From humble beginnings, as a child of the Great Depression and World War II, Pat Packer has lived through the good times and the bad, as have many others. She was married at a young age, raised five children, and managed to live through the unexpected loss of one of those children to a tragedy. She was a successful business owner, building two authentic Irish pubs from scratch: McCarthys Party in Detroit, Michigan, and The Harp and Thistle in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Through tears and laughter, ups and downs, and her unwavering faith in God, she is telling her story from her home in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Just for today, I will adjust myself to what is and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my luck as it comes and fit myself to it. Miss Pat

A compelling account of the vibrant musical tradition of Sacred Harp singing, Traveling Home describes how song brings together Americans of widely divergent religious and political beliefs. Named after the most popular of the nineteenth-century shape-note tunebooks - which employed an innovative notation system to teach singers to read music - Sacred Harp singing has been part of rural Southern life for over 150 years. In the wake of the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s, this participatory musical tradition attracted new singers from all over America. All-day "singings" from The Sacred Harp now take place across the country, creating a diverse and far-flung musical community. Blending historical scholarship with wide-ranging fieldwork, Kiri Miller presents an engagingly written study of this important music movement.

Harp

A moving and inspirational memoir from the beloved maverick carpenter on HGTV’s smash hit Fixer Upper that shows how to turn your hobbies and craft into a career and celebrates the power of meaningful work. Now known to the countless fans of Fixer Upper as Chip and Joanna Gaines’s go-to table maker and acclaimed artisan, Clint Harp hasn’t always lived the DIY dream we see on the show. Ten years ago, he was dutifully working at a sales job that, while it provided security for his family, did nothing to help him achieve his unfulfilled dreams of building furniture. With the support of his wife, the encouragement of a mentor, and a life full of lessons, he finally took the leap, quitting his job and setting out on the quest to become a carpenter. Without formal training, financing, workspace, or customers, the Harps were quickly on the edge of financial collapse. Then Clint met Chip Gaines at a gas station—a chance encounter that marked the next chapter on a wild ride Clint could never have imagined possible. Spanning Clint’s remarkable journey—from a childhood learning carpentry and hard work at his grandfather’s knee, through his struggles to balance pursuing his dreams with supporting his family, to his partnership with Chip and Joanna Gaines and the many adventures and misadventures of filming Fixer Upper—Handcrafted is part memoir and part manual for dreamers of all backgrounds. “From the floor of his first shop to the foundations of Habitat for Humanity houses, to building furniture for the world to see, Clint Harp is living a handcrafted life” (President Jimmy Carter).

Discover over two dozen traditional tunes from Scotland and Ireland: a mix of novel and familiar jigs, reels, airs, marches, and strathspeys. Intermediate through advanced harp players will enjoy these lovely melodies and their fresh, sparkling accompaniments. The arrangements include several optional transitions for combining tunes into sets, as heard on Claussen’s album The Road Home from Skye. Suitable for harps with a range of at least two octaves below middle C. Contains dynamics, chords, practical technical exercises, and fingering suggestions.

Relates what happens to three American children, unwillingly transplanted to wales for one year, when one of them finds an ancient harp-uning key that takes him back to the time of the great sixth-century bard Taliesin.

This authoritative reference work investigates the roots of the Sacred Harp, the central collection of the deeply influential and long-lived southern tradition of shape-note singing. David Warren Steel and Richard H. Hulan concentrate on the regional culture that produced the Sacred Harp in the nineteenth century and delve deeply into history of its authors and composers. They trace the sources of every tune and text in the Sacred Harp, from the work of B. F. White, E. J. King, and their west Georgia contemporaries who helped compile the original collection in 1844 to the contributions by various composers to the 1936 to 1991 editions. Drawing on census reports, local histories, family Bibles and other records, rich oral interviews with descendants, and Sacred Harp Publishing Company records, this volume reveals new details and insights about the history of this enduring American musical tradition. David Waren Stel is an associate professor of music and southern culture at the University of Mississippi. Richard H. Hulan is an independent scholar of American folk hymnody.

This book teaches the student step by step how to play the harp. Each of the 12 lessons includes instructions, exercises, and folk and classical pieces using the new skills and techniques taught in the lesson. --from publisher description.

An author subject index to selected general interest periodicals of reference value in libraries.

A musical instrument that has played a vital role in Latin American music cultures--the harp--is the subject of this new work, the first study of its kind to be published in English. John Schechter presents a history of the harp in Spain, traces its introduction into colonial Latin America, and describes its modern roles in the diverse cultural centers of Mexico, Paraguay-Argentina-chile, Venezuela, and Peru. He then turns his focus to his own field research in the Quichua culture of northern highland Ecuador, an area that has receive considerably less scholarly attention than many of its Latin American neighbors. The reader will meet a community of harp maistrus on the slopes of Mt. Cotacachi and become familiar with their culture, their particular instrument and its tuning, and their performance practices. Numerous photographs, musical transcriptions, and diagrams illustrate and enliven the text. The Indispensable Harp is unique for its integration of aspects of music and cultural history, organology, and performance practice, treating in considerable depth both broadly established music-ethnographical practices. It speaks to the conclusion that the vital role of the harp in Latin American music history has now been properly acknowledged and documented.