I started piano lessons in the fourth grade, and I was pretty good at it. Even competed here and there and did well. But while piano was okay, it always left me feeling a little bit dissatisfied. And then in 1989, I bought a cassette of folk harp music, and that was that. I knew I wanted to play the harp. I haunted music shops, examining folk harps up close whenever I could. That was all I could do though--as a poor college student, forking out the $800-plus for a decent folk harp was out of the question. Still, I wanted one so bad I could taste the lacquer.
Finally
in 1994 I got a full-time teaching job. The first thing I did was
buy a harp from Dusty Strings. The harp pictured here is very similar
to mine. I followed the tradition of harpers naming their harps.
The moment I got mine home, I knew his name was Corey. (Harpers also
refer to harps as if they were living people, much the way sailors refer
to ships.)
The second thing I did was track down a teacher through the Detroit Symphony. Although Christa Grix, the teacher in question, was a classical harpist and I wanted to learn folk harping, she agreed to teach me anyway. It was the beginning of a warm and fruitful relationship. Christa became my friend as well as my teacher, and she was best music instructor I have ever had--and I've had several.
We did have a few bumps. Christa was always harping on me (sorry) to get a pedal, i.e., concert, harp. I didn't want a pedal harp--still don't--and our conversations would sometimes get a little heated. Whenever I had to scramble to rewrite a piece on the fly because Corey didn't have a long enough range or the ability to handle a key change, Christa would shake her head.
"See?" she said. "This wouldn't happen if you had a pedal harp."
The next week, I might come in on a beautiful summer morning and say, "You know, today I took Corey down to the creek and played while the water ran over rocks and birds sang back to me." Then I would nod at Annie, her six-foot tall, eighty-pound pedal harp. "You ever do that with her?"
And--
"You really need to trade up to a bigger instrument, Steven."
"Mr. Haiphitz? This is Mr. Yo-Yo Ma. He thinks you should trade up to a bigger instrument."
It became a running joke between us.
In my second year of lessons, Christa threw me into the world of professional musicianship. She got an offer for a gig that she couldn't take, so she said, "I have a student, though, who would do a wonderful job for you. Let me ask him."
I was uncertain. After fewer than two years I was going to do pro work for a museum opening?
"You'll do fine," she said. "No one listens to the background musicians anyway. They won't notice you're playing relatively simple music. Just do it!"
I did, and I've been playing parties, dinners, and weddings ever since, though now my repertoire has become a little more complex.
After six years of lessons, Christa finally sat back in her chair one day and said, "Steven, I don't think there's anything more I can teach you unless you want to pick up a pedal harp."
This time it wasn't part of the running joke. We parted company, and now I'm on my own. I still keep in contact with Christa, and when I run into trouble with something I'm trying to learn, I give her a call for a one-shot lesson. It's always good to see her.