Kim Robertson
Turning Points

by Kerry Dexter

Today Kim Robertson is one of the pioneers of the Celtic harp, an established adventurer in the world of folk tradition. She didn't start out with the idea of making a career as a harp player, though. "I grew up in a small midwestern town," said the Wisconsin resident, "and there was not a lot of musical stimulation there. But I was fortunate enough to take piano from a teacher who came to the YMCA and taught us how to play by ear, about chords, and how to arrange my own stuff. That would prove very helpful when I got to playing the harp." Her piano studies were in the classical field, and on the side "I did guitar and autoharp as so many of us did in the 60s. Some of my happiest memories are sitting around a fire playing and singing folk songs."

Robertson first started on the harp in high school. "They were basically asking for volunteers. The student who had played the pedal harp, the big classical harp, was graduating and they wanted someone to do it, so I decided to. They had a teacher who came up from the university there, so I began learning...in a matter of weeks I was playing for madrigal dinners and such. If you've studied piano as I had, you're never really a beginner on the harp, because there are a lot of similarities. They're both two-handed, two stage instruments." She soon found playing the harp to be a source of income, too, working with regional symphonies and playing at restaurants and weddings.

She was still working on the pedal harp, playing mostly classical repertoire and some pop tunes. "I discovered the Celtic harp a few years after that," she said, "and it was a gradual thing. You know when you look back you see a turning point, although you didn't notice it at the time. The Celtic harp appealed to my mystical side, that I could take it out and play it in nature. I had been playing the pedal harp and the piano, both of which are very cumbersome." Robertson also enjoyed the fellowship of the Celtic and folk music communities as she began to learn those tunes. "A situation where people could play together and would teach each other tunes — I really enjoyed that. In classical harp you're lucky if maybe two of you will get a symphony job, and the rest of the time you're all in competition with each other."

This was a time when Celtic bands were just beginning to be heard in the States. "It was exciting; it was all new to all of us," Robertson recalled. The direction of her musical explorations showed itself as she listened to Clannad, Pentangle, and The Bothy Band. "I liked bands who were playing traditional music but doing modern things with it," she explained. "I had found old Mary O'Hara and other Celtic recordings at the library, but I didn't want to be quaint, I didn't want to play history. I wanted to to do something with my music that would have an expression of myself in it."

This is an excerpt. Read the full article in Dirty Linen #89 (Aug/Sept '00).