Monthly Archives: January 2026

Boring

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I hear you – you don’t (all) love playing scales.

One of the reasons people don’t like to play scales is that they are “boring”. 

Boooorrrrriiiiiinnnnnnngggggggg

Here’s the problem with that thinking – boring is not a bad thing!

Wait, what?

It’s true – boring has some important positive qualities, all of which can make playing easier and better!

What are these qualities? Let’s take a look – they come in two flavors – one cognitive, the other creative.

The first of these – cognitive – means that you do not need to apply your full attention when playing your scales. When you have played something long enough, you have learned (something) about it. It feels like playing is getting easier (we’ve used this metric before!). Eventually it will be so easy you might think it is “boring”. But being bored is a really just a feeling of tedium, not an indication of thinking of the elements of playing. When tedium sets in, you actually have learned enough that your brain is looking for a new challenge. That means you have spare capacity to do or learn more. That’s why we have more complicated versions of each scale as well as other scale related exercises. This is definitely something to pursue. And it can go on forever – because once one thing is easy, there is room for expansion and adding to your effort. Once it’s easy, there’s no end to the things you can do to make your scales more interesting!

The second flavor is creative. When you have achieved an ease of play as mentioned above, you can use that foundation for creative exploration! Being bored is a great place to start when you want to be creative. That same freedom you have from being bored will allow you to come up with new ways to play your scales. Or you can use those scales to come up with new melodies. You can also use these strong scales to come up with varying harmonies – the possibilities are endless!

So, the next time you are thinking your scales work is boring, instead shift your focus. Develop a take on making them more effortless so you have the spare cognitive capacity to take them farther. Or use them as a launch point for creative exploration. Keep in mind that you can also bring the two together – using your freed capacity to be more mindfully creative.

What do you think? Are you going to go for freed capacity or creativity or both? Let me know in the comments!

Build a Habit

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We just past Quitter’s Day – the day by which most people have let their resolutions fade out and die. It’s depressingly early in January to have given up. But really, days are long, especially if you’re trying to make a change in your day…or your practice…and motivation and willpower can only hold on so long.

How do we make a different choice and skip right over Quitter’s Day so we can continue to grow?

We develop habits that reinforce our continuing to keep going!

What makes a habit? Repetition and intention, focus and routine all build toward consistent learning, growth, and performance.

Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice given that he was 80 years old at the time. He answered that he thought he was making progress! And he lived quite a while longer, so he had loads of time to practice. He had a practice habit and so should you!

So, what’s the easiest habit we should have but might not? What will get us to confident, fluent playing which comes to mind as an appropriate end state for all of us. Let’s build one strong habit that can support that and helps throughout our harp lives.

Let’s build a daily habit of playing scales.

We learn from a young age that scales are boring. And they are if all you do is rip through them mindlessly! But just a little bit of thinking and they become not only a technical challenge but also brain work and a portal to music we know and music we haven’t learned yet.

Typically, we think of doing scales at the start of practice time – and they do make an excellent warm-up. But there is no rule that says you can’t do them at the end of your practice – like a desert. Or, for that matter, you can do them in the middle as a break between other tasks and learning.

No matter when you do them, scales are a tremendous habit to build. And once you have a small, strong habit built, others can follow. When will you do your scales? Let me know in the comments!

Practice steps

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It’s January, so it’s still appropriate to be looking back at where you’ve been to help you look forward to what your next steps should be. As a teacher, I know that we are all over the map with this – some students already have a list of things they’d like to work on, pieces they’d like to play, events they’d like to participate in, etc. Some others look blank. So, who’s right?

Like so many things, there is no right answer, only the answer for you. The downside to not having thought about this is that you might drift because you’re not heading anywhere. Of course, the downside to having already made a list is that you can be too focused and could miss out on serendipitous opportunities.

Indulge me – jot at least a couple of things you’d like to work on this year (if you haven’t already). Could be technique improvements (because we can all use that – bad habits are slippery!). Might be to tackle a piece you have always admired but have been intimidated by. Maybe it is a social goal, like inviting people to play ensemble pieces together (formally or informally). Or possibly you feel like you need a challenge that will test not only your playing and learning but will really stress your mettle?

Once you have a couple of ideas, take a look at them – probably some are smaller, shorter term (I want to learn to play (insert beautiful but very easy tune name here)) and some will be bigger, longer term (I will play with others in ensemble).

Then you’ll need to suss out the steps that will get you there. For our short-term example that might be that you’ll need about 6 weeks total to study, learn, practice, polish, and finish that tune. In our longer term example that might be to identify 3 pieces of level appropriate ensemble music, find 3 people you would like to play with who are at or near your level of play, invite them to join you, assign the parts, learn and practice your part, set a meeting schedule and place, and secure a place to showcase those pieces. Obviously more steps, some that require 5 minutes, some that will require a little effort over some number of weeks.

Both long and short term require that you keep an eye on where you’re going while also monitoring your progress, being honest in your assessment of your activities and development, “fixing” things, and checking that the gap is narrowing (or not).

Once you’ve got the activities, you can then build out your practice time. We all want to be efficient with our practice time, so interleaving these steps will make a good practice plan – include steps for both small and big ideas. Look for ways to “double up” and hit multiple ideas with one activity (I’m looking at you, technical exercises!). This way too, you are never practicing just to practice – always narrowing the gap from where you are to where you’d like to be.

All this will be true whether you’re working with a teacher or coach, or are guiding yourself. How will you incorporate small and large steps into your practice? Let me know in the comments!

Welcome in!

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It’s the beginning of another year that we get to play the harp! YAY!

This is that time when subtle (and not so subtle) forces attempt to push us around with talk of resolutions, goals, words, and more to define our upcoming year. In fact, in the past I have shared ways to set goals, define resolutions, and denote focus for the upcoming year. I’m not so sure how helpful or important any of those have been.

Why? Mostly because they start by implying (or stating) that you’re not complete or sufficient as you are. The implication is that you aren’t good enough and require a structured, stoic, grinding path to get there.

Bah!

Because we are, each of us, good enough. Are we perfect? No. Are we fully defined? Not yet. Do we have work to do? Of course! But that’s because one of the reasons we play is that we are actively seeking to grow!

So, what should we do then? If goals, words-of-the-year, and resolutions are flawed approaches to our growth, what we really need is to find the small, consistent steps that will help move us toward where we would like to be.

That does mean that we need to have some idea of where we would like to be – where we’re going. That is, we need to name what we intend to do with the time we spend making music.

Then we need to have at least an inkling that we need a path. What that path might look like can be fuzzy – and it will likely change. Where we would like to be can be outwardly grand or simply important to oneself. The size of that intention is not so important as having some sort of waypoint so we can check that we’re moving forward.

The first step then will be to look back, even before we put a name on what we might intend to do with our time. What are looking back at? How about:

  • What are we happy with from the past year?
  • What successes can we count?
  • What was hard?
  • What was discouraging?
  • What felt harder than we expected?
  • What just flowed out our fingers, over the strings, and directly to the hearts of our listeners?

We have a long stretch of time with which to work (got a year? Yup!). So be gentle and thoughtful. There’s no rush. Take your time. Find moments of silence to reflect. Think about not just what but why, when, how, and who (nothing happens in a vacuum).

Knowing our historical elements can help us formulate projections that align with our interests. Then we can define the small consistent steps we need to take to get there.

That was a lot of words to say, “when you know where you’ve been you can see clearly how to get where you want to go”. So here in the first week of the new year, spend a little time reflecting on your musical past and pull the threads to help define who you are and who you want to become or what direction you’d like to explore. Make some notes and don’t be too quick to seize the first thoughts that come to mind. And don’t worry about evaluating your thinking – just capture your ideas – you have time. Welcome in – here we go!

You know I love to hear from you…