The Well of Music (Tobar an Cheoil) by Michael Rooney, played by Mark Harmer

[@TheAncientBiker]

So moving brought tears to my eyes. 🙂

[@MaryGreenleaf]

Dear Mark, it seems I missed this one when you posted it. Well, my loss, because this one really is a beautiful piece and you play it so nice! Thank you so much for sharing this with us! Wishing you all the best and happy harping, Mary

[@scottmaynard6227]

This is my favorite Michael Rooney song! I'm working on it with my teacher right now, & IT IS TOUGH! You make it look so easy. Love it!

[@MarkHarmer]

Keep at it! I 100% agree - it’s tougher than it sounds. My best advice is to do a bit each day but for me anyway, it starts to get easier when I can play it from memory, because you can then see where your hands are going in those huge leaps in the melody / bass line. By the way I have modified a couple of bits where Michael’s playing at the Edinburgh harp festival in 2023 didn’t quite match his score and I decided to do 1 “A” section when repeating the piece, to make up for the extra few bars in the coda. This gives it a wonderful not-quite-predictable structure. Good luck and do post it when you’ve worked on it! It’s a real crowd-pleaser!

[@taryndelaneyharp]

So lovely 😊

[@MarkHarmer]

Thank you!, Yes, it’s a wonderful piece - it went down so well when I heard the composer play it at the Edinburgh festival, and I absolutely had to learn it. I’m glad I did, even though it’s a lot harder to play than it sounds.

[@Hildegard71]

Nice music. Love to hear your music!

[@MarkHarmer]

Thank you! It’s way too long since I posted anything on KZbin - I tend to use my Vimeo Channel, which I have done a lot of stuff on recently.

[@MaryGreenleaf]

@@MarkHarmer Hi Mark, is there a link to your Vimeo channel? I would love to see you more often 🙂 Happy harping, Mary

[@MarkHarmer]

@@MaryGreenleaf Hi Mary! Here you are: vimeo.com/markharmer/videos

[@PastorShawn100]

This is beautiful! Is there sheet music in print?

[@MarkHarmer]

If you search for Draiocht Michael Rooney, that’s the composer’s site. Then Tobar an Cheoil- not the easiest site to navigate but you can download the piece from there. There isn’t a link to the actual piece so you will have to hunt for it. Took me a while! Sometimes the piece is called Planxty Gandon (which doesn’t help)!

[@PastorShawn100]

@@MarkHarmer Thank you, Mark! After some searching, I found it last night, along with some other great looking pieces!

[@MarkHarmer]

@@PastorShawn100 brilliant! What else did you find that was interesting? I would love to learn more of his pieces. I’m really sorry I couldn’t send an actual link, but you can see why now!