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3 June Concerts, Blugrass, Books and the Old Rugged Cross

Summer is heating up, so is my performance schedule! I have three great public events this month!

1. Wakarusa Bluegrass Festival, June 9th 4pm-5pm

Harp at a bluegrass festival! I’m thrilled to be presenting a workshop/concert on how the harp fits into folk music on the Festival’s main stage. Get tickets for an hour of harp or a whole weekend of toe tapping bluegrass!

Learn more at http://wakarusabluegrass.com/

2. Nile’s Riverfront Park Summer Concert Series, June 14th, 6pm-8pm

Two hour outdoor concert in the beautiful Riverfront park! I will be showcasing my signature range of styles from Jazz to Celtic to Johnny Cash so come for a fun free evening of music.

Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/NilesSummerConcerts/

This concert will also be benefitting the historic restoration of the Old Rugged Cross Church site. I had a chance to record my arrangement of the hymn from my CD in the original space where it was first performed!

3. Musician’s Story Time at the Elkhart Public Library, June 28th, 4pm

To encourage summer reading, I will be giving an all ages harp demonstration and reading a favorite storybook (with much dramatization 😉 ). Kids with clean hands will even be able to touch the harp! Bring story and music lovers young and old.

Check out my public events page for a full list of my public performances and put these events on your calendar. And if you can’t wait till these live concerts, you can always listen to favorites like The Old Rugged Cross on my CDs!

Contact me to play for your event or for more details. See you there!

No. 1 Thing to Look For in a Wedding Musician

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The best DJ I’ve met didn’t play music.

At least he didn’t when I met him. I play at lots of weddings and meet a lot of DJs that I’ve enjoyed working with. But at wedding shows, I hope that I am far far away from their booths! All of the vendors give out samples—the bakeries give out cupcakes, I demonstrate harp music, and the DJs blast dance beats from the massive speakers they hoist above their booths. Now, I like DJs. I like electronic dance music (don’t tell any classical musicians!) But blasting it at my head makes it hard to talk to any brides.

So when I was setting up for last week’s wedding show and saw large overhead speakers in the booth next to me, I groaned. I double checked that I had ear plugs with me. I exchanged pleasantries with the DJ hoping he would be kind and not turn it up very loud. But when the wedding show started, he didn’t turn any music on it all. His speakers and gear became his backdrop. Because he didn’t have music blaring, I got to overhear his pitch.

This DJ didn’t talk about the wattage of his amplifiers. Instead, he offered brides and grooms a service. He promised every bride total control over the song selection, the volume, even over what color suit he wore to the wedding. He talked about making sure that the father’s toasts could be clearly heard even though he couldn’t guarantee what the father would say. He explained they can choose their favorite songs and artists or rely on his 20 years of experience if they weren’t sure what they wanted.

He was a servant.

I kept my ears peeled and during the break I finally asked him why he didn’t have a soundtrack playing. He said there were two reasons. The first was that whatever tracklist he put on, someone might dislike that song and therefore subconsciously dislike him. He didn’t want to start off with a bad impression. The second reason was that he wasn’t there to sell music. Nowadays you can get music just about anywhere. He was there to sell a specific service: being a live DJ.

I walked away thinking that was one of the best DJs I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and I never heard him play a single song. That is the kind of servant I want to be.

When I play harp for a wedding, I am providing more than harp music. I am providing a service. I play prelude and postlude music, helping the bride entertain her guests before the wedding starts. I can customize the length of the processional songs in the moment to account for how fast or how slow every flower girl walks. I enable couples to customize their music playing favorites from Pachelbel’s Canon to Christina Perri. And I invite them to a free consultation to make all of the selection process fun and pain-free.

I am there to help them create those memorable and musical moments during their wedding. Sometimes the best way to introduce that musical service is by not playing any music at all.

Learn more at my W eddings page or contact 574 875 0795 get add live harp music to your wedding or event!

What You See at a Wedding Show

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When you walk past one of the sparkling booths at a bridal show you might see a fountain of flower arrangements, a mountain of cake samples or, if you lucky, a live harpist like me. But let me tell you what we vendors see from the other side of the table.

I’m playing three wedding shows in the next few weeks. This Saturday Feb, 10th, I’m playing for Sunny 101.5 Bridal Expo at Notre Dame Stadium. On the 25th I’m playing the Slaint Show also at Notre Dame and on March 4th, I’m playing the show for the Martins at Concord. And all these different mean one thing for me.

Moving equipment!

On the day before a wedding show, I pull up at the venue with my van packed to the windows with tables and posters and flyers, plus all the usual harp gear and a harp. Hallelujah for dollies! After several hours screwing together easels and sound systems, we drive home with an incredibly light car.

Saturday morning, the fun begins.

We arrive at least an hour early to put finishing touches on the booth and

run sound checks. Then I walk around and meet all of the other vendors, taking special care to introduce myself to the caterers giving away samples, the photographer responsible for the show photos and the people near the bathrooms—I will walk past them several times!

Then, my favorite part: watching the Brides arrive. They come with entourages in groups of two, or three or seven! Some walk purposefully, some browse for flyers, some hold a council of chatter among themselves. You see Bride’s mothers carrying gift bags, fathers sticking to the far side of the aisle, bridesmaids, sisters and friends all with opinions. Sometimes there are children, younger sisters or teenage daughters trying to act cool but secretly thrilled to be part of the wedding. Once in a while, you even see a groom!

All shapes and sizes and styles, all with different tastes in music! They rarely look like the bridal magazine covers but each is beautiful, glowing with love and anticipation. I love it!

When they stop to stare at the harp, I play samples and take requests. Once a couple asked if I could play Everything is Awesome from the Lego Movie. I did. The next family wanted to hear Here Comes the Bride. I point out that I can play pop favorites as well as traditional wedding songs. If you want a Maroon Five melody or the Beetles, the theme from a videogame you play together or the song your parents had at their wedding, I can play it all.

I explain how I providing music for the ceremony and provide options for receptions, cocktail hours and rehearsal dinners. I’m never sure who’s more excited, the brides who have always dreamed of a harp or the brides who discover they can cover all the music with just one musician!

This goes on for hours, always new brides around the corner until the doors close. Then it’s time to pack up and reverse the process. I know that I got all of that out of the suitcase so it must go back in… somehow! Packing up has one consolation — the bakeries have left over cake samples. I come home exhausted but having made new friends, seeing old ones across the aisle, and realized bridal dreams.

That’s what I see happen at wedding shows — I see venders inspire your dreams and then make those dreams happen.

Do you have some gaps in your wedding planning or need some inspiration? Do you know someone getting married? Send them this link and come see us at the wedding show!

http://www.sunny1015.com/2017/12/06/bridal-expo-2018/

Recording the CD with Socks Outside the Shoes

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I don’t always wear socks, but when I do, I wear them outside my shoes. Or at least I did for three days in May.

My fashion choices don’t usually come across in an audio recording. For five months I had been arranging, practicing and perfecting nineteen hymns to make a CD for all the saints. Finally, all that preparation came down to three days of recording.

I returned to the stunning sound-scape of Rieth recital hall with amazing new microphones and software that caught even the slightest sigh. My mom came as the muscle to help me move the harp but the real heavy lifting on the recording was done by my sound engineer, Nate Butler. Or at least by his ears. Nate has incredible ears! Last time we did a CD together, he was teaching me how to breathe with my mouth open because he could hear me sniff!

I turned up for this session wearing clothes without buttons and jewelry that wouldn’t clink. We brought our own rug so that the special soft soled shoes I wear to play harp would not make any thuds against the wooden stage floor. But as I started to warm up with scales, Nate pulled off his headphones with a frown.

“I hear a squeak.”

I started to panic. Was there something wrong with the hall? With my stool? With the harp? We didn’t have any spare time to fix this!

Nate loped up to the stage. He walked around the harp, leaning in to listen. Finally he pointed at my feet.

“It’s your shoes.”

The leather sole of my shoes are worn smooth with use and he could pick up the slick scuffing sound they made as I pushed the harp pedals. Like I said, ears.

My mother ran back to one of her bags. “I think have a spare pair of socks.”

Seriously, spare socks. On preparedness and creativity, I think my mother is the boy scouts meets McGyver. I slipped the socks on the outside of my shoes and pressed a pedal. The squeak disappeared.

Creativity is found in the big things, the idea for a painting or a song, and in the small things, like fashion recombinations. And no matter how impressive we find the big stuff, we are sunk without the small idea like a sock saver. You can hear the absence of squeaks for yourself on my new CD Hymns and Variations, available here, on iTunes, or call 574-875-0795.

Making a CD For All The Saints

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“I have a better microphone.”

Nate, my sound engineer was grinning like a cartoon character. It was First Friday last November and he had stopped by the open house where I was performing. On the table was the Christmas CD we had made together, The Sounding Joy. I stretched my shoulders and listened to him rave about the new equipment and software that I barely understood. “I could really capture even more of your harp now,” he enthused. “It’s great quality for you next recording!”

I laughed—I was two and done in the CD department.

But once he said it. . .

Within a week, my mind was churning with song possibilities, all the hymns I didn’t include on the first CD. By December, I was selecting a track list. With the New Year, I called Nate to schedule recording dates and plunged into arranging original versions of these hymns for the harp. While continuing my 20 a month performance schedule, wedding shows and a solo performance at the Lerner Theatre, I pieced together favorites like it Is Well With My Soul, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and All Creatures of Our God and King.

But Nate, working as both sound engineer and producer, wanted more—not more songs but more reasons. Why these hymns? What was the mood of this recording? Why did I want to make this CD?

In our production meetings, I explained I was fifteen when I began playing hymns in Alzheimer’s units with amazing results. I made my first hymn CD with those senior friends in mind. The Joy We Share were the songs they enjoyed. It was a joy.

But in the years since I made that CD, many of those friends, the storied older ladies and song filled older gentleman, have passed away. I played at their funerals. I walk past their rooms now filled with new faces. I still play in senior centers with an ever changing population.

At the same time my own family has the beginnings of a new generation, new nieces and a nephew, my grandma’s great grandchildren.

I needed to make this CD for these two audience extremes, for elegies and lullabies. I wanted to make a CD For All the Saints. These are hymns of peace and solace, songs of Jesus’ love, the first songs I want my nieces to learn and the last songs I want my grandma to hear. And I think they are pretty good for all of us in between!

And now you can hear those songs for yourself! We are launching the CD at Better World Books in Goshen the evening of Friday, August 4th! In the meantime, Hymns and Variations is available here, on iTunes or you can call 574-875-0795. And if you enjoy the CD, let me know where it fits in your life!

Battle for the Battle Hymn

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“If you made a CD with that, I would buy it!” My public librarian had found me circling the CD rack opposite young adult fiction. She didn’t hesitate to give me her thoughts. “I loved the Battle Hymn of the Republic on the harp.”

My heart leapt. “I’d buy” are magic words to a musician, but it was the end of her sentence that caught my ears.

For July 4th 2016, I had posted a quick video of myself performing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” trembling in my soft soled performance shoes as I did. After years of loving that song, I had suddenly become embarrassed to play such a martial tune on my gentle instrument.

You normally hear patriotic music on a brass band, not a harp. Even so, I take the month before July 4th to play favorite Americana from the Armed Forces Salute to Old Joe Clark and of course my favorite, The Battle Hymn of the Republic. But that June, I had just attended my first harp convention. I heard amazing, world renowned harpists share their ideas and techniques. All their concerts featured “real” harp music. After that impressive display, I was feeling a bit intimidated publishing my performances of popular songs.

Then I found myself cornered by my short, straight talking librarian. I respect that woman far more than she knows, her no nonsense style, dry humor and handling of all our interlibrary loan requests—you might guess we spend a lot of time at the library. She said she liked my video. Hearing her, I felt like some chain had popped off my perception of what I could and couldn’t record.

The whole Battle Hymn is about perceptions. The author, Julia Ward Howe, looked at an army camp and said, “Mine eyes have seen the glory,” or “I can see [Christ] in the watch fires.” The title tells us it’s a patriotic song but Howe’s lyrics don’t focus on any battle or any one point in American history. She focuses on Christ’s second coming, reminding us what it means to live in light of his sacrifice, the impact of our actions on those around us right now and on eternity.

Now I can tell lots of stories of playing the Battle Hymn on Veteran’s day or at senior centers. Residents always sing along. But when I began collecting the track list for my third CD, I thought of my public librarian. That lady unknowingly freed me from worrying about what was expected of a harp CD.

Sometimes the battle is in our minds and hearts. And it can be won by a true word.

“In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free,
His Truth is marching on!”

-The Battle Hymn of the Republic

True to her word, my librarian bought my new CD Hymns and Variations as soon as it came out. Now you can too! Listen and purchase The Battle Hymn of the Republic and 18 other favorite hymns, right here on my website, on iTumes, or call me at 574-875-0795.