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“I used to play the _____, and I wish I hadn’t quit.” I’ve heard that so many times, and always encouraged people to start again.
I hope you won’t say to yourself, “I must be as good as I used to be or it’s not worth trying.”
Your hands will not be as young. Your brain will not be either! But that doesn’t mean it is too hard or of no value for you. It just means you have to approach the relearning with love towards yourself, and appreciation for the ways you are growing.
Have you returned to music after a long absence? I’d love to hear your story. If you’re considering it, I hope you will find a way to start again.
Two flute and harp videos for RoseWynde duo (Sandy Norman and Kathryn Cater) for Spring and the wedding season. Ladye’s Delight/Haste to the Wedding are two joyful traditional tunes we have used for many weddings, and work well for pedal or lever harp. Sheet music is available through Alry.
Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring is performed simply. Please enjoy both of these videos to bring a smile to your day!
Ladybuggedy is from “A Walk in the Woods”, a collection of early intermediate harp solos. At this very gentle tempo, it’s not so difficult. It takes a bit of practice to get rhythm down, and there’s a little tricky stuff for the left hand, but generally it’s really fun to play.
… so I decided to supplement my ladybug videos with stop motion animation…
This whimsical little tune was inspired by a baby blanket made by my Auntie Thelma. It’s the pattern known as a Crazy Quilt, and hangs on the wall in my guest room. To illustrate the piece visually for YouTube, I thought some Sun Bonnet Sues could have a little adventure via Stop Motion animation.
“Month of January, and When the Snow and Frost are All Over” is a flute and harp arrangement I really enjoy playing. It’s so icy and wintery!
Although performed and published for pedal harp, it adapts to lever harp very easily. I just put out a short video to give editing ideas.
The recording is from the RoseWynde CD “Winter Ayres”. The sheet music can be purchased through Alry. The pieces are recorded and arranged to be played as a set, but each can be performed as stand-alone pieces.
Light Through the Trees started as a question. A young poet friend on a hike broke the silence by sharing that he was searching for words to describe the light through the trees. All the usual words came to my mind: filtered, dappled…. Then it became a challenge to write music.
I intentionally wrote silences into this piece.
Firespell is from “A Walk in the Mountains” for harp solo, and is about the hypnotic effect of staring into a campfire. You know the feeling? The dancing flames are so captivating!
Here is a link to the videos for the piece, as well as a teaching video. I go on and on about phrasing. But without interpretation, this piece will just be a lot of notes.
It’s been fifteen years since we started our CREP conservation program, and every year has brought new challenges. In 2020 Climate Change became more than a theory… This year we have taken up the mission with renewed purpose. We are re-planting with an eye to what will survive in a hotter, unpredictable future, introducing greater diversity for habitat, and with the hope that some will ease the transition into the woodland to come.
Over a thousand Western Red Cedar and hundreds of Douglas Fir and Valley Pine were set in, along with understory trees and shrubs like vine maple, ninebark and spirea. The race was on for the sunlight. As our seedlings grew, they would create shade, and eventually their expanding branches would connect, forming a “closed canopy”, which in theory would suffocate the light hungry invasive species below. In the meantime, we had several years of battle ahead of us.
The first year of our CREP program was devoted to clearing the invasives. Because the program shared the cost of hiring brush clearing contractors, the worst areas were cleared in a matter of days by heavy equipment. While the contractors cleared the larger areas, there were hundreds of individual trees that had to be saved by hand, one by one. With clippers and machetes, we spent most of that year pulling clematis out of trees and whacking at the blackberries.
I found the resources we needed in our county soil and water conservation district. There are various programs offering assistance to property owners who want to “do the right thing” for the environment, and we chose to enroll our woods in the CREP program. CREP aims to improve water quality and improve wildlife habitat by establishing long term riparian buffers.
It seemed too late for our sad little woods. Entire trees towering 100 feet in the air were completely suffocated with thick wild clematis. Others were being slowly strangled by English Ivy. Thorny walls of Himalayan Blackberry 12 feet high made much of the woods impenetrable. Ever have a deep heart wish for something impossible? Every once in awhile, impossible things become possibilities.
About kathryn cater
I’m a harpist and composer with
a passion for our natural world, and
for the importance of creating beauty.
Ready to try something new?
Stories on being a musician, and a home for compositions and arrangements by Kathryn Cater.
There’s also a home here for musings on woodland conservation. A bit strange? Not for me.
The trees feed my soul, my soul writes music.
In gratitude I care for the trees.
It’s a cycle I observe in a lot of musicians and artists.
This piece from “A Walk in the Woods” needed a storyline, and I couldn’t think of any way but stop motion to tell it. As I was writing this collection, I thought about how wild rabbits have to outsmart many dangers, and that led me to imagine them in a film noir spy / super hero story.