Monthly Archives: August 2025

Holiday!

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One of the most important holidays of the year is coming up on Saturday. Are you ready? Got your decorations up? Now that you’re wondering how you could have missed being ready – you might be asking yourself what holiday happens at the end of August?!

Play Music on the Porch Day is August 30, 2025! Could there be a better time to celebrate? I think not!

If you’re not familiar with this amazing holiday, you might want to prepare – because it’s a wonderful day. All you need to do is….

Go outside and share your music with whoever happens by.

Ok, to celebrate fully there is a little more to it than that.

From the website (yes, there is an official website (https://playmusicontheporchday.com) :

What if for one day everything stopped? And we all just listened to the music.

To participate just go outside and play music! You can invite friends or play alone. Make the day as big or as small as you want! Then share a video on any social media with #playmusicontheporchday.

Follow the hashtag #playmusicontheporchday to see musicians from around the world participating!

As it says, you can celebrate in ways big or small. As a sole creator or as a member of a group. And post it on social media (probably because for organizers, if you don’t post it, it didn’t happen).

But if you want to hold to the spirit of the holiday without all the fuss, muss, and bother of the organized event, you can just go outside, sit on your step (or wherever) and play. No telling yourself you’re not ready. No comparing yourself to your harp crush. No thinking too hard. Just play. Let others bask in the beauty you create. Enjoy being the maker. Create a moment – and share it with others.

You don’t have to be fancy; you can just play what you’ve been working on. Or you can set a time, set a stage, invite your audience, and make a production of it. Not feeling so brave? Invite a friend to join you! It’s up to you. The focus is on making music and sharing it with others.

Need more inspiration? Think of it as a history exhibit – after all, it wasn’t that long ago that this was just the way of it. In a time before hashtags and constant media, we (people) were the media. And the fortunate had music as a regular part of that. So, you’re not performing, you’re reenacting!

It’s not about perfection, it’s about connection – with your music, with your community, with your history. And with such a low barrier to entry – you just need to move outside – we can all do it!

I know some of you are planning to go out and play! Please share with us – send me a photo or jot a couple of words so we can share with this community too! And Happy Play Music on the Porch Day!

Your song

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Sometimes I have no idea what I should write here. I could launch on how the blank page is terrifying but instead, I decided to poke around the web for a better idea, and in about three clicks, I had it!

I came across a page on journalling. It had a load of prompts to help goad you into writing in your journal. That’s pretty helpful. But farther down on the page, there was an interesting list that I decided could be molded into something that would be helpful here. It had a list of prompts for each day. That is, there were day specific prompts that could be used to move your journaling along.

What does that have to do with us? Well, we can use the same approach to tailor our practicing. If we view each day of the week as having a focus, we could tailor our practicing to achieve more (and maybe with less work?). As I thought about it, I was reminded of the childhood song in which each day of the week had a chore – washing clothes, ironing, sweeping. While we were singing around the Mulberry Bush we listed what we were supposed to do each day of the week. Better still, it’s changeable so we can fit in our own chores – our practice chores! If we listed our “chores”, we could be focused while still getting in all our practice, and meantime probably learn something while seeing progress over time.

What might we put in our song? Technical (scales and etudes)? Reading? Musicality (phrasing, dynamics, expression)? By the time we get to the mid-week, when we’re losing sight of what we’re doing, slogging through relentless repeats, our song could help us stay on track. We shouldn’t forget to include fun (tunes we know and love), accomplishment (tunes that are just coming along), or joy (tunes that remind us why we love to play). And by week’s end we would have gotten to everything and been left with pride or satisfaction (acknowledging our work)!

Once we know these, we can sing our song to ourselves (nothing wrong with using the melody from Mulberry Bush – or writing your own!). If you can’t recall, here’s a starting point:

Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush, Practicing on a music day.

This is the way we play our scales, play our scales, play our scales. This is the way we play our scales, Practicing on a Monday.

This is the way we phrase our tune, phrase our tune, phrase our tune, This is the way we phrase our tune, Practicing on a Tuesday.

Etc for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

This is the way we play for joy, play for joy, play for joy. This is the way we play for joy, Practicing on Sunday.

You can put your tasks in any order throughout the week. You can even use a different time frame if it’s right for you (2 weeks? 3 days? What’s right for you?). It’s up to you how many stanzas your song will have. The point is to keep focus – it might be just what your week needs.

What would your lyrics be? Can’t wait to hear! Send me some of your ideas!

Ice Cream for Breakfast

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It is August so I started thinking – would you eat ice cream for breakfast?

Of course, the “right” answer is no. But that would be a wrong answer.

Because the question isn’t about having ice cream for breakfast every day. Instead, it’s about being flexible to try something new. Something you will likely enjoy. Something that may not be the best choice, but could be a good treat on rare occasion.

Having a treat is a way to go about getting outside your box. Doing something to shake up your routine. Trying something unorthodox to make everything a little tastier (better!). What sorts of things can you do to “have ice cream for breakfast” for your playing? Here’s a few ideas:

Use a different approach – literally. Turn your harp around, move to a new room, play from the column. Just change it up and see what happens.

Ask someone else what they hear – or try to hear it differently. This can be through recording or just listening. Check all your judgement at the metaphorical door and really listen creatively!

Teach it – I am always amazed at how different a tune is when you’re teaching it than when you’re playing it!

Question how things have always been done – never stop asking Why? What? Why not?

Get uncomfortable – ok, really all of this is about getting uncomfortable! A little discomfort can be revealing, freeing, and uncomfortable! And it’s good for you. Just like having ice cream for breakfast could be!

Would you have ice cream for breakfast? What flavor? Let me know – I’m open to trying new tastes and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

When winning feels like losing

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We all do it. It’s especially clear on fast tunes, but every tune you learn goes through it.

“It” is the ugly phase. You know the ugly phase. It’s that time when, no matter what you do, it seems like you are stuck – or even going backwards – as you try to learn a tune and make it satisfying!

Your fingering falls apart. Your rhythm deserts you. Your memory fails. All the phrases sound the wrong and none are in the right order. The repeats are like torture. And when you add the harmony, nothing hangs together. It’s disheartening. It’s frustrating. And it feels like it will never end, leaving you with a tune in tatters. It’s so discouraging. It feels like the tune is winning and that you are losing.

But are you? No, you are not.

It is actually especially important for you to get through this phase, no matter how intimidating it feels. There is a lot of learning going on. Your brain is sorting through all the inputs (the notes, the fingering, the rhythm, the series of sounds, and more) and outputs (same list mostly) on its way to figuring out what goes where, when, and how. We consistently underestimate how much we’re trying to learn, how it is related and interleaved, and how challenging it can be to make music.

To weather this phase and get to the other side with a mature, satisfying tune that you can be happy with and proud to perform you, of necessity, need to keep track of what you have done and what you need to do next. How should you keep track of your progress and assure yourself that you’re getting somewhere and are “winning” the battle to learn? Document your progress! This ensures that you will see how you are winning even when you feel like you’re losing or going backwards! And it will help you see that even when you feel like you’re going backward (losing), you’re making progress (winning!).

It’s important that you do this in a manner that will help you follow your progress. This could be keeping a written journal to capture descriptions of your work and describing progress verbally. Or you could make audio (or video) recordings of your practice to hear (and see) what has changed across time. Or you can use any medium that records your thinking and your progress – draw your concept or do a puppet show! Whatever you need to see your progress over time! The form is not important. What is important is to acknowledge your progress over time and find what you should work on next to continue your development. While it is essential that this be a tool for your use, if you are actively taking lessons, you can work this with your teacher.

I know some of you have been consistent in capturing your work – let me know what form you use and any insights you might share with others. If you have kept track but haven’t been consistent – could you let me know what you think is preventing you from being consistent? And if you’ve never done anything like this before, what do you think would work for you? Looking forward to hearing about how you keep track of your wins!