First composition from INDIA(!)🇮🇳 by Utsyo Chakraborty. Thank you Utsyo (age 19 from Kolkata) for writing this miniature. I’m pretty certain you are the first composer from India to send me something for this project. I’m so happy you did! It all works very well for the harp. Utsyo’s programme note below: . . . NOTE: "Epigraph" is a very short miniature for Harp composed between 1st and 9th December, 2020. I have dedicated it to Olivia Jageurs, whose "15 second harp" initiative inspired me to try to compose something under such tight conditions. In reality, I am sure I have exceeded the so set time! The music is based on a seven note pitch sequence F, E, C, A, Bb, Db, Gb which combines diatonic elements with a tinge of chromaticism. I have dealt with this sequence in a very linear fashion here, extracting and utilising some of the possible two note combinations from it. Rhythmically speaking, I devised a scheme which enabled me to switch between longer and shorter durations with a certain amount of continuity, so that the rhythm ebbs and flows.

Trumpet, cello & harp trio of “Y Geni” (The Birth) arranged by Gwenllian Hunting-Morris 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🎄 🎺 🎶 Before Christmas I was sent some brand new trios to play with trumpeter Imogen Hancock and cellist Abi Hyde-Smith . Unfortunately due to a CoVid scare and then lockdown we weren’t able to meet in person to record them. We have managed to piece a couple of our favourites together remotely though thanks to our producer Matt Maguire. I know Christmas is over HOWEVER, did you know it is the last day for Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas as they follow the Julian as opposed to Gregorian calendar?! (Yup neither did I... thank you Wikipedia) . It’s officially “Blue Monday” today so the words of this carol are quite appropriate: “Darkness fell upon the street, black darkness all over the world, When the light of heaven shone down on Mary: Shepherds hasten and Kings come from their castles to the baby asleep in the hay.” May your Tuesday be brighter than today 💙 💫 Thank you @gweni_hm from @nyo_gb for this excellent arrangement!

Here’s another trio that was written for our Christmas call-for-scores... Imogen Hancock (trumpet) claims there’s a Medieval/ Tudor tradition of leaving your decorations up until Candlemas Eve (1st Feb) so we are honouring that tradition! The reality is is that we couldn’t all be in the same room together before Christmas to record because of UK lockdown so it’s took us longer than expected to put together. Thank you so much @joosten.fabian for giving us a reason to make chamber music together even if from afar! Abi Hyde-Smith on cello 💫

by 🇫🇷 Bruno Visse I absolutely love this miniature sent to me last week by self-taught French composer Bruno Visse. I think it’s beautiful. It was also a one-take wonder, which means it was very well written. 👌 🌳 Bruno said in his email: “The piece is titled "Forêt rêveuse" (Dreamy forest) and I wrote it as a challenge to setup a specific atmosphere in the shortest amount of time. Writing this short piece was a lot of fun, taking the initial E chord to a dreamy trip that ends on the same chord, a semi-tone higher.” ✍️ All the pedalling was correct but I moved each pedal slightly later. I think most harpists prefer to see it as close to the change as possible. This prevents and alteration of resonance before the new pitch of string is needed. I know that the E and F pedals now look close together but at this speed they are totally fine. 🪄 I don’t have a magic formula for speed of pedal changes and how many are possible within a certain amount of time. It completely depends on the level of the player and the resonance of the strings. 🎶 Harpists, would you rather see your pedals as late as possible or is that just me?

15 seconds of harp by Philip Czaplowski 🇦🇺 That you to Australian composer Philip for sending me this “moment” . A simple but effective use of the compositional brief! If you’d like to email me an original snippet of music, please email it to me at olivia@15secondharp.com.

15 seconds by Katy Stanley (from Tulsa, Oklahoma 🇺🇸) Thank you Katy for writing and sending me this fun miniature! Katy said in her email “This morning my two guinea fowl were squawking back and forth at each other. There was a melody in their chirps (more like someone just screaming) and it made a lovely little tune.” This vid was a one take wonder and I was about to redo it because my hair looked so bad, but then decided it kind of make me look like a guinea fowl. Scroll down to compare. P.s. Composers, C# major is totally fine for the pedal harp as we can just put each pedal into sharp position. It wouldn’t be possible on lever harp as most lever harps are tuned in E flat major meaning the max flats you can do is 3 (I.e. A major) and maximum sharps are 4 (I.e. E major).

Hello! Lots of talented Junior RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music composition students were recently given the “15 second harp challenge”. I recorded a harp workshop, played all of the students’ miniatures and gave feedback. The students (age 13-18) have given permission for me to share their work (and my waffle about their writing)! Here is Leo’s piece. The standard was so high and this piece was no exception. Thank you to their teacher David Onac for getting in touch and asking me to do this project. I really enjoyed it. 😊

15 seconds of harp by another talented Junior @rncmlive teenager. This one is by Joseph. It’s amazing what mood can be conjured up in just 12 seconds. Well done Joseph 👍

15 seconds by Ziyi Tao (New York 🇺🇸) Wow! I love this miniature! @ziyitao is only 18 and still at high school, which makes this even more impressive. Firstly, I love the rhythmic pedal trills. They are super effective (I’m moving the D pedal and it is changing the pitch of the resonance). I found this really addictive to play (even though I didn’t quite get to 120BPM). I’ve written my pedals in in red. I normally advise people to write them in as a good exercise but there is so much going on here I think it’s totally fine to leave it to the harpist. Also, you clearly had a very good idea of what was possible on the harp! The only thing I did differently to what you wrote was to play the A# harmonic in bar 2 as the first A didn’t ring long enough as a harmonic for the resonance shifting pitch to be heard. Wow wow! Well done Ziyi 🤩

15 seconds by Sean McCabe 🇨🇦/ 🇺🇸 Thank you @seanmccabe for sending me an extract from your musical David (as in King David from the Bible who played the harp). It all works really well. I’ve written in my pedals in red in case that’s useful. My left hand is waving around in the first 8 bars as I’m dampening the resonance as I change the pedal so you don’t hear any pedal sliding (in contrast to my previous 15 seconds by Ziyi who wanted to hear lots of that noise!). Best of luck with the musical and thanks for supporting 15 Second Harp ☺️

15 Seconds Before The Sun Wakes Up ☀️ by Sam H. (student at Junior RNCM - Royal Northern College of Music) Another fab composition from a talented teenager at the Royal Northern College of Music. Great harp effects in here including bisbigliando, tapping, harmonics and playing very high between the mechanism and the tuning pin. I also showed this one to the harpists on the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain Inspire Spring course, so thanks for spreading the inspiration Sam! Enjoy the sun folks! 🌞 🌻 😎

Another great miniature by a Junior @rncmlive student! I’ve included my witterings here about staccato on the harp and about notating high left hand notes. Well done for a great composition Luca!

Today’s miniature is composed by Leira and Destiny (age 15). Their composition teacher set them the task of co-writing the melody over a given chord sequence and this was the result. I really like it! I’m playing in the beautiful Snape Maltings concert hall this weekend so now you can say you’ve had your music performed there 😉

30 second harp by Charlie L (age 15). Thank you Charlie for your miniature “Breeze”. The chords are very big so need to be divided between both hands, which takes more time as the left hand has to jump over the right hand. It is all totally possible. I did the descending gliss by playing each note separately as otherwise I would get to the bottom of it too quickly. Something to be aware of is that the D # pedal needed for the B major chord in bar 3, which means the gliss will have D#s in it when descending. It’s good practice to write in a little pedal diagram above a gliss to show the harpist exactly which notes you are expecting to hear. (I’ve done a little intro to harp pedals at 15secondharp.com) In this case you could just write out every little note as semiquavers in the descending gliss as that is how I played it. I added an E minor chord at the end just to make it sound more resolved for insta, but I gather from the title that it might be from a larger piece? Thanks so much for sending this to me Charlie and keep up the great writing!

15 seconds by Tom G (junior @rncmlive student) 🎶 The harp is a modal instrument: we set our 7 pedals (one for each note in the octave) and that gives us our scale. Here Tom has created a mode by indicating with the pedal diagram that they should be set as follows (from left to right): Dflat, C natural, B flat … E natural, F sharp, G natural, A natural. If you’re not sure where to start when writing for the harp I always advise to set a pedal mode you like as a starting point. You could also think of it as like a 7 note serialist tone row. Swipe through the videos to hear me wittering about playing with fingernails. Great miniature Tom 👍

15 seconds by Rowan T. 🎶 Great original miniature by teenage composer Rowan. Nice contrast with the staccati notes and a knock to finish! Rowan is a student at Junior @rncmlive and their teacher David Onac set his students the task of writing ✍️ 15 second harp pieces last time. Scroll back for some other very good ones.

Thank you to 13 year old Samuel for writing and sending me this miniature: “Dreamlike”. 💭 I really like the opening bar that acts as a mini introduction to the piece. If I’m being really picky I would say to all composers to be aware that repeating a string straight after you’ve played it will cut off the vibrating sound, so if you want a very legato line it would be easier to play just one line in the left hand accompaniment here, but it is all totally playable. Well done Samuel and thank you to your teacher Abingdon School for using my 15 second harp project as a starting point for composition ☺️

Woooahhh by Robert Nettleship Thanks Robert for this great graphic score! It aptly depicts the inside of my head over the last couple of weeks 🧠 💨 I set the pedals in to position for the few notes I could make out and then gave myself one take to record it. I got a bit too into it so went just over the 15 seconds that was supposed to be allocated for it. For anyone new to graphic scores, they are open to interpretation by the performers and can be as abstract as the composer likes. I’ve actually always been surprised I haven’t been sent more graphic scores, so if you can’t read music but would like to write me something, why not draw it?