Sightreading for Harp SERIES by Anna Dunwoodie and Lisa Williamson PDF Downloads

For lever or pedal harp.

Two New Zealand harp teachers, Anna Dunwoodie and Lisa Williamson, designed this series of books to give students practice in sightreading. The exercises are all original compositions, and can be easily taught or practiced on a daily basis. No fingerings are included.
Books 1 and 2 are for any harp. There are two versions of Book 3: one for lever harps, and one for pedal harp.

Sightreading for Harp: Book One
The 250 four-measure or eight-measure exercises in Book One are divided into four sections, progressing from very easy exercises to more advanced, with quarter notes being the shortest note. With a few exceptions, chords are not used. This book is suitable for lever and pedal harp, however there are frequent key signature changes from exercise to exercise. A must for every teacher to include in conditioning, and nurturing the young harpist! 50 pages.

Sightreading for Harp: Book Two
Book Two is approximately grades 3-5, progressively getting harder. The examples in this book have been written so lever harps have to set a lever (in about half of the examples) at the beginning and pedal harpist will have to change a pedal somewhere through it. This was achieved by writing the accidental only in one octave and using it as a natural in the rest. By the end of the book they should be confidently playing in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/8 and 6/8, from 3 flats to 4 sharps, 3 note chords, all rhythms including all dotted notes and runs of 4 semiquavers (16th notes) and a wide range of dynamics, articulation and tempo marking. The first half of the exercises are only 8 bars long progressing to 16 bars for the last 25 or 30 examples. There are 180 exercises in total. 97 pages.

Sightreading for LEVER Harp: Book 3
Sightreading for PEDAL Harp: Book 3
Book Three contains exercises at approximately grades 6, 7 and 8 levels. Each book contains 90 exercises; these are based on the same material but altered to suit the different requirements of each instrument. The exercises demand technical skills as expected at this level such as etouffes, 4-fingered arpeggios, glissando, polyrhythms, pres de la table, xylophonics, harmonics, lever changes and slides and increasingly difficult pedal changes and pedal slides. The use of mixed meter, irregular beat divisions, and a wide range of tonality including bitonal, whole tonal, atonal and modal music gives variety to the exercises which increase in length throughout the book. As in the previous books, the lever and pedal pre-settings are indicated at the start of each exercise and there are explanatory notes for some of the technique. In an effort to move the music from the realm of an exercise into real music, some of the exercises have titles and become short programmatic pieces.
The lever book is 82 pages.
The pedal book is 86 pages.

Click on the blue titles below to see a sample of the first few lines of music.