Monthly Archives: May 2024

Remember & Honor

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Remember & Honor

It’s Memorial Day – a day to remember and honor all those who have lost their lives in combat protecting those things we hold dear. In the middle of enjoying a day off and the unofficial start to summer, take a moment of gratitude.

Get me out of here!

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Get me out of here!

When I asked you what you wanted me to write about, a surprisingly large number of you asked me about dealing with the anxiety of playing in front of other people. While I wish I could say that I don’t know what you’re talking about, all that came to mind was Nietzsche, who pointed out that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And that hard to shake feeling of Get me out of here!

(actually that usually is my thought process – going round and round between “I don’t want to!” and “it won’t kill you to try”)

Why we get nervous or anxious before we play for other people can come from a lot of things – probably more that we could cover herePS. But the clear winner is that we are afraid that we will not acquit ourselves well in the moment. A fancy way to say that we’re afraid we’ll mess up and everyone will laugh. Or worse, they won’t laugh right then, they will tell us that it was great, and then will gather over the cookies and laugh.

Where did that come from?!

Well – here are a few places it can come from:

  • Basic insecurity which can grow from failing previously (and I don’t know about you, but I have had some spectacular fails).
  • Comparing ourselves to others (we’ve talked before about that before here and here).
  • Outsized expectations of ourselves – Are you now shooting for admission to that exclusive conservatory? No? Then lay off.
  • Perfectionism. Really? Perfect is boring. And while you want to do well, your audience wants human experience (otherwise, they’d listen to a recording)

All of these though are just faces of fear – fear that we won’t do well, that we’re not good enough, that everyone will laugh at us for daring to think we’re better than we are.

The best advice I’ve gotten to address this is to maintain perspective. When you get up in front of people to play you might project your fears and insecurities and feel all that anxiety. In a worse case, you’re projecting them so loudly that you cannot hear your audience. While you’re thinking “please let me not screw up beyond redemption” your audience are thinking things like:

  • I wish I could do that (play an instrument).
  • I wish I were that good.
  • I wish I were that brave.
  • I wish I were that competent.
  • I wish I were that accomplished.
  • I wish I were that capable.
  • I wish I were that fearless.
  • I wish I could do that (get up in front of a bunch of people, open a window to my soul, and share what’s inside).

Listen to them – at least more than you’re listening to you.

Next week, a little less philosophy and a little more practicality with some ways to move past the anxiety, so that you can sit on the bench and play for others. Until then, I have to go off and hope you found this helpful and aren’t laughing at me thinking I know anything. Let me know in the comments (even if you are laughing at me).

PS – This is all outside of clinical issues including anxieties and depression which are serious but also a far cry from that sick feeling that I think you were asking about. If you are experiencing significant anxiety and/or depression, please seek competent professional help. Sorry, I’m not that kind of psychologist.

Dogs and Tricks

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Dogs and Tricks 

If you have enjoyed the luxury of getting older (so far), you might have noticed that things have changed. Some of those things are no big deal – if you’re not as tall as you were before, you can adjust your bench and your harp.

But if sometimes it feels like you’re the proverbial old dog and every tune is a new trick, it can get discouraging. What if you feel like you can’t learn tunes like you used to? Or you can’t remember them when you do learn them? Ugh. That would be frustrating.

Well, no one wants to go down without a fight, so what are some things you can do to help improve your capacity to learn and memorize music? Here are a few ideas:

  1. The Ground Rules

    1. Be confident – you can keep learning and memorizing music!
    2. Your brain is not static and will continue to develop and make new connections. This continued growth and development is greatly improved by learning and memorizing.
    3. Do you (don’t worry about how fast you learn, just keep learning).
    4. Failure is essential for learning to happen! Those aren’t mistakes – they’re part of a process of developing connections that are essential to learning.

  2. To keep your brain sharp

    1. Take a walk. Yes, I know I sound like a broken record, but research in a variety of fields points to the utility and importance of taking a walk. It doesn’t have to be anything huge – just take a stroll, in the fresh air, at a pace that you can comfortably maintain for about 20 minutes. You can also break that 20 minutes up into a few walks. This one is hard to wiggle out of – you won’t be sweaty, you don’t need to change, you just need to put on some (appropriate) shoes and go. Walking will help refresh you and clear your mind so you can focus on the task of learning.
    2. Follow grandmotherly advice. You know that a French Fry addiction is not healthy (or M&Ms or Coke, or what ever your vice might be). Eat well and care for yourself – better overall health will improve your cognitive health and capability.
    3. Check your hearing. As we age our hearing declines. But we also have so much noise in the world that loss of hearing is all but assured. Having healthy, supported hearing will make learning tunes easier and will be good for your overall health. When you can’t see, you wear glasses and if you need to have hearing aids, just do it.
    4. Get rest and take care of you. Let me summarize a lot of research – smart people get sleep and sleep makes you smarter. *

  3. To improve your intake and retention of tunes

    1. Acknowledge that age is changing how you take in, process, and put out information. It’s not good or bad, it just is. And this is true whether you are a relatively newly minted adult or a very seasoned human (in your red hat age) – we are always aging and changing so rather than expecting yourself to be the same as you were when you were younger, know where you are now. (and if you’re reading this and younger – make a note, might as well get used to it and adapt from the start)
    2. Embrace where you are now – now that you’re older, notice how you see the world – and process the information – differently. With age comes more neural connections which support being more able to see the whole (even if you can’t read the fine print!). If you know this about your processing, you’ll realize that you get the gist quickly and can fill in the details later. When you were younger you were able to hang on to details (e.g., a longer string of notes), so now, focus on larger segments (maybe phrases) and be assured you’ll be able to fill in the gaps later.
    3. Speed is only one measure of learning. If you don’t learn as quickly, do you notice that you learn more thoroughly now? (psst you probably do, whether you’ve noticed or not)
    4. Focus on what you’re learning. Don’t try to task switch or multitask. Do one thing and pay attention.
    5. Simply learning will make you better at learning (practice!).

  4. Strategies for learning

    1. Build a map. I help my students learn a tune in all their sense modalities. We listen, we play, we shut our eyes, we squeeze. Ok, we don’t smell or taste but if I could figure out how, we’d do that too. Having all these different sense “paths” for the tune means that we have built “maps” in each of these modes, and this strengthens memory for all those modes.
    2. Take notes to help you remember. Record if possible so you can review.
    3. Build your brain muscle. Do other activities that benefit your memory – do puzzles and word teasers, memorize your grocery list. Do these “brain games” consistently and regularly, so that you stay sharp (or become more so).
    4. Only compare you to you, today. You’re not the you of 20 years ago. And you’re not the hotshot sitting next to you either. Just focus on learning and don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.
    5. Keep learning – the more you do, the better you’ll be at it.

  5. Strategies for recalling

    1. Start where you find yourself. If you can’t remember how a tune starts, play what you do remember. Listen to the tune in your head and play along. See if by playing what you do remember you can pull yourself along to the next bit – until you’ve played the whole tune. I do this a lot – I just play the phrase I do recall and keep playing it until the next phrase comes to mind (etc.) until I have the tune again. I also check any sources I have if I really get stuck (sheet music, recording, phoning a friend).
    2. You already know a lot – which gives you a good platform for storing new information. Use it and leverage any similar phrases to help you build better “maps” of the tunes.
    3. Keep practicing from memory – the more you do, the better you’ll be at it.
    4. Focus on what you’re recalling. Work on remembering one thing and pay attention.

Remember too, that you had to learn to learn, and this is simply one more step. This is a start – give some of these a try and see how you go and let me know in the comments how you get on!

 

*Yeah, no researcher would write that in a scientific journal, but like I said, I’m paraphrasing!

How to practice more

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How to practice more-

I’ve talked before about spending your practice time wisely so that you get something from every minute you’re on the bench (here and here – or just type “practice” into the search box above this blog post!). And I stand by that, but…the “right” answer is always more complicated. Today, let’s talk about the actual time practicing.

The busy workshop/festival/camp season will begin soon. Days on days of back-to-back opportunities to learn and interact. And hours on the bench – playing, listening, reading, waiting.

You want to be ready for it!

Sometimes your practice needs to include time to accommodate yourself to sitting behind your harp, playing for way longer than your normally do. As an example, say you’re going to a week-long workshop and each day you’ll spend 2 hours in each of 3 workshops. That’s 6 hours right there. And then there’s practicing what you’ve learned, getting together with friends, and sharing tunes, having sessions (or just session-ettes) and you’ll have easily spent 8 – 10 hours behind the harp.

How much time do you spend behind the harp each day now? 30 minutes? An hour? That’s kind of a big difference – an order of magnitude! Yikes, it’s tiring just thinking about it.

So, it’s not too early to begin building your stamina so you can not only endure but enjoy every minute of your summer experiences! What would be some good ways to do that? I’m so glad you asked!

First, you can simply increase the amount of time you devote to practice. I use 10% as a guide – I try to add 10% more to ease into more time. If you practice for 30 minutes a day, you might add 3 – 5 minutes a day every 3 or 4 days. If you’re practicing for an hour, you might add 5 – 10. You get the idea – add a little so that it’s manageable. You don’t need to work yourself into a frenzy or an overuse injury!

Or you can add another practice session. If you practice in the evening already, you might add a morning session. If you’re practicing 30 minutes in the evening, you might add a 10-minute session in the morning. You can divide up your work too – in the morning you might only do technical book work and in the evening, you could work on your tunes.

Building on this, once you have the two sessions fixed in your day, you can increase the time of each of them (again using the 10% rule). In our 10-minute/30-minute example, you’d add a minute or 2 in the morning and 3 – 5 in the evening. This has to fit into your life, so plan ahead. Because the morning session will be 30 minutes before you know it. You have to be willing to wake up that much earlier – which might be easier when it’s 10 minutes than when it’s 45!

If you have the luxury of working from home, coming home for lunch, or having a harp in your office, you could add additional short practice breaks. Adding two (or more) 10-minute sessions will get you there, especially when added to your regular practice time.

Building up slowly gives you the best chance to increase your playing time. Doing so consistently gives you the most opportunity to be really ready for the summer. This approach is appropriate for all players, from children to seasoned adults – just be sure to start where you are (and not where you “wish” you were or where you think you “should” be).

Another aspect of this strategy to be raring to go by summer is to use one of those sessions to focus on technical work. Fundamentals like you learn from the “torture books” (who comes up with these nicknames?) will stand you in good stead by honing your form and ingraining those basic elements of playing. Spending that time now ensure that you won’t have to work so hard when you get there because things will “fall” into your hands easier!

 How would you go about building your strength and stamina for the summer? Let me know in the comments!