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A Personal Note from Sylvia
Recently, the weather has been pretty crazy all over the world with major fires, hurricanes, blizzards, and floods. My heart goes out to all of you who have been affected by any of these disasters.
A few weeks ago, our island of Kauai made the national news because of record-breaking rainfall and floods. I've gotten dozens of emails from customers asking if I was OK. Thanks so much to all of you for your concern. The quick answer is . . . yes, I am fine. Some of my friends and neighbors were not so lucky. There was massive flood and mud damage, particularly here on the north shore, and several communities are still cut off and can only be accessed by helicopter or boat.
Saturday night April 14, the night of the flood, was quite spectacular here. We had continuous lightning and thunder from about 10 pm until 5 am. There was at least one lightning strike per minute most of that time. And from about 4:00 to 4:30 am the lightning was every two to three seconds. I started counting "One Mississippi, two Mississi-" and I rarely made it through "three Mississippi" before the next strike. The thunder was louder than I've ever heard. It was amazing!
I live on the bluffs in Princeville, about 300 feet above sea level. Up here we got 14" of rain in 24 hours. The town of Hanalei, just five minutes down the hill, got a record 28" before the rain gauge malfunctioned. And a little ways down the road from there, the town of Wainiha recorded 32" of rain in 24 hours. (As a comparison, the average ANNUAL rainfall in Los Angeles is 13", San Francisco is 21", Seattle is 37", and Hanalei is 78".)
Just this past week, the National Weather Service in Honolulu updated the totals and reported that "preliminary data downloaded from a remote rain gage in north Kauai indicate that rainfall during the flash flood event on April 14-5, 2018 broke the U.S. 24-hour rainfall record. The rain gage, located in Waipa about one mile west of Hanalei, recorded 49.69 inches of rainfall during the 24 hour period at 12:45 pm HST April 15. This total, if certified will break the current U.S. 24-hour record of 43 inches at Alvin, TX on July 25-26, 1979," which was during Tropical Storm Claudette.
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The clean-up will take many, many months, and some areas will be changed forever. But an uplifting aftermath of this devastating flood has been the amazing aloha spirit of the people who live here. We're all pitching in to help our neighbors, friends, and the entire island in any way we can. Just like the beautiful waterfalls and rainbows we get here after the rain . . . community spirit and volunteerism are flourishing after the flood.
Since our weather has been in the national news, and some of you weren't really sure which island I live on . . . I thought this would be a good time to tell you a bit about Hawaii. Check out my article at the bottom of this newsletter, right below the sale section, to learn fun facts about Hawaii and my island of Kauai.
Aloha,
Sylvia
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 Favorites from the 50s book is READY!
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Last month I told you about my newest publication, Favorites from the 50s. At that time, the PDF was available, but the book had not yet been printed.
I'm happy to announce that the book is now ready!
I should have copies in stock by the end of this week.
You can order your copy of the Favorites from the 50s book now, and I'll mail it to you as soon as my shipment arrives.
Thanks to all of you who have sent me messages in the past few weeks saying how much you're enjoying the Favorites from the 50s PDF. I love hearing your stories! (P.S. Feel free to write a review on my site! Just click the "Write your own review" link on the product page.)
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I have admired and looked up to Celtic harpist Lisa Lynne (Franco) for many years. She knows more about self-promotion and how to set up concerts and tours than anyone else I can think of. That's why I am so excited to introduce her new PDF:
How to Succeed with Self-Produced Concerts:
A Guide for Performers and Presenters to Navigating a Successful Event.
If you give concerts or you tour with your harp (or any instrument) . . . or you WANT to give concerts and go on tour . . . you MUST have this information and advice!
Read all about this important new PDF by clicking here.
(This PDF is NOT part of this month's special sale.)
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(These PDFs are
NOT part of this month's special sale.)
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Jan Jennings
is our featured arranger this month. Here's what she has to say about herself and her music.
I was the second of four children. My parents wanted us all to learn a little bit about music, so they made us take piano lessons. I lasted for about five years, but I don't recall ever practicing the piano. Somehow, perhaps through osmosis, I learned to read music! When I was allowed to quit the piano, my parents asked if I wanted to play anything else. By this time, I had already taken every dance class offered by the local dance school (including trampoline) so another music lesson seemed rather normal. I told them I would like to play the harp. They were quite surprised, but they really shouldn't have been as my teacher and other members of the local symphony played in our church. I saw a harp every week between church and watching "I Love Lucy" (there was a harpist in Ricky Ricardo's band) on TV.
I began lessons on pedal harp (lever harps were not common at that time), but I didn't have a harp. My parents made an agreement with my teacher, Marie Mellman Naugle, that I would go to her house every day since she lived only about a mile away. One day a week I would have a lesson and every other day I would practice on her harp. In the summer, I rode my bike to her house, and in the winter they would drop me off for an hour each day. However, my teacher always sat next to me and gave me a lesson so I never had a chance to develop a bad habit. I advanced very quickly because she was always there molding my hands. After three months, she told my parents to buy me a harp. That was a pretty big investment and they had never even heard me play. So my Dad came to a lesson and listened to me. I was working on "The Lord's Prayer" (Salzedo transcription) as I was going to play it for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary in August 1966. After hearing me play, my Dad agreed to order a harp for me. It would take more than a year to get a new L&H style 17 (I still have it) and we still had to borrow my teacher's gold 23 to play for the anniversary.
As a teenager, I played in our family band (the Four J's) and that required me to make up the harp parts. Improvisation came naturally to me. However, in spite of all the harp lessons, I didn't want to become a harpist because I thought that meant I would have to play in an orchestra and I didn't enjoy that from my very first orchestral experience. Therefore, I never pursued a degree in harp.
Fast forward to adulthood: I started as a teller at a savings and loan and worked my way up to vice president. By 1983, the savings and loan industry was in trouble and I had hit the glass ceiling for women.
I got a call one day from an agent looking for a harpist for a casino in Atlantic City. They were trying to decide what type of entertainment they wanted for their gourmet restaurant, so although it was a temporary job, it could turn into something permanent. I decided to take my vacation time from the bank, drive to Atlantic City, and see if I liked playing every night. The gig was fine, but I couldn't see myself living in Atlantic City and the entertainment director was a former gardener who insisted that I play on a plexiglass stage that was lit from underneath. It was like playing on a slippery trampoline! I was glad when the two-week contract was up and I returned to Orlando.
I barely got home before another agent called me about playing for a local hotel that was also auditioning entertainment for their restaurant. About the same time the hotel decided they wanted the harp and me to stay, another luxury hotel was about to open and the management asked me about coming to work for them. I ended up choosing the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress and I was under contract to them seven nights a week for almost ten years. I left my job at the bank about four months later and I've been playing the harp full time ever since.
I started going to harp conferences in 1982. I learned a lot and realized that others liked my arrangements, so I began writing arrangements. The next logical step was to write Effortless Glissing so I could explain how to find major and dominant seventh glisses in any key on the spot. If I had time, I would write a lot more!
My career as a harpist developed beyond what I ever expected, and I get to do the types of gigs I want and rarely play the things I don't want to do (orchestra).
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This month's sale
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This month's sale features Jan Jennings' PDFs, as well as theory and fingering products by Sylvia Woods. The code word is
jan.
To get the 15% discount on the products below,
enter the code word jan in the Promo Code box on your shopping cart page and click "Enter Code"
by May 15, 2018. For more information, see the
15% Off section at the bottom of this newsletter.
PLEASE NOTE: Sylvia's new
Favorites from the 50s book and PDF are
NOT included in this sale.
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Good King Wenceslas, Silent Night, and Away in a Manger
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Where in the world is Sylvia Woods?
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As most of you know, I moved to the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 2013. I love living here!
In the past few months about a dozen harp players have come to see me when they were on vacation in Kauai. They stopped by for a lesson, or to rent a harp while they were here, or to buy some books, or just to say "aloha." I love being able to meet my customers from all over the world. So . . . if you ever come to Kauai, be sure to let me know!
Here's some trivia about Hawaii.
* Hawaii is the most isolated population center on Earth. It is 2,390 miles (3,846 km) from California, 3,850 miles (6,196 km) from Japan, 4,900 miles (7,886 km) from China, and 4,657 miles (7,495 km) from Brisbane, Australia. So, we're basically in the middle of nowhere!
* In 1778, Captain James Cook was the first European to reach the Hawaiian islands. He named them after his patron George Mantagu, the 6th Earl of Sandwich. The islands were called the Sandwich Islands until the 1840s.
* Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959. It comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles. The eight main islands are Ni'ihau, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Moloka'i, Lana'i, Maui, the Island of Hawai'i (also called the Big Island), and the uninhabited island of Kaho'olawe.
*The Hawaiian islands were formed by volcanic activity which is continuing to build islands. The Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii are still active.
* Believe it or not, it actually snows on the the summits of the 13,800-foot Mauna Kea and the 13,600-foot Mauna Loa on the Big Island about once or twice a year!
* All of the islands are on Hawaii Standard Time. We don't observe Daylight Savings. And so, depending on the time of year, we are either 2 or 3 hours behind the west coast of the US mainland, and 5 or 6 hours behind the east coast.
Here's some trivia about Kauai.
I live in Princeville, shown as a red heart on the map.
* Kauai, also called the Garden Isle, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. It has an area of 562.3 square miles with a population of about 67,000.
* Kauai is in the tropics at 22° N, 159° W. It is on the same general latitude of Hong Kong, Cuba, Mecca, and Puerto Vallarta.
* Mount Wai'ale'ale, in the center of the island, is a shield volcano with an elevation of 5,148 feet. It is the second wettest spot on earth, averaging about 450" of rain per year, with a record of 683" in 1982.
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* The high cliffs along the 16 mile Na Pali Coast rise as high as 4,000 feet above the ocean. This area is only accessible by hiking or by boat, as there are no roads. The roads around the island stop at the arrows in the map above.
(Photo by MEBurkhart)
* More than 70 movies have been filmed on Kauai including:
South Pacific
(1958)
Elvis' films Blue Hawaii (1962) and Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966)
Donovan's Reef (1963)
King Kong (1976)
Jurassic Park
(1993) and Jurassic World (1995)
Six Days, Seven Nights (1998)
The Descendants (2011)
The opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and scenes from George of the Jungle, Dragonfly, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides were also filmed here.
And . . . a few weeks ago Disney held an open casting call for "extras" for their upcoming movie based on the Disneyland Jungle Cruise ride, which will be filmed here soon!
Useful Hawaiian words.
You probably already know several Hawaiian words, such as aloha, luau, hula, lei, and muumuu (muʻumuʻu).
Here are a few more words you should know if you come to visit.
Keiki = kids. ("Would you like a keiki menu?")
Kamaʻāina = Hawaiian resident. (If you have a Hawaii driver's license, you may get a
Kamaʻāina discount.)
ʻOhana = family. You might have learned this word from
Lilo and Stitch.
ʻOno = delicious or good to eat. It is also a type of fish, sometimes known as wahoo.
Mahalo = thank you
Kōkua = help or assistance. ("Mahalo for your
Kōkua.")
Pau = done or finished. (A waitress might ask you "Are you pau?" before they take away your plate.)
Pau hana = after work, or happy hour.
Pupu = appetizer.
Mauka = direction towards the mountain.
Makai = direction towards the ocean. ("Drive to mile marker 23 and turn makai. Go around the bend and turn mauka at the next street.")
Wahine & Kane = women & men
. These words are useful if you're looking for the bathroom!
Auntie & Uncle = elders. Children are taught to call elders Auntie or Uncle, regardless of whether they are family. So, don't be surprised if you're called "Auntie" by complete strangers.
How to NOT sound like a tourist in Hawaii.
Here's a quiz for you. What's wrong with this sentence that a tourist might say?
"I'm flying back to the states tomorrow."
ANSWER: Hawaii IS a state. So we are part of "the states." Here we call the continental 48 states "the mainland" . . . NOT "the states."
So, if you ever come to Hawaii, be sure you don't make this common tourist mistake: don't call "the mainland" "the states." It is a hard habit to break, particularly if you often travel to foreign countries. So practice saying "the mainland" before you come, and you'll sound like a local, not a tourist!
ALOHA!
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15% off select sale items when you use the code word: jan
Our newsletter promo codes are only redeemable on-line and can only be used for the items featured in the
sale section of this newsletter. They are not valid for phone or e-mail orders. This month's code word is
jan and it is good for
15% off the select books, sheets and PDFs in the sale section above.
#1. Put the items you want to purchase in your cart.
#2. On the page where you view the items in your cart, type this month's code word
jan in the "Promo Code" box, and click on "Enter Code."
The actual price of the featured sale products on this page will then automatically change to reflect the discount. You'll also see a note below the Promo Code box saying the name of the promo code you entered, and the percentage amount of the discount.
REMEMBER: you must enter this month's code word jan in the Promo Code box
and click "Enter Code" on your shopping cart page by May 15 to get the discount!
If you forget, or if you have trouble adding it to your order,
email Sylvia immediately.
Offer expires at the end of the day on 5/15/2018.
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