General information: 

COURSES AND LEVELS:

We will offer 3 courses and we will have a lever harp track and a pedal harp track

 
- a 3 day intensive course for harp students and professionals with some experience in playing jazz, divided in 3 levels: beginning, intermediate & advanced. 

- a 2 day exploration course for students, professionals and amateurs who are beginners in playing jazz, divided in 2 levels: beginner & intermediate 

- a 1 day exploration course for students, professionals and amateurs who are beginners in playing jazz, divided in 2 levels: beginner & intermediate 

SCHEDULE:

We have created an intensive course schedule, which expands your skills, to enable you to play Jazz and Pop harp. 
It includes learning: 
Harmonic, Melodic and Rhythmic Improvisation, 
How to Read Lead Sheets, 
Modulating, 
Cookie Cutter Chords, 
Composition, 
Basic Arranging, 
Jazz History,
Effortless Glissing, 
Blues Scale 
and Jazz Listening. 
There will also be daily jam sessions, a Jazz listening trip to the New Orleans French Quarter and a Jazz Harp Weekend faculty concert. 

We think the Jazz Harp Weekend has great potential not only to improve the musical skills of our professional and student harpists, but also to generate interest among music students to study jazz harp on a more regular basis. We have the great privilege of being able to live in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. We think this is the perfect place to learn to play Jazz Harp.  

We want to encourage students to explore avenues of making music, other than orchestral playing and solo recitals.  The more versatile that our harp students become, the more opportunities they will have to work as professional musicians. The world of the freelance harpist requires the ability to play with many skills and in many styles. At the recent American Harp Society Summer Institute in Denton, TX, Detroit jazz harpist, Rizpah, said that, as classical harpists, we live in a harp bubble, and do not learn the skills we need to adapt to the real world. We need to break out of the harp bubble, if we want to survive & prosper.