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easy pieces / lessons with lever flipping to get accustomed to it
Hi Christy-Lyn, hi fellow students,
I’d like to know if there exist more lessons with lever changing.
I really want to learn it, but I need lots of practice and not only advice and rules because I always stumble at the time of lever flipping when I try a tune with even one lever changing.
I started Over the Rainbow now where there is at least one lever changing, but I’d like to do more tunes with lever changes in the future, because there exist loads of swedish and also german modern trad. tunes which I love but cannot play until now.
I registered for the lever lesson of Anne-Marie O’Farrell at the EIHF (I did lots of intermediate workshops last year and am quite good at reading music), but I never felt SO lost in a workhop like there! It is far too advanced for me, but so far I found no other workhop about lever flipping…
So I hope for some ideas, advices or lesson suggestions from you all.
Greetings from Munich,
Lydia -
5 Replies
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Ailie Robertson has a blog entry on lever changes that you might find helpful: https://www.ailierobertson.com/harp-tips-blog/2021/2/2/harp-lever-changes-made-easy
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Josh Layne actually has a lot of sheet music with lever changes. Thanks for him and his music, I got accustomed to lever changes very early on in my harp journey, which has opened up a lot of music possibilities for me. Josh clearly annotate lever changes which I really appreciate. Here are some of my suggestions on pieces with lever changes from Josh’s collection:
Für Elise from “Five Solos for Lever Harp” (https://www.joshlayne.com/store/?product=five-solos-for-lever-harp-downloadable-sheet-music-pdf). This is the main theme and it is a familiar tune to many, so I found it easier to focus on learning how to coordinate lever changes as supposed to learning the melody. The theme is pretty repetitive too, so once you got a hang of the lever changes you can learn the rest of the piece quite easily. Elgar’s Nimrod and Bach’s Gavotte en Rondeau are also from the same book and both have lever changes as well.
Fantasy on Greensleeves (https://www.joshlayne.com/store/?product=fantasy-on-greensleeves-downloadable-sheet-music-pdf) This is the one that Josh talked about in his video. Excellent arrangement but definitely is more advanced than the pieces in Five Solos for Lever Harp.
Bach’s Toccata in D Minor (https://www.joshlayne.com/store/?product=bachs-toccata-in-d-minor-bwv-565-arranged-for-lever-harp-downloadable-sheet-music-pdf) This iconic piece sounds really impressive and it is actually a lot more manageable than I expected because it has a lot of patterns that make sense. Loads of lever changes in this one, and super fun to play!
And finally, Transcriptions for Lever Harp Volume 1 (https://www.joshlayne.com/store/?product=transcriptions-for-lever-harp-volume-1-downloadable-sheet-music-pdf) is packed with lever change goodnesses (all the pieces in this book contains lever changes 😆). Bach’s Prelude No. 1 in C Major is a great one for practicing lever change. You can play it slowly and it still sounds beautiful. I am currently learning Handel’s Chaconne from suite in D minor and it is really gorgeous. The Toccata is available in this book as well.
I think I recorded most of these pieces for my YouTube channel.
From other arrangers / composers, here are some of my suggestions:
Ailie Robertson’s arrangements of Walking in the Air and Bach’s Allemande (https://www.ailierobertson.com/harp-music-shop)
Anne Grosby Gaudet’s arrangement of Mozart’s Minute in F Major (https://musicdiscoveries.shop/collections/harp-music/products/minuet-in-f-mozart-harp)
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Dear Victoria,
I just found your message today. Thank you so much for your detailed answer with tune tips!!! This is very helpful, so I know what pieces to choose next if I did Christy-Lyns lever-changing tunes. Ailie doesn’t put so much time in teaching the exact lever changing.
At the moment I’m still working through Somewhere over the Rainbow.
But just now, after years of playing one of my favourite tunes from about 12 years earlier (I had to start from the beginning last year again because I had no playing technique at all), I’m successful with the one lever change in that tune. Quite relaxed playing and changing the lever. That feels really good and never happened before.
It is completely self taught, a finnish waltz called “Valvotun yön valssi”, a tune that went through the german harp community 12 years ago, with the video “Ela spielt Harfe”. She was part of the german medieval band “Die Irrlichter” at that time.
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Dear Titia,
yes, I watched this video already. Christy-Lyns videos are alwas helpful (especially for a long-time self-learner)
But what I need more is guided practice – step by step, like Christy-Lyn does in her lessons. Earlier on I thought I didn’t need such step-by-step-practice (I just couldn’t afford spending too much money on lessons) – but at least with lever-changing I see no other way than taking lots of lessons which guide me in small steps.
Thank you for the hint with Halleluja. So this will be my next piece after Somewhere over the Rainbow. I hope there will be some more lever-flipping pieces in the future❣
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Oh and thanks, I immediately watched the video of Josh Lane. Normally I don’t like his videos too much – I don’t know why, but this one was quite good for me.
And I saw that there is at least one further piece of Christy-Lyn with lever changes – Yesterday. So this will come to my list also.
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