This Year

This has really been the most difficult year of my life. Soon I will get in here and write about it. But even when things are at their worst, there is still hope. The turning point for me has come and I will tell it soon.

TRUE ACHIEVEMENT

The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become. - Harold Taylor

Thank you Yulia

I strained my arm a few weeks ago and it has been very difficult to play the harp, or for that matter, any of my instruments. It is getting better, but not so much that I should take a night off from playing on the street. So why don't I ? Money is one factor, but more than that, I never know who is going to come by. Last night, when part of me was asking "why am I here?" Yulia, harpist with the IPO (Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), came by. This is the second time she has honored my harp with the touch of her fingers. This time, however, I am armed with a video camera, and she so very graciously allowed me to video her and to put her on my you tube channel. So stay tuned.

Tel Aviv in July

I will be in Tel Aviv the first 3 weeks in July, cat sitting for a friend and playing around. Dizengoff area mostly but on Tuesday and Friday I will probably be at Nachalat Benyamin at the arts and crafts fair in the daytime. See you there maybe.

What's on my You Tube channel ?

I have some videos to upload just as soon as I can figure out how. In the meantime, at last count I have over 160 videos that I have favorited and over 30 channels I have subscribed to. Check it out. From Yasha Heifetz to celtic fiddle and harp. Lots of The Cheiftains. 5 and 6 year olds playing Bach and Mozrt on violin. Some comedy, and today I added Elvis and Barbra Streisand.
Oh, did I mention Harpo ? And also Charlie Chaplin. You just can't beat Chaplin. Enjoy.!!

Just click on the link BUSKERS AND OTHER NICE THINGS.

Wikepedia -- have you seen me there ?

A man from Germany came up to me and said he saw my picture on the internet. He was on the German version of Wikepedia and saw a picture of me playing my harp under the heading of Ben Yehuda Street. I've tried to find it but haven't had any luck. If anyone out there finds it would you let me know ?

I'm on YOU TUBE

I have been thinking for a few months that I wanted to put myself on You Tube. The main reason being that I wanted family and friends back in the states to see me playing on Ben Yehuda on my new harp. Well, I still don't have the means to do that but Thursday night along comes this guy and he wants to video me, and to put me on his channel on You Tube. So now I'm on You Tube. His channel is dudeforallseasons. I'm on his second page.

I also have a channel there, I discovered, murieleileen. I was messing around on You Tube a number of months back and saved a few videos that I liked. Well, I didn't understand about the channels then but I must have created one because I have one. So I put myself on my channel and also a few more good ones I found. Click on the link to My You Tube channel and you will go directly to my channel.

What are my hours ?

When do I play on Ben Yehuda?
Occasionally someone will say they havn''t seen me playing for a while. I am almost always there Sunday - Thursday, weather and health permitting. Occasionally I agree to play a wedding but I do not go searching for them. Right now I feel my place is on Ben Yehuda at night.
I am usually on Ben Yehuda from 7:00 - 10 or 11 oclock. Sometimes I go earlier if the space is vacant of other musicans and sometimes I play later, till 12 or so. Currently I teach an 8:00 class Monday mornings so Sunday night is an early night
Saturday I've been playing recently, but sometimes I get fed up with all the wildness.

WELCOME BACK, beginnings of a harper

Many times people have told me that they look for me when they come to Ben Yehuda. Last night, Mark and his wife from Texas(?) said they saw me on their first trip to Israel in 2001 and have seen me on every trip since then. This is thier 7th trip. Mark insists that I was playing harp the first time they saw me. My first harp I didn't get until Dec. 2000. For the first few months I couldn't think about anything else. Not good when I still had 2 weeks of ulpan left. (Ulpan is intensive Hebrew class) Finally ulpan was over and I could really focus on my harp without guilt. But I was living in Tel Aviv and I wanted to move to Jerusalem so after a few months I forsed myself to put my harp in the closet (literally). So 2 months looking for a place, 2 months moving, and then a little more time settling in, almost a half year of not playing. You see, I couldn't play because once I started I couldn't do anything else. So now I'm in my apartment of one room, bathroom and kitchen outside, (with my 2 cats), but it was really hard getting back into the harp because everything I had worked on had disappeared but it was worse than starting all over ecause I had the feeling that I should b able to play something, but I couldn't. Well, slowly I kept at it I couldn't wait to take the harp to the street(I had been a street musician for a number of years now, first violin, then recorder) ,so much before I was ready, out we went, harp and I. It wasn't too bad untill somebody came up to me looking at me like they expected me to play something. Then my fingers just forgot all of the little bit they knew, and I felt like such a fool. And even more so when they asked what I could play, or better yet, for a specific song. So when Mark said they saw me in 2001 playing a harp, I really wonder just what they heard.

FOLK ALLEY RADIO

This is my favorite radio station. If you like folk music you must try it. 24 hours of really great music. It also has extras, concerts and interviews that you can listen to in addition to the radio stream. One of my favorites is Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow quartet. This one is a video. To get it, click on music, then clck on live from folk alley. The radio station is on my link list.

Wedding in Beit Shemish

I did not play on Ben Yehuda last night. I was playing at a wedding in Beit Shemish. I played during the kabalat panim (receiving the faces). What beauty can be created from white sheets and beads.Under the open sky, surrounded by white walls of cloth hanging from frames, strands of shiny white beads hanging all around. The Chuppa was very tall, also made from white cloth and strands of beads. Simplicity and beauty, very good friends. Also some torches on high poles. Later in the evening, after they were taking the magical room apart, ou could see the fields that surrounded the place. Hard to brlirvr that just an hour before it felt like a palace.

Joshua Bell plays at DC Metro station, no one notices

The Washington Post got Joshua Bell to play at a DC Metro station for 45 minutes on a Friday morning. 1097 people walked by him. Seven stopped and listened. 27 gave money (for a total of $32). 1 person recognized him.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

Joshua Bell in the Metro

Will all buskers please stand up and take a bow

clipped from www.post-gazette.com Earlier this year, The Washington Post asked Joshua Bell to stand at a subway stop, play his instrument and see if anyone noticed. This makes for a pretty good story, and a morality tale to boot. People in Washington are too busy, too self-absorbed, to recognize beauty at their doorstep or, in this case, at their subway stop. But I wonder how many of us would have known the difference between Mr. Bell and your typical subway busker. Do I really know enough about art music to recognize genius out of context, on the street? Do you? So I am not sure what the Post proved with its gag And yet the broader point of the Post exercise is worth acknowledging: We are not prepared to encounter beauty in our everyday lives. But here is another way of approaching the question of how we look at the world and at life. Mr. Bell is willing to bring art music to the people and to bridge the gap between the formal concert hall and the scruffy street.

CD - anticipation

There is a great CD I want to tell you about entitled anticipation by Charlene Wallace and Suzan Piltch. Charlene plays harp, Suzan plays piano and flute. The combination of harp and flute is often done and is unbeatable but flute and piano I think is a little more rare. Well I want to tell you that combination also works quite well.

I fell inlve with this CD the first time I heard it. Beautiful melodies that are at the same time full of life and energy giving , but also calming and relaxing.I feel there is alot of healing in this CD. I recently had a few months when I was not feeling well and I would put this CD on and go to sleep and it was very helpful. There is a track or two that has just a bit too much energy for sleeping. I want to make a compilation from this disc and others to make a sleeping disc and then my dreams
will be perfect.Just a note, the sence of hearing never shuts down, even under anethesia.

I beleive the CD can be ordered thru Amazon.com. I also googled their names and found their web site.

BABYCOUNT

Tuesdy night was slow, there was only one family with 3 small children who stopped to listen,2 in strollers. The oldest was standing and looked about 2 years old. Last night there were no babys but I managed to play Yonatan 4 times for todlers. I love watching the faces of the children listening to me, to see their eyes light up. For those that don't know, Yonathan Hakatan (Little Jonathan)is the most popular children's song in Israel. It is about a little boy going to gan(kindergarten) and he climbs a tree and gets a big hole in his pants. I have had more requests for that song than any other, and not by little kids but by kids of all ages. I usually don't play it right off but save it for the right time and watch the faces to see who recognizes it first, the parent or the child. It never fails to bring smiles to their faces.

Many of the babies I play for only get concerts of a few seconds as their parent is rushing past pushing their stroller, totally unaware of the hunger on their childs face to hear more music and the child straining to see me as he slowly passes by. But on the other hand I have other parents who often bring their child out just to see me. One little boy came almost nightly. I watched him grow from a little baby into a little boy. I'm sure he will be a musician. O, I don't mean as a profession. Maybe yes, maybe no. That's up to him. But everyone should have musical training and be a musician of sorts, if just for his own amusement. Musical training is one of the best ways to develop the brain. 100 years ago in Scotland 85% of the people were musicians. When families got together they played music. I want to encourage every one to listen to music and play music. It's never too late. My oldest violin student had her first lesson when she was 87 (her story later) and I just started a lady of 77 years on the harp.

guest harpist, fire on Ben Yehuda ?

Last I night was a beautiful night on Ben Yehuda. It wasn't cold at all when I went out and got just a bit chilly later. I play much better when my hands are not cold, or freezing, which happens sometimes.

I had a guest harpist last night, Inge from South Africa, where she plays professionally on a concert pedal harp. She played very beautifully on my harp, I like to let other harpo\ists play on my harp. It adds a ittle variety to rom my repertoir and it gives me a chnce to hear how my harp sounds. Thankyou Inge for your nice music.

I was sitting there last night and all of a sudden I saw smoke billowing from the front of Bank Discount. It seemed to be comming from one of the money machines. I watched people walking by for quite a few minutes(at least 5) and nobod seemed aware that anything was happening. I don't dare go even a few feet from my harp because many people would not hesitate to come over and start messing with it. They actually try it when I'm sitting there playing.
I started thinking of calling it a night when I started smelling a very bad odor . It reminded me of the night in Tel Aviv(I used to live there). I was plating in my regular spot on the corner of Dizengoff and King George violin or recorder(pre harp days). I saw a stream of smoke coming from a window in the bank. I think I'll leave that story for another day. Anyway, back on Ben Yehuda, I was distracted, and then when I looked again the smoke had stopped. A friend went to check it out and it seems it had something to do with the lighting decoration put up for Independance Day celebration. A whole section of the lights were out.


Afterwards, sittingout there I started thinking about my blog and making notes and I think I have some good ideas which is good because this writing thing does not come easy to me. I'm a music person, not a word person.

well one idea I had was to have a baby count. My favorite audiences are the children. I love playing for them, and especially the babies. I'm going to report on the babies I play for, the ones that stop and lister, not the ones who just stroll on by.
there were about 3 earlier in the evening but not since I had hte idea. Music is so important and it is VERY important for babies to listen to music. More on that subject later.

Hello, I Will introduce myself. My name is Muriel and I play the harp almost every night on Ben Yehuda, a pedestrian street in the center of Jerusalem. A harp in the heart of the city.