very distressing, and I will not be drawn into it
except to say the
following, and then I am done.
As with
many organizations, SHSA (Scottish Harp Society of America) is having
some differences of opinion about the comp requirements. I urge anyone
interested and concerned to go to the SHSA website
<www.shsa.org>
and check it out before forming an opinion.
This is not the place where
the rules should be discussed, as we have a committee that has been
hashing out and updating the rules for the last five years, and I don't
appreciate the attempts to gain sympathy from the list. Please believe me
that we have looked far beyond the fiddle requirements in our
discussions. My main concern as an American harper playing Scottish music
is to reflect what is being played in Scotland today, as well as 50 or
100 or 300 years ago.
As to the
"elitism" slur, there is that pesky word again. We on the
committee are trying to bring the harp comps out of the airy-fairy land
that it has been in for 15 years, where one only had to play an air and
1-2-or 3 "contrasting" tunes, depending on the level. For many
that meant three waltzes in 3 different keys. We were not taken
seriously, and harpers didn't learn any challenging music, and
strathspeys, the distinctive music of Scotland, were pretty rare. I don't
know why strathspeys were not played on the harp 200 years ago. They
sound great. But they are now, all over Scotland.
As to your
request for a time line of harping in Scotland, your/our friend Holly
Callahan has written a ground-breaking history thesis on exactly that. I
suggest that you start there.
Sue
Richards
At 11:12 AM 1/17/03 -0500, you wrote:
The
sad thing is that to be a master harper according to the Scottish Harp
Society one must be able to play a March/Strathspey/Reel set and not much
else.
(snip)
Toby
suggested that there is elitism with competitions, and there may be some
truth in his observation.
(snip)
Anyway.
Here's a question to start a different thread. I'm working up a
"Time Line" of the harp
(snip)
