The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.
--
The Worship of Nature, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).John Greenleaf Whittier
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I'm not terribly interested in playing harp on other people's music right now. Partly because I feel like many people view the harp as this kind of gimmick. You know, like they have songs that are fully realized, complete songs, and then they think "How do we make this special? - Ooh, let's bring the harp in!" and they kind of want a harpist to play a glissando and play some heavenly noise in the background. I'm really interested in the harp as a fully actualized, self-contained way of presenting songs. That there is a bass in the harp - there is a way to create a rhythmic sense without drums - there's a way to have all sorts of textural variations and expressive variations.
I also don't want to feel bound to the harp, I'd be interested in bringing other instruments in at some time. But I think the harp has been viewed in one particular way for so long, and has been limited for so long, that I feel like I am really interested in stretching the boundaries of what it's capable of doing and how it's perceived.Joanna Newsom
Come! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be sung! —
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young —
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.Edgar Allan Poe
May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young.
Bob Dylan
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me.
In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you.Bob Dylan
Oh! once the harp of Innisfail
Was strung full high to notes of gladness;
But yet it often told a tale
Of more prevailing sadness.Thomas Campbell
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Whitton, Charlotte
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