Welcome to another “At the Movies” post!
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In “At the Movies” I link to TV shows and/or movies that have music in them…often harps (of course!). These might (or might not) be resources you’d like to add to your lending library or assign for students to find as some fun, away-from-the-instrument homework!
According to OpenHelm, Till The Clouds Roll By “is a fictionalized biopic of composer Jerome Kern.” And guess what! There’s a harp appearance a few times in it, including the clip below. (Be sure to watch to the end of the clip for a really cool stage setup!)
A few places to keep your eyes out for harps: the orchestra pit of the Showboat scene toward the beginning of the movie and in the ending medley (part of that is embedded below).
If you’re looking for a YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc. alternative, look into OpenHelm. They have quite a few videos of movies, TV shows, & shorts that are in the public domain available to stream free on their GabTV channel!
With any video-type assignment (if assigning to a kid student — these can be fun assignments for adult students too!), I strongly recommend assigning it as homework to be completed with a parent. This way the parent gets to choose if he/she thinks it’s appropriate, hopefully the parent and child watch together (parent/child time is very important!), and you’re not spending lesson time watching a video the student can watch at home.
Jerome Kern wrote some beautiful, classic songs. (I’m really enjoying ”Bill” – especially this version by Ralna English from The Lawrence Welk Show – these days!) Leave your favorite Jerome Kern tune in the comments section of this post!
-Barbara
Barbara Fischer runs Fischarper, LLC and loves her job as a harpist and private music educator. She enjoys blogging about various aspects of the music field on fischarper.com/blog. For more music resources, check out the Fischarper store. Find out where you can find Barbara on the interwebs here. And you can sign up to receive Fischarper updates by joining the email list.