Harpist Janet King: What's new with Janet?

I've been told that I won a Best Of Long Island award -- a BOLI award -- in the category of Wedding Ceremony Music.  Thanks, Long Island!  Check out the Long Island Press for more information.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harpist-Janet-King/288274414524461">

I'm developing a Musician's Page at Facebook, where I can also keep you updated on the latest in the life of a harpist.  Please!  Like me!  Not on the personal page, but on the Musician's Page.  I have to figure out how to distinguish them...  Here, here's a link: OK, it doesn't look like that worked... 

https://www.facebook.com/janetkingharpist

Well, I hope that works!

Well, it looks like I got another LI Weddings "Best of" award, this time for 2012.  Thanks, y'all!

This is a bit of an insider's entry, but what's new with me is that I attended the American Harp Society's National Conference, and while there I bought a lot of wonderful new sheet music, and I also had a new pickup installed in my harp.  And I saw a lot of people that I've known over the years, making me feel like a member of the harp community! 

About the pickup:  Dusty Strings, folk harp manufacturer of excellence, developed a pickup specially for the harp, including one for the pedal harp.  The most noticeably special feature of it is that it is actually four pickups built into one unit.  The four pickups are distributed throughout the range of the harp, so that there is one located in the bass of the harp, one at the upper-most treble, and two more in the mid-range.  It makes for a pretty exciting sound!  Plus it sounds close to the natural sound of the harp, and I can just plug my sound system into it, real easily.  Thanks to Ray and Sue Mooers for developing it and installing it, personally, in my harp!

About the music:  I found a lot of beautiful Irish tunes (I love those!), country dances, some sweet pieces by Faure (a French composer), Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky arranged for solo harp.  And a reduction of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, arranged for solo harp by Daphne Hellman!!  Quite a find.  I also got more Bach, transcribed for harp: one book from his cello sonatas, and another from his music for lute.

So, all of this is pretty much juice for insiders only, but at least you can see what gets me excited!

My newest thing is right here:  I've posted a whole lot of music that I recorded, mostly at other weddings and private events, so that everyone can enjoy my music, for free!   There's now a music bar on every page at the website here, and there's even more music to listen to at my music page.  I hope you enjoy it!  Email me and let me know that you do -- I'll be happy to hear from you.

How did this happen?

Well, I got myself a lovely little digital recorder that makes recording music easy.  And frankly, I'm amazed!  All my life I've thought that it just must be impossible to record the harp well, because there are so many professional recordings of the harp that, well, just sound terrible!!!  Either the harp sounds tinkly and flat, lacking the rich architectural resonance that makes it so magical, or it sounds muddy.  And those were professionally done!  But lo, it's not so hard to record the harp satisfactorily.  (I can't understand how those other sound engineers and harpists settled for such awful sound quality on those recordings.)  I think this little digital recorder does great.  Go listen and decide for yourself!

If you are a fellow harpist (or musician of any kind) and you like what you hear here, email me to inquire about it.