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Sylvia Woods Harp Center
November 2024 Newsletter
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It is November, so it is a perfect time to give thanks. In several previous issues of this newsletter, I've mentioned how much I appreciate my former employees from my Harp Center store in Southern California. They were all so talented and helpful, and I'm grateful they were part of my life and my business. I definitely could not have run my store without them.
This photo of six employees, family, and friends was taken in 2000 when Huell Howser (in the center of the back row) filmed a PBS episode of "Visiting" at my store. You can watch the entire 30-minute TV show on the Huell Howser Archives of Chapman University website. You can also watch a short eight-minute excerpt of the show on YouTube.
The young girl in the front row of this photo is Gelsey Hughes. Gelsey was not an employee, but she was featured in the TV show because she had already written her Midnight Fairies book at the age of eleven.
The people in the photo, starting on the left, are Mr. Hughes (Gelsey's father), Heidi Spiegel (employee), Gil (Lisa Lynne's musical partner), Lisa Lynne (performer and employee), Gelsey Hughes (performer), Huell Howser (TV personality), Sylvia Woods, Patti Strout (friend of Sylvia's), Terri Skeoch (employee), Conway Snyder (Sylvia's father), Suzanne Guldimann (employee), Paul Baker (performer and teacher), and Chanel Pease (employee). The people listed here as "performers" were featured in the "Visiting" TV show.
Many of my former employees have gone on to make their mark in the harp world. For example, I currently sell music by Deborah Friou, Suzanne Guldimann, Lisa Lynne, Aedan MacDonnell, Megan Metheney, and Joyce Rice. Other harpists who helped me out at fairs and other events are Cynthia Artish and Margot Krimmel. And, although Heidi Spiegel hasn't written any harp music, she was the illustrator for over a dozen of my music books and sheets, including 50 Irish Melodies, 52 Scottish Songs, Beauty and the Beast, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Chanukah Music, and more. As a tribute to these wonderful and talented former employees, this month's sale includes a PDF from each of them.
As I mentioned above, I sell many PDFs by Suzanne Guldimann. I'm happy to report that her harp book Amid the Winter's Snow is now available as a PDF. Another significant announcement is that Suzanne recently published her new young adult novel, The Goblin Harp. You can read about it in her article below. I will not be selling her novel on my site, but it is available as a paperback book or Kindle edition on Amazon.com.
In Suzanne's article below, she also mentions writing articles for my Harp Lover's News. Back in the 1990s, customers could subscribe to this quarterly four-page publication. Recurring articles included a series called "Who is that person who answers the phone when I call the Harp Center?" featuring short biographies of my employees. There were also often word search puzzles and other fun harp-related games. The e-newsletter you are currently reading eventually replaced this mailed publication. I'll tell you more about the Harp Lover's News in a future newsletter.
This holiday season, I send many thanks to all of my former employees, students all over the world, dedicated customers, and Newsletter readers. I am very grateful to all of you. Happy Thanksgiving!
-- Sylvia
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In 2016, Sylvia invited me to share some thoughts on harps and harping in this newsletter for her featured arrangers series. In that article, I mentioned that I was writing a novel about the harp. I didn't think it would take eight years to become a reality, but the book, all 82,000 words, is finally in print.
Why a novel? Why not that tenth book of harp music I've been working on for an equally long time? All I can say is that the idea for the story took root in my imagination and kept growing. I needed to write it down and capture it in words. The book is part mystery and part fairy tale. It is the kind of adventure story for and about children that I loved when I was a child and still love. But at its heart, this is a book about the harp: its history, its lore, and what I've learned about playing the harp over a lifetime. The harp isn't quite like any other instrument. It holds magic.
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 |  | The seeds of this story were planted when I was a child. My big brother read The Hobbit to me when I was five. In it, Thorin Oakenshield brought a harp to Bilbo Baggins' Unexpected Party. That was the first harp I remember encountering in books, but there would be others. The harp "strung with the wind" in Patricia McKillip's novel The Harpist in the Wind crystalized my desire for a harp of my own. I was 12. Celtic harps weren't easy to find back then, but I was determined. I spent part of a never-to-be-forgotten summer vacation in Maine with my parents, scouring music shops, and found a particularly memorable one in Bar Harbor, Maine, but we didn't buy a harp there. Later that year, we purchased a 27-string McCurdy harp from Triplett Harps here in California. Those seeds for The Goblin Harp were planted in soil enriched with childhood memories of summer vacations in Maine, a lifelong passion for history, nature, ghost stories, and fairytales, and the excitement of receiving my first harp and beginning to learn to play it.
The main character of The Goblin Harp is Kate, a young girl who has just moved to an island in Maine with her family. She has always dreamed of playing the traditional wire-strung Irish harp and receives a very special one for her twelfth birthday. All the things that happen in the story result from that gift. She finds a teacher, makes friends with other young musicians, and uncovers a deadly mystery left behind by the Puritan settlers who claimed the island in the seventeenth century. With the help of her new friends, Kate uncovers all the clues and tools she needs to solve the puzzle. But can she and her friends prevail before this old evil claims a new victim? This story is about history, magic, and folklore, but especially about the harp and its traditions.
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There are elements in The Goblin Harp inspired in part by the original Sylvia Woods Harp Center, which was a little yellow house in Glendale, California, where Sylvia taught her early students. I bought a Triplett Zenith lap harp there many years ago—paid for with babysitting money and weekends spent mucking out my neighbor's horse stable and a little help from my parents. Twice a month for five years, I drove 45 miles each way in a battered old hand-me-down family car for lessons with Sylvia.
I cherish those memories of learning not just how to play the harp but also how to arrange music for it. I've tried to instill that feeling into this book, along with the excitement of playing with other musicians and the terror and exhilaration of performing in public for the first time. Later, I worked at the Harp Center for several years. Some of that experience is in the book, too: getting to know the customers and also the luthiers and technicians who made and repaired the instruments.
In my novel, I gave Kate an ancient Irish cláirseach strung with wire, carved with mysterious symbols and designs, and imbued with a bit of magic. All harps have the potential for magic, don't they? Unlike Kate, I will never be as proficient at the wire-strung harp as I am with nylon-strung harps, but it hasn't stopped me from trying!
I write a lot. As the Topanga New Times editor and a longtime journalist, I've written hundreds of features, editorials, and news stories. Some of my first journalistic efforts were for Sylvia's quarterly Harp Lover's News publications in 1997. One was an interview with the talented and delightful Russian concert harpist Margarita Maslennikova, who tuned the harps at the Harp Center. I misunderstood her and wrote that her beloved mentor back in Russia had died when he had really just retired. He wasn't amused to hear of his premature passing! I learned a valuable lesson about fact-checking from that incident.
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My second Harp Lover's News article was about playing the harp in a jug band called the Leasebreakers. In this photo, I'm standing with my harp in the center of the back row. Writing The Goblin Harp allowed me to revisit some of the joys and aggravations of learning to play with other musicians, as Kate makes friends with some young local musicians, and they form a band. Their music and the friendships that develop are key to resolving the story.
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I've written two books on the history and natural history of Malibu, California, where I grew up. I've also arranged nine early and traditional music books for the lap harp. Writing this novel was different. It was much more personal. I loved writing this story, and I feel a little sad that it's finished, completed, and set free to live its own life. If you have a story to tell, I encourage you to write it down. Even if it never makes its way into print, putting those thoughts into words is an adventure of its own, and you never know where it might take you. Once you start, it's hard to stop.
The Goblin Harp is available on Amazon.com as a paperback or ebook. Kindle Unlimited readers are invited to read it for free. I'm currently writing a second fiction story called The Coastwatchers. It's a period story set in Malibu in WWII, and it runs as an old-fashioned monthly serial at topanganewtimes.com/storyland, where it can also be read for free. There aren't any harps in it, but music is an important theme.
My tenth harp music book? It's coming, I promise!
-- Suzanne Guldimann
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New Products at Harpcenter.com | |
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This month's sale includes all nine of Suzanne Guldimann's PDFs and a PDF from each of my other former employees who have published music.
To get the 15% discount, enter the code word Suzanne in the "Enter Promo Code" box on your shopping cart page and click "Enter Code" by November 30, 2024. See the "How to get the 15% discount" section at the bottom of this newsletter for more information.
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Amid the Winter's Snow
by Suzanne Guldimann
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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The Bard's Harp
by Suzanne Guldimann
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Cold December Winds
by Suzanne Guldimann
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Green Grows the Holly
by Suzanne Guldimann
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Hearts of Oak
by Suzanne Guldimann
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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The King's Delight
by Suzanne Guldimann
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Zest
by Megan Metheney
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Moonbeams: A Medley of Moon Songs
by Joyce Rice
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Angry Birdz
by Cynthia Artish
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Icy December:
for harp and SATB choir
by Margot Krimmel
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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Chanukah Music
by Sylvia Woods
with cover artwork
by Heidi Spiegel
PDF or Book / CD or mp3s
15% off with Suzanne code
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Midnight Fairies
by Gelsey Hughes
PDF
15% off with Suzanne code
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How to get the 15% discount
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15% off select sale items when you use the code word Suzanne
Our newsletter promo codes are redeemable online and are only valid for the products listed above in the monthly sale section. They are not valid for phone or email orders. This month's code word is Suzanne.
Here's how to get your newsletter discount at harpcenter.com:
#1. Put the items you want to purchase in your cart.
#2. On the page where you view the items in your cart, type this month's code word Suzanne in the "Enter Promo Code" box and click "Apply."
The actual price of the featured sale products on this page will then automatically change to reflect the discount. For example,
Unit Price: $9.95 (the original price)
Total Price: $8.46 (the discounted price)
You'll also see a note below the Promo Code box saying the name of the promo code you entered and the percentage amount of the discount.
REMEMBER: You must enter this month's code word Suzanne in the Promo Code box and click "Apply" on your shopping cart page by November 30, 2024, to get the discount!
If you forget, or if you have trouble adding it to your order, email Sylvia immediately.
This offer expires at the end of the day on 11/30/2024.
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Sylvia Woods Harp Center
Lihue, Hawaii
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