Featured Harp Music
Welcome to our featured harp music section! Every quarter (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) we will feature a work by one of our talented Pacific Northwest harp composers and arrangers. You are welcome to download and print a copy of this music for your personal private use. (If you wish to perform the music publicly for profit, print or publish any arrangement, or record or broadcast it, you must first contact the listed copyright holder for the appropriate permissions.)
Please Note: Beginning September 2023, Reigning Harps is using MP3 files to enable audio playback of Featured Harp Music scores. To hear playback of the tune, simply click the MP3 Audio link. To see or print out the score, use the PDF link.
Spring’s Featured Harp Music:
For this season’s featured harp music we have the group tunes from the PSFHS Spring Festival! (If you have a PSFHS Harpers’ Songbook, please print out the two pages in red, below, and add them to your book.) The 2026 Festival’s theme is “Harbors from North to South”, and in keeping with the theme are tunes from distant shores.
— Aloha Oe (Farewell to Thee) is one of the most well-known tunes from the Hawaiian Islands, composed about 1878 by then Princess, later Queen, Lili’uokalani. Spring Festival co-director Tara O’Brien Pride composed a descant line to accompany the tune, and says “The descant is a harmony part intended to sound above the melody. It is possible for a single harper to play the melody and descant at the same time, but the two lines also make for a lovely duet. Two harps, or a harp and flute, or harp and violin … many possible instruments would sound lovely. When playing three times through (as there are three verses), you might consider adding the descant only on the second time, so that the traditional melody shines through first. Alternatively, playing the descant with chords but not the melody would make for a fresh interlude between verses.”
— Spanish Ladies + The Ryans and the Pittmans are two versions of a sea-faring song, arranged as a medley by Spring Festival Co-director Michelle Hazzard. Michelle was inspired by the Festival’s theme of “Harbors from North to South,” and noticed that our Harpers’ Songbook didn’t have a version of the naval folk song Spanish Ladies. As she says “I was struck by how many regional variations the song has: American, Canadian, even Australian. But my favorite was The Ryans and the Pittmans, out of Newfoundland. I loved the contrast it set up. With its minor key evoking pain and loss, Spanish Ladies lists off a series of navigational landmarks that sailors would recognize as they sailed up the English Channel. Normally this final stretch would be filled with the anticipation of home, but for many British soldiers returning home from the Napoleonic Wars, each landmark instead became a poignant reminder of the growing distance between them and the sweethearts they left behind in Spain. So that is a bummer. And that is why I was so smitten by The Ryans and the Pittmans. With a rollicking major-key, it tells the story of a young man who has been away from his home – and his sweetheart – for far too long. At its core, it follows the same lyrical structure: listing navigational landmarks that would be familiar to sailors in the area. But this song is the emotional opposite: each landmark the young man passes brings him ever closer to home, and the girl he wants to marry. The juxtaposition of keys and themes was just too fun to resist, so I’ve arranged the two songs so that they can be played back-to-back, Spanish Ladies flowing seamlessly into The Ryans and the Pittmans. Or you can play them on their own if you prefer.”
Thanks to Tara and Michelle for the arrangements and the good info! And so, on to the music – follow the links below to see, hear, or print out the tunes:
Aloha Oe (Farewell to Thee): PDF
Aloha Oe (Farewell to Thee): MP3 Audio of Tune Alone
Aloha Oe (Farewell to Thee): MP3 Audio of Tune & Descant
Spanish Ladies + The Ryans and the Pittmans: PDF
Spanish Ladies + The Ryans and the Pittmans: MP3 Audio
Music Archive: click here to see previous Featured Harp Music scores
Print out a current Table of Contents for your PSFHS Harpers’ Songbook, and use it to check that you have all the tunes.
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