This year in the ISM I'm going to be diving head first into the world of musical arrangement and recording, specifically for the harp.
My Experience
Right now, my experience is limited mainly to my arrangement of Arrival of the Birds, which was a good piece for a beginner since it's already an orchestra with fairly clear chords and parts, as well as simple rhythms. Also to make it easier, I was able to base that arrangement off of a score which is something many arrangers do, but as I work with modern music, I will need to use my ears to discern melodies and basslines I hear in the songs I want to arrange without resources.
Music I Want to Work With
I'm thinking of starting to grow my aural skills with music from the score of a show like Over the Garden Wall for example, which was a staple of my childhood in years past (especially during the fall time), because it can help me with different rhythms with songs that experience swing rhythms such as "Send Me a Peach" and I would have to work through these songs without external resources. Right now, my plan is to then expand into music such as the band The Strokes where it will still be hopefully fairly clear, but I will also have to learn to work with distortion and other non-classical musical tones that may arise. Eventually this year I want to get to a level of difficulty and complexity where I can even work with music such as "These Chains" by Mid-Air Thief or "tell me a joke" by Quadeca.
Issues I Foresee
Right now, I foresee that issues may arise in percussive sounds. While there are times you can strike the harp for percussive sounds, that can sometimes sound messy so I'll have to think of clever ways to maintain the percussive rhythm even when the percussion itself is impractical.
Plan for Now
For now, I'll continue the arrangement I'm currently working on of "Ode to the Mets" by The Strokes that is assisted, but not completely based on, a score I found on the app Musescore where users can submit their arrangements publicly. To begin my research, I want to look at a book I bought a while ago called "Method for the Harp" by Carlos Salzedo. Salzedo was one of the greatest harp teachers of all time, but he's very famous as well for his original works where he invented many new techniques for the harp. He talks about many of these in this book, and by getting a better understanding of these, I will be better equipped to make creative decisions when arranging harp music.