The Next Loreena McKennitt?

Hello fellow Book Dragons. For those of you just tuning in (literally) I began harp lessons last year after almost 40years. I’ve loved the harp since I was toddler, and I bought a harp on Amazon back in 2017. (This was after I secured a teaching position and an apartment near my school in Victorville, CA at the time. I was promised a $400 Amazon gift card with Frontier (the apartment only used their company) as part of this ultimate package; they did nothing but screw up my account several times, and I spent almost a year screaming my head off and crying on the phone demanding to talk to a manager, what I wanted, what the original price was, and what they owed me in the end. Long story, and too much aggravation for me to indulge in.) On a brighter note, the first harp arrived, and I didn’t see anything wrong at first. I was too elated to finally have this instrument in front of me. That’s when I looked over and saw that the harmonic curve was split in half. (See Pic Below). So, I had to report it to the seller, repackage it, wait for them to pick it up, and they sent me a replacement. The second harp is the one I currently have. There were no harp teachers anywhere in the area except downhill in Pasadena almost an hour away.

Cut to 2023, when I was determined to find a harp teacher after much needed music therapy and the harp lay dormant for almost 6 years, and EUREKA!!! Enter Stephanie Bennett, a local harp teacher. To my surprise, the harp is harder to play than it looks, and with mine, I had to compromise with what I had and was able to play. The harp is a Roosebeck Heather Harp (Lever, not pedal) with 22 strings, C3-C6 range, which makes it 3 octaves. The first song I wanted to learn to play was “Why” from (Tick, Tick, Boom), but I also wanted to sing it simultaneously. (Loreena McKennitt is the only harp songstress I know, and I love her music so much.) Solution: Ms Bennett rewrote the piano score to be one half-step higher since most harps are tuned to Eb, and therefore G and D sharps/flats (included in the original score) can’t be tuned to that key. We tuned it to D major, and then switched it to E major mid-song by pushing 3 levers up.

I auditioned with the song “Why” twice: once last year for our Cabaret in the Valley performance (they chose first song “Nobody’s Side” (Chess)), and once again for this Cabaret on Sunset (Upcoming on JULY 7, 2024- Tickets are available now!) The song was too long, and I’ve yet to practice performing a duet with our Artistic Director Charlie Kim. However, I decided to give it my all, and perform this song for the Harp Recital with Harp Society LA (the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Harp Association). I edited a video together using both recordings both my recital piece in my library room setting, and my parents recorded my Stage performance (using my real name, as I use the same for the choir).

I posted it on YouTube- now here’s the weird thing. I got a ‘copyright claim’ for the first recording, but not the second. So, I went in to dispute it as fair use, and since there’s no combination of cover-recital piece type, I chose “Cover Song”, but I explained in detail that it was not to monetize the channel, no copyright infringement intended, and it was just me showcasing my recital piece. To make sure I was going about this legitimately, I emailed the copyright office and to Universal Music Publishing Group to explain in detail what the video was about, and to ask if there were any steps I needed to take so I wouldn’t get docked or get a copyright strike. I made a second video to upload just in case, omitting my first recording. The Link to the current YouTube video is here: https://youtu.be/qgQXQoD0-8s. I just posted the shorter one with the stage recording only: https://youtu.be/VFowZmcukpw. I believe I found my niche to be a harp-songstress.