
Karen Marshalsay (Publicity photo)
The wire-strung clarsach is the more ancient harp that was played in the Highlands and the Gaelic speaking areas of both Scotland and Ireland and going back hundreds of years. The sound is clearer and more bell-like and the strings are struck with the fingernails. Each string has a really long resonance so you have to return your fingerpads after you play and damp the strings when they’re no longer part of the harmony you want to hear. It’s a diatonic instrument but can be retuned for different pieces. I find it really suited to older Gaelic tunes and of course pibroch too, though I’ve been writing more contemporary pieces for it recently.
The bray harp is a very different sound to modern ears– quite like a sitar really as each string has a small wooden bray pin at its base which touches the string lightly and causes a buzzing sound. It was very much the dance band instrument of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, as the sound helped to amplify it and cut across the noise of the great halls. There is a fascinating manuscript of pieces from the 14th century that works really well on bray harp and has been likened to modern, ambient chill out music. It’s more linked to the lowland areas of Scotland, and there’s only a few players these days. I played it on a version of Strange Fruit a few years ago and it was pretty effective on that.
LJN: There’s a big bagpipe music influence on quite a number of the tracks; is there a particular historic link between the harp and the pipes and how did you come to play pibroch [the classical music of the Highland bagpipe]?
KM: The harp and the pipes are the older instrumental traditions in Scotland, with fiddle being the new kid on the block, and there’s a definite link between them, particularly in the older styles like pibroch which is very much theme and variation-based. In pibroch the variations become increasingly complex before returning to the opening ground, or urlar, again at the end. The harp tradition is a broken one in Scotland, with the old style traditional harp dying out in the late 18th century, whereas the pipes were taken up by the army and thrived but also became quite standardised by that. There were theme and variation style tunes in the harp repertoire, but the harpers never wrote their music down so we have to reconstruct the pieces, and the piping tradition is the obvious place to look. I worked with pibroch expert and renowned piper Allan MacDonald on his Edinburgh International Festival series of pibroch concerts, From Battle Lines to Bar Lines, in 2004, and he helped me understand the genre and translate the sounds and rhythms of the variations into harp forms. For me it’s a very natural way of playing the harp.
LJN: The title track itself and a number of others are your own compositions; how do you compose and do you work outside of the standard traditional tune form?
KM: Tunes often come from just improvising around a few notes or ideas and gradually solidifying those into a tune. Sometimes it’s sparked by the thought of a place or a person or event and a conscious decision to write a tune specifically for that. And sometimes it’s a practical response to the need for a particular type of tune in a particular key to make up a set. I generally compose on the harp with the melody coming first and the arrangement developing from that. While I love writing tunes in a traditional format I am more and more interested in composing for other instruments and larger ensembles, and in those cases I often use a piano keyboard or write straight into Sibelius, and that’s more an exploration of all aspects of composition rather than traditional tune forms. I played with the Russian String Orchestra last August here in Edinburgh as guest soloist on two of my pieces that I orchestrated for them, and I’ll be doing that again at the Fringe this year.
LJN: You have concerts coming up in a variety of venues; what are your favourite places to play and why?
KM: It’s great to be able to play in all sorts of different venues from large to small. Some of the smaller places like the church in Linlithgow where I played in May have gorgeous acoustics that you can really use in your playing and I love being able to respond to the sound and feel of a venue. I also love playing in places with a real sense of history like the National Trust properties. As a harper I do feel a strong connection to the players who played in some of these castles and great halls hundreds of years ago.
LJN: What would you like the audience to take away from your concerts?
KM: I want listeners to be moved. The pieces are variously sad, thoughtful and reflective, poignant, but also strong and celebratory, and a bit mischievous at times. There’s so much going on in the world that a gig should be a haven where folk can be absorbed by the music and leave feeling uplifted and more able to go out and get on with life.
TOUR DATES
Fri 23 Aug: Hill of Tarvit Mansion House, near Cupar (Fife)
Sun 25 Aug: Eyemouth Hippodrome
Fri 13 Sep: Biggar Music
Sat 21 Sep: Wighton Centre, Dundee
Fri 8 Nov: Birnam Arts Centre
LINK: CD available from Karen Marshalsay’s website
Categories: Features/Interviews
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