Land of Dreams

A very lovely 5 year old Roxanne from Paris said a very nice thing last night. She said of my music " It seems like the land of dreams." Thank you Roxanne. That is one of the things I hope my music does, prepare the people after a hectic day to go to the land of dreams and have beautiful dreams.

My Dream for a Harp House

I have wanted to write about my dream of a harp house for some time. Chavi's letter is a perfect introduction to it. The way she felt when she played on my harp, I want every one to be able to experience that.I have written about many of the people that I have let play, but not all of them. But I cannot let every one on the street play. First , it would create chaos, and that would not be good for my harp. Secondly, that would limit my playing time. The harp needs to be played there, I mean music being made, beautiful sounds, healing sounds. No one who sits down at the harp makes it sound bad. Because the harp is magical, But many people are timid, and just don't know how to bring out the sounds, so while there are no bad sounds, there is not an abundance of big beautiful sounds either. And by being in public like that, they may be to inhibited to experience the harp to the fullest extent possible. So, at the harp house they can relax with the harp and let it speak to them. The harp is a great teacher. I know from experience.

That is just one part of what the harp house will be. I will speak more in a new post.

Stories from the Street - a note

Last night was a night for stories. A woman put down a note with a shekel on top of it and this is what it said.


You make the people dream.

Thanks!

And I thank you for the note.

Story from the street - Chavi

Here is the story in Chavi's own words.

"When Muriel let me play the harp, at first I was excited and then I got kinda scared, cuz how do I actually play this big harp I had never touched in my life, but when I actually touched the strings, I felt that I can really express what I feel inside. Even I don't know how to play a song with the harp, I was able to play the song that my heart was playing. I played just the emotions I felt inside. This thing is a very good way to express our emotions!

Chavi

A Story from the street - Oranit

I met Oranit last night. She had gone to Malcha Mall to celebrate a friend's book being published. It was to be a real event, and she was especially excited because there was going to be a harpist playing at the event. Well, she got there only to find out that the event was next week. For some reason, she passed through Ben Yehuda on her way home.She had sooo wanted to see a harp because since childhood she had dreamed of playing a harp. She asked her parents for one and they bought her a piano instead. I told her it was probably because harps were not so available in Israel then. They still aren't today but we're working on it. She was very excited to see a harp on Ben Yehuda St., and of course I did let her play a bit and encouraged her to think about getting a harp now.

Healing Stories

There have been many healing stories connected to the harp being played on Ben Yehuda Street. I know of some and have written some of them in this blog. I hope to collect more. I am trying to show why it is important for the harp to be played there. I believe the night time is most important because in the daytime everyone is dp busy but at night everything slows down and it is more suitable to healing. It is quieter and people who are alone or hurting feel it more.

Beautiful wind music

Last night was beautiful with the wind but towards the end my fingers were a bit frozen because of it. Very seldom is the wind loud enough to play my harp really loud, but last night it did a superb job. And about 4 times people really heard it. So many times when the wind comes to play, people are passing and I try to bring it to their attention and they just don't git it. So last night I was delighted when people were standing there and the wind did its thing. I mean it was about the best it can be. And they were Awed.I long to record it and put it on a disc. Well, my new friend Elon, whom I will speak about in a moment, told me about the recorder I need that will be good for what I want. When I have a good bit of the wind playing the harp, I want to record my improvisation with it. I think it would make great healing music.

It was such a full night last night I can't remember it all at the moment but it could come back later. I had 2 guest musicians to play my harp. The first was David, a professional violinist from the area, and Elan.

Elan is a guitarist, and he is getting out of the army today. -----I will come back to finish this later

Itamar

Last night was nice and warm, nice change from last week. I met a new friend, Itamar. He was listening to me on harp, then I played something on recorder. It turns out that He is a recent graduate o the Rubin Academy, his instrument being recorder. Naturally I had to ask him to play something with me. We played Pachebel and he was truly very good.Then these young girls came along with their guitar for me to tune, a service I have done a few times for them. Itamar offered to tune it and afterwards he payed some. He is also good on guitar. Then he played one of his own compositions and song. It was from Song of Songs, or Shir HaShirim. It was VERY good. When he was finished he said that they were connected to peace because their author, King Soloman"s name was derived from the word for peace, shalome. He also said that the harp is connected to peace.