There is something mystical and magical about the sound of the harp. This is particularly true if that harp happens to be at the hands of Mary Lattimore. There is an ethereal sound quality, and Lattimore knows just how to bring out the right sounds. “I like playing ethereally, making it otherworldly and spacey. I also like it when it can be noisy and dark. It's got so many strings and pedals, so there are a lot of different sounds you can get,” Lattimore told me in an interview.
Learning to play the harp seemed only natural to Lattimore, since her mother played also. “I've been around them all of my life. She influenced me a lot and had a bunch of friends who also played the harp, so it seemed sort of normal that I would try it out.” I am so glad she did. I have not heard classical music that is so driven, and inspiring, in many years.
Inspiration, for this harpist, is drawn from many places. I asked Mary about this, and she told me, “I get inspiration for the pieces from my friends, from paintings and images and scenes from movies, from beautiful things out there and bummers, from the guy I play music with (Jeff Zeigler), and from good memories of traveling around.” With such a diverse group of muses it should come as no surprise that her pieces are as varied in sound.
Perhaps her mother is responsible for a very large percentage of her inspiration and influence. When I asked Lattimore to list some of her influences, her mother was at the top of her list. “My mom influenced me a lot, for sure. She has a beautiful tone. She's really in love with the instrument and it's her career, her work, and her fun.” Much can be accomplished from that level of admiration. Mary also lists Thurston Moore, Samara Lubelski, and Bill Nace as influences saying “ I played a couple of shows with [them] and improvising with those guys was really important, I think. Learning to be flexible and listening and not scared.”
Improvise is what Mary Lattimore does best. Her live performances are all improvised. “Improvising is fun because you can do whatever you feel like, whatever you choose, and you have all of the control. I guess the challenge comes with not getting nervous and not getting psyched out if you hear somebody talking or something. You can't really mess up and everything you play is just a little piece of a bigger overall picture and mood you're trying to create.”
Lattimore also said that just because the harp is an old instrument does not mean it does not strike a chord with everyone. “I guess it's old-fashioned, in a way, and maybe seems stuffy at first. It's big and alien, people stand beside it wearing wigs in paintings or play it in the wedding scene in movies, but it's really just a vehicle for a sound and for a melody. And I think those things, like a good melody line or a bunch of Alice Coltrane-style mystical glissandos, are things that are undeniably beautiful and don't really have anything to do with a decade, you know? The harp is one of the oldest instruments, if not the oldest, and I think it's just a sound that humans like.”
