Harpist Meagan Pandian from Mumbai had been playing the harp for a while now. Your heart will melt when you see her at a concert, sitting angelically behind the world’s most glamorous instrument producing the most exquisite sounds.

Meagan began playing the keyboard in church and also sang in the children’s choir. As a 7 year old, Meagan had no idea that people still played the harp until she watched Greg Buchanan play Amazing Grace. Meagan never conceived the idea of ever being able to play the instrument, until she actually did.

In a chat with Verus Ferreira, Meagan opens up on how she took to playing the harp and her stairway to success.

Tell us something about your growing up days and how you got into playing the harp, the instrument that would define your future?

I began playing the keyboard in Church for their daily services and also sang in the children’s choir. Having to play before a church full of people almost everyday and having to keep the right music ready for each part of the service was great training in performance practice.

I saw Greg Buchanan play Amazing Grace on the harp on the Billy Graham crusade when I switched on the television as a 7 year old. Iknew it was a harp from reading Bible stories of David the shepherd boy playing for King Saul but I didn’t know that people still play the instrument. I was enthralled with the way he played the instrument. In those moments, my feet didn’t touch the floor. I was raptured in the moment. The memory of his performance stayed with me. Since it is not possible to get a harp or even a harp string here in any music store, far from learning the instrument, I never even conceived of myself as being able to play the instrument.

Many years later in Nice on a scholarship for piano, I was at a multi-instrumentsummer school. There were students trolleying around their harps, getting harp lessons and even giving tea recitals in the canteen area. I couldn’t believe my eyes or my ears. Even as a musician it had never occurred to me that this was a possibility on the harp. I looked up the list of harp students at the summerschool hoping I would find someone from India there. I thought, if I can find someone from India who can play the harp professionally, I can request them to teach me. But, to my dismay, there were none. Now at 22, it dawned on me that I had kept this impossible dream just a dream for the last 15 years. I realized it was now or never. I couldn’t letmatters stay like that anymore. I came back to India after the summerschool and started researching how I could import a small harp online and start self-learning. I could not afford even a small 22 string harp. Harps to my astonishment can be very expensive going up to even 36 lakh INR. Add to that the cost of transportation, the 35% import duty and 18% GST taxation that the Indian government levies on imported music instruments and you are left with an insurmountable figure.

I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.The Bible says in Matthew 19:26,“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” As I read this scripture one day, I looked up and, in my room, I saw a full-size concert grand pedal harp in a vision. I believed. I asked my husband where we were going to put it since we couldn’t have such a big instrument right in the middle of the room. I knew that if God wants to give you something, you need to first make the space for it. It sounded like a child’s make believe but the Bible again says in Hebrew 11:1,“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”So, having nothing else to hold on to, I believed and stayed in faith and refused to say or believe anything to the contrary even though I did not have the finances to afford even a small lever harp. Within, 3 months of that vision, there was the exact same full-size concert grand harp, the same colour, with all the beautiful carvings, sitting right where God had shown it to me in a vision. Not only that, He also miraculously provided a teacherwho cameand taught me in person at my home for a year before she had to go back to America. I have continued to self-learn and learn with visiting artists and online.

What were the difficulties you faced while learning the instrument?

Any harp music I need for my harp exams with Trinity College or Associated Boards of the Royal Schools of Music have to be imported. Also, harp strings break when there is a lot of humidity in the rainy season or in between changes of seasons. These strings are expensive and have to be imported since they cannot be found in music stores here. Also, there are hundreds of small parts that have to work in sync for the harp to stay in tune and the pedals to work perfectly. An irregularity in any one part, can bring you to a standstill. Unlike my colleagues abroad, we do not have harp technicians here or harp factories where we can get these irregularities that do crop up from time to time as a result of use and weather fixed. Here, my husband’s knack of understanding machines (he would be called from school as a child to fix snags in the family run printing press that sometimes even the expert technicians could not understand what to do about) has come to be of help.

What size of harps are available? Which do you use and does it occupy a large space in your house?

There are 2 main kinds of harps used internationally – Pedal harps and lever harps.There is also the Chinese Konghou and Paraguayan harp which are played mostly in China and South America respectively. I am equally proficient in both the pedal and lever harps. By God’s grace, I have two pedal harps and two lever harps. These instruments do occupy a lot of space. I have a room in my house completely dedicated to music instruments.

You are the first Indian harpist to play the pedal harp professionally. Can you tell us something about it and how different is it from a regular harp?

The pedal harp is completely different from the lever harp since we change the pitch of the notes with the feet. We have 7 pedals for each of the 7 notes in music and we move each pedal in 3 grooves each making it 21 grooves in all. It could be compared to driving a car but with 7 pedals. Moving a pedal, changes that particular note across the 47 strings of the pedal harp from the bass to the treble. This change has to be seamless, without any sound from the pedals moving and perfectly in time with the piece one is playing no matter how fast it may be. Some pieces even require double pedal changes. It is almost like one has to have one’seyes and brain in one’s feet to know exactly what the last change was and make the next pedal change across the 7 pedals from there whilst simultaneously doing something totally different with each of one hand’s on the strings, the eyes always looking not at what one is currently playing but to the position one has to jump to on the strings next. So, it like the eyes, each hand and each foot have to do something different and remember what was last done and shift from there. A missed pedal change or moving it into the wrong notch is unthinkable and one needs to practice many hours to ensure precision and smooth coordination. The lever harp has a much simpler mechanism in comparison. The levers for note changes are moved by the left hand and are clearly visible to the eye.

What do you consider to be the highlights of your rich and varied (and certainly very prominent) career?

By God’s grace, I have had the privilege and honour to play alongside some really great musicians like Arijit Singh, A.R.Rahman, Pritam Da, Shankar Mahadevan, Stephen Devassy and many more. Learning the harp has also opened so many doors, fostered lifelong friendships and helped me meet some amazing human beings.

Transporting a harp from one place to another can be quite a problem, how does one take care of an instrument like this?

Bean bags and an SUV have worked for me. I need to keep the harps in a temperature regulated room or I tend to break more strings.

Besides you are there many harpists in India? Are you in touch with any international harpists? Have you collaborated with any of them?

Many of my students play the pedal harp and the lever harp. Besides that, there are a few lever harpists in India now.

When did you get your first break?

My first harp performances were as part of the Arijit Singh symphony concert series where we performed all over India and abroad.

You play originals and sometimes covers? What do your songs talk about?

Before I choose a song, I do a background check of the song’s lyrics and music and in case it is a movie song, what the movie was about. It is important for me to play songs with values that I stand for and not just because it would sound good on the harp. Through music, one can convey so much. So, the music I play ranges from everything from South American instrumentals to Bollywood music to Western Classical sonatas.

How you go about naming your songs and albums. 

Haven’t done any albums yet though that is definitely on my bucket list. With songs, it really depends on what I was thinking about when writing the song and the character of the piece and also if that title would really be most appropriate to convey what the piece and I intended to convey.

Have you released any original music albums or done any collaboration?

I have collaborated with various artists and some amazing music producers on their projects like Arijit Singh, maestro A.R.Rahman, the singer Sameera Koppikar and Pritam. I have also been a part of Super Singer Junior for Vijay TV.

Do you have a band that plays with you on a regular basis or do you perform solo?

I perform a lot of solos, duos and trios currently. I would love to play with a band on a regular basis though.

The harp is usually part of a live band ensemble; have you been part of a major live orchestra and played abroad?

I have done many concerts with the Arijit Singh symphony concert series. I have also performed with theBombay Chamber Orchestra, the South Asian Symphony and the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic from the Czech Republic.

Can you share any names and places in Mumbai and across the country where youngsters can learn the harp?

I currently teach at the Harp School in Mazgaon, Mumbai and online as well.It is currently the only harp school in the country. I prepare students for international harp examinations held by ABRSM and Trinity College, London.

You also teach harp to youngsters. What does your workload look like? And how do you manage a commitment like this?

Even before learning the harp, I was teaching the piano and violin privately, was the music teacher at FazlaniL’Academie Globale, an IB school as well as a part of the Discover Music programme at the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation. So, teaching the harp came very naturally to me. I enjoy teaching students and sharing the joy of playing this beautiful instrument with them. Because of zoom, today I have students in Delhi and Chennai learning the harp online where coming for a weekly class would have been impossible.

You have a son. One might assume that music is firmly anchored in his genes. Is he cultivating this gift?

Research has shown us time and again that children from birth to 3 are most receptive, eager to learn and in fact desperate to learn as much as possible and as fast as possible. They also learn with the most accuracy absorbing everything precisely and effortlessly like a flash of the camera unlike adult learning which can be compared to a painting; done laboriously over a long period of time and only possible with much effort. But I could not find a music programme for an 18 month old in Mumbai. Every course demands that the childshould be at least 4 before they can join. So, I created a music programme for my son from the time he was born where I introduced a new instrument for him to listen to every week. He is 2 and a half now and learning rhythm and pitch through fun games and songs. He also enjoys playing along with me when I practice the violin, piano and harp. He insists on getting a lesson too after my students leave so its been fun and at the same time a great adventure introducing music concepts to such a small child. Its my first time actually teaching music to this age group.

What’s a harpist’s typical nightmare?

A string losing pitch or breaking in the middle of a piece.

What interesting projects have you got lined up in the near future?

I am currently training to be a Montessori Directress. Dr. Montessori’s extensive research and observations of the young child and how best we can help them fascinated me. In the quest to assist children of this age group including my own son with life skills apart from music, I completed the training for the3 to 6 age group Primary Diploma from the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) from the Netherlands. I am currently working towardscompleting the Birth to 3 diploma. I am also working on a few harp projects but it is too soon to speak about these.

Photo by Ajay Singh of HillCast Studios

Interviewed by Verus Ferreira