Monthly Archives: February 2020

Putting the Ah in Ostinato

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Ostinato as meditation – you know, like in Ahhhh-stinato!

One thing I love about ostinato is its origin – it is from the Italian…for obstinate!  Which is exactly what you need to be to get this very useful element locked into your head and your fingers.  An ostinato is a pattern that repeats and can be a repetition of pitch or of rhythm.  And while some people find them terrifying, there’s another way to look at them.

The fabulous Maeve Gilchrist is a wizard of ostinato (check out her book Rhythm and Hand Separation Exercises and Etudes Book 1).  She has worked hard to master all sorts of patterns and she is rock solid.  One of the things I love about her playing is the unexpected things she can weave over that bass pattern – and you the listener can just sit back and enjoy, buoyed and comforted by that underlying rock of sound.

Because ostinato is difficult time consuming to get solid, many people avoid it.  But it totally worth the time.  A real challenge though, is to first focus on the ostinato itself.  It is very easy to think you’ve got it when it’s not quite there.  And it does take a little grit and determination – because it’s like other foundational elements – it has a hard slog in the middle where you feel stuck.  But you will get there if you keep at it. 

Nope, I’m not going to tell you it’s worth the time because it’s useful or builds strong finger or hones your rhythm (although it does).

Ostinato is a great tool, once nailed down, to check out.

What?!?!?

Yup, think of it as a meditative thing.  Once you have got the basic idea inculcated, you don’t really need to watch the pot (so to speak).  And that frees up space capacity in your brain so you can do one of a couple of other things:

  1. Just rock the ostinato and let your mind wander around.  Make it a meditation.  Really.
  2. What might be cool if you put that pattern with it?  Where would you go?  How might you get there?  This could lead to noodling and eventually to a great improv, some really useful vamp or an entirely new composition (which you could also do by looking at great art, a la last week’s post).
  3. Once you have the pattern down, you can mess around with the pattern itself – see where that leads.  You might find more cool stuff down that rabbit hole. 

Start with an easy pattern – maybe an Alberti bass or find a pattern from an technique book), jut to get the idea.  Keep working it.  Maybe think about it as you noodle on the 4 week challenge we set last week.  How might you noodle over that pattern?  Give it some time and you’ll see how it can become hypnotic – go with it.  Let it ride, find the ahhhhh and see where you end up.

And let me know where you end up in the comments below!

Why should Mary Poppins have all the fun?

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Do you remember that scene in Mary Poppins where they join hands and jump into a sidewalk painting?  They become part of a new world that was wondrous and fantastic.  It was great and they were totally immersed in their art – LoL.

There is a frequently suggested exercise for composing that is the same idea.

Composition seems to come so easily to some.  Not to me.  But I do know people who seem to compose a new tune with each breath they take.  I’d hate those people if I wasn’t so enamored with them!

This disparity in apparent ease can quickly and easily become an insurmountable wall.  The barrier between us and them.  But it doesn’t have to be.  Because composition, like anything else, improves…with practice.

Jump in with both feet using art as a prompt for compositionEven if you don’t want to be a composer, you might want to give composition a try.  It’s certainly not the same as playing and simply by dabbling, you might learn a lot.

But let’s say you do want to give it a try – to make some small thing that is truly yours.  Here’s a way to go about it –

Try this exercise.  Find a piece of art that captivates you.  Any piece of art.  Could be a work by the Old Masters.  Could be a photograph or a sculpture or interpretive dance.  Or an ad on a bus stop.  The form is irrelevant – that it piques you is essential!

Now, sit at your harp.  Turn on a recorder.  Look at (or think about) the artwork and just noodle.  NOODLE – DO NOT COMPOSE!  Noodle only.  Keep your recorder going. Keep thinking about the artwork and what about it captured you.  Just keep noodling.

Any time an “I can’t” surfaces in your mind reply with, “Thank you for your input.  Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”  Then take a deep breath and jump right back in and keep noodling. 

If you’re having a hard time, set your harp to C and play only the white strings.  Think about the art.  Keep going.

Will this result in a composition?  Probably not…the first time.  But keep at it.  Make it a part of your practice time.  Set 10 minutes aside each day.  You will find that it becomes easier to do it the more you stick to it.  When the art isn’t speaking to you any longer, choose a new work.

Will this turn you into Williams or Telemann or Bach or Schumann?  Maybe not.  But it might just set you free from constraints you didn’t know you had.  For example, I did an impressive impression of Cage one day! (Cage is credited with copyrighting silence as a musical composition entitled 4′33″)

So, a challenge.  Let’s give this a try.  Choose a piece of art that inspires you.  Then for the next four weeks, follow that plan above.  At the end of four weeks (that’s 14 March) send me a picture of the art and an audio file of what you’ve come up with.  This isn’t a contest, so your work doesn’t have to be complicated or polished – or even finished.  We’re just encouraging each other to be bold and experimental and creative and open to sharing.  We will all win by trying! 

Are you in?  Shall we jump in with both feet and see what happens?  Let me know in the comments below –

Watching your nails grow – Two steps for progress

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We’re already into February!  That magical time when reality has set in and all our lofty plans for betterment have been shelved.

Typically.

Because, even though lots of people don’t set New Year’s Resolutions, with all the hype around the start of winter and the new year, it’s easy to think about whether one might find areas worthy of tinkering.

Not you, of course.  You’re just right as you are.  But others, certainly.

One of the reasons people feel that way (not you, of course, but others) is because they cannot perceive any changes in their ability to play.  And that is frustrating.  For them, of course, not for you.

Because these changes typically come about very slowly.  You might call them “micro-changes” (nano-changes?).  The farther you are from your first experience playing, the smaller the changes are in absolute terms.  And this might make those changes difficult to detect.

Watching your nails growWhen you first start playing, every day brings new discoveries!  Closing your fingers is an amazing activity.  Placing ahead is a magical mystery which actually does make getting the music out of the harp a little easier.  What you tried to learn yesterday is actually recognizable today!  All great victories.

But after a while, days of work may not result in a change you can observe.  You don’t remember when you started learning that tune, but you’re sure it was weeks ago (or was it yesterday?).  When did your technique take a nosedive?!?  Why is your repertoire not growing by leaps and bounds?

It’s like watching your nails grow.  You know they are growing.  But you can’t feel it.  And they sure look the same today as they did yesterday.

If you measured that growth and marked it on a chart, you would find that your nails grow about 2 hairsbreadths a day.  And yet, while you can see two hairs (in the brush, in the sink, on your sweater, whatever) you don’t see your nails growing.  But they make slow steady progress…and soon you need to cut them!

The growth is there.  Every day.  You just can’t see it.  But there is a way to get a better view and it has two steps.

Step 1.  Decide what you’re looking for.  Too often we decide we’re going to watch e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.  We’re going to perfect our technique while learning ten tunes all at once, sight read another 7 arrangements and work on our posture, finesse gesturing, while practicing 2 hours more every day.  And we’ll know – and remember – everything from today when we next sit to practice tomorrow (or the next day) so we know where to pick up again.

I get it, there’s so much work to be done!  But focusing on everything is actually focusing on nothing.  Focus, by definition, is paying attention to a narrow swath.  You are already multitasking by the nature of playing since you need to place both hands, remember the tune, keep ahead of what comes next, stay upright on the bench, breathe, etc. 

If you have a lot of things to work on – write each of them down.  Then prioritize them.  Be smart – prioritize so that the fundamentals (technique) will be ironed out first, since everything else will grow from there.  After you have finished prioritizing, for each item, write down what “done” will look like.  DO NOT WRITE “always in work”!  If your technique is terrible (!), break it down into the components that need attention and decide when you will declare victory so you can move on.  [BTW – “I’m bored” is not victory!  Being able to perform some element accurately might be your victory.]  Decide if your focus needs an action finish or a time end. 

Step 2.  Mark that!  Do what works for you – you could write in your practice journal.  You could make a progression video recording.  You could make a chart with colored stars.  It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as it works for you – and you do it.

So, the important parts of watching your nails grow? Focus and document.

What are you going to focus on?  How will you capture it?  Share your ideas in the comments! 

 

PS – yes, I know the nails in the photo are horrifyingly long, but you try to paint harps on shorter nails!  And I was trying to make a point!