Author Archives: Jen

Just Listen –

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Harp can be a somewhat lonely instrument. We play solo so often. If we play in recitals we are likely to be alone on the stage. It’s not that we can’t play with others, it’s just that we do spend a lot of time on our own.

But playing in an ensemble is something special! I cannot encourage you enough to find a way to play with somebody – other harpers, other instruments, combinations of two, three, 100 – whoever you can find to play with.

Playing with others gives you the opportunity to remember that when we’re making music, it’s not about you. And playing with others in ensemble can yield incredible benefits to you as a musician. I hear you saying (skeptically), “like what?”

There are the obvious benefits like being part of a team and being camouflaged. But there are even bigger payoffs. Here are some ideas for your consideration.

Being on a team shifts your attention from what you are doing to what you are doing together. No one has the lead the whole time. The melody moves between the players and parts. Sometimes you have the harmony, or the melody variation, or a highlight bit. The pressure to perform is shared. You can breathe!

You learn the importance of following the conductor. This can be obvious with a person standing in front of you, reading a score, and herding the cats with a baton. Or it can be subtle with someone selected to set the tempo, or count you in, or do some pseudoconducting (waving an arm to direct until their part starts and they have to play too). No matter the level of conducting, you must pay attention and listen to the direction you’re receiving. You’re not solo and you need to follow the conductor as a part of the ensemble team.

All of this is built on you having strong skills – good technique and good musicianship. You will be listening for your own tone, rhythm, dynamics as agreed, and you will be filling in tweaks to create the shared music.

But perhaps most importantly, you have to know your place. You must listen to the whole, not just your part. You listen for your entrances and make compromises to ensure the music is musical. You have to hear how your part fits into the whole. And you have to hear how the other parts are in and around your part. You will only get that if you listen intently and with purpose. You need to match yourself to the rhythm of the group and incorporate the inflections of the ensemble.

You must constantly just listen, stay with the crowd, do your part, and contribute to the whole. Just Listen – that’s how you do it.

Have you played in a group (of any size)? What did I miss? If you’re new to ensembles (or after reading this want to do even better) how will you improve your listening? Let me know in the comments!

Relax

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You know how it feels. You learn a fast tune – a reel or a jig. You can hear it in your head – faster, faster, faster! Sadly, your fingers are not q-u-i-t-e ready for that! But we’re focused and so we push. We push the tempo so we can play as fast as everyone else. We want to play faster than everyone else!

So, we set ourselves the task of speed. And we repeat (a lot, as we talked about here). We push as hard as we can.

AND IT ALL FALLS APART. Why (whine)?

This happens because we are focused on the wrong thing. No tune is good if it isn’t accurate and well played. That’s true of airs but one could argue that it’s even more true in the fast tunes. In a slow air you have time to fix things in real time. But in a reel there’s no buffer – there’s only hanging on and hoping for the best! And that’s stressful.

Stress is not good for fast tunes. It seizes your hands, your arms, you brain! You need to r-e-l-a-x!

No really. Try playing some tune you think you know as fast as you possibly can. When you’re in the middle of the tune, stop playing and check-in with yourself. Is your hand relaxed? Arms? Shoulders? Butt? Legs? (no, really, check your legs too!)

As long as you are holding a lot of tension and stress, you will not be able to play your fastest. Sorry, but it’s true. You have GOT TO RELAX!

And to get relaxed, you have to play at a tempo that doesn’t stress you out! If that’s at Lento/40, so be it! There’s no shame in a well played tune at an approachable tempo. Only when that feels easy and all the notes are correct (no, really – all the notes, rhythms, harmonies, etc.) will you be ready. Then you can speed up a little (like to 44!).

Use the “feels easy” and accuracy as metrics for when you might try going a little faster. This is where you can push yourself a little – each time it feels easy and is accurate (and be very strict on this – accurate is accurate, not sorta accurate, not mostly accurate – actually accurate!), then go a little faster. If you like more precision, use your metronome for each speed and make it part of your accuracy metric. When you hit your limit (and you will – we all do), slow down a little bit and get accurate again, then run at it again. This is a process that will take a little time but will help you develop a tune you thought was cool enough to learn into a tune you love to play!

Give it a try – take on a new fast tune and work it up this way. Let me know how it goes (in the comments!). Don’t have a fast tune – you can always ask me!

Weird but it works

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Before I embarked on this whacky phase of life as a harp player, I spent most of my time thinking about how people think about their work and how to improve that. Now my poor students have to endure my explanations about what we’re doing and how they might think about it. It’s important to know and understand not just what you’re doing but why.

So what I’m going to share today total makes me crazy. It works but I have no idea why. It just does. It’s a “tip” that might help you learn tunes easier and faster. And who doesn’t want that?

What’s this magic thing?

When you’re trying to learn a tune, there’s a lot to do. And even when you have the tune relatively well learned, you often find yourself stumbling. And if there’s a trouble spot, you will begin to build in a “speed bump” – a place in the tune that frankly scares you – and so you slow down and try to get through it.

If you don’t get that sorted out – and quickly – the tune will always have a speed bump and/or you won’t want to play it because there’s a scary spot. To get past those scary spots, you need a way to learn your way over it! So this week, I’ll share a way to get those smoothed out.

Find a shape at the beginning of a phrase. Place all your fingers as you will be going to do when you’re playing. Squeeze – hard. Definitely distort the strings – yes, squeeze that much. Don’t be wimpy! Then close your fingers – don’t play, just close (all the fingers at once). Place the next shape. Think about the shapes as you place and squeeze and then move to the next. Work in phrases. Think about what you’re doing in each shape. Focus on one hand and then the other (unless the shape of the tune makes that untenable). As the shapes become more familiar, shift your focus to the movement between the shapes. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat more than you think you should. Then repeat again.

Once the placing and moving begins to feel easier (than it had been) then you can shift your attention to playing the shapes. This isn’t the speed round – keep your focus on the shapes and linking them together. You can play and work toward making it musical once you can actually get from shape to shape cleanly and on time. If, as you start playing, you find there are still rough spots or ugly transitions, go back to the place and squeeze and come at it again. Don’t be afraid of repetition (and while you’re repeating – pay attention to what still needs work).

I don’t know why this works – and believe me I have generated multiple hypotheses – but it does. If, after reading this, it’s not clear, send me questions and we’ll see if we can make it clear for you.

When you’re working on a new tune, give this approach a try and let me know how you go – you know I love to hear from you!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day – how’s that O’Carolan tune coming?

What to practice?

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We all know that we need to practice, but one thing we often forget to teach is what to practice. While it’s easy to rattle on about practicing, actually teaching how to practice is more challenging.

People typically ask how long to practice, but this is the wrong question. Instead, start by asking how much time you have scheduled into your daily routine for practicing. Why? Because you definitely will never practice more than you have time for and you’re never going to “fit it in” unless you do so explicitly. This may be the number one challenge for adults – you don’t have a lot of “free time” and practicing isn’t free time anyway – it’s very committed time! You won’t luck into a free slot of indeterminate time in your day. You will have an identified amount of time into which you’ll have to fit it – and that is how long you should practice.

So, if the question isn’t how long to practice, then what is the right question? It is better to focus on what you will spend your time doing – what to practice? Here are some ideas to consider to establish what to practice:

What are you learning? When you first start a tune, everything needs work! Rather than having a scattershot approach, start by identifying the layers of stuff to be learned. This requires a level of concentration – because we typically want to do all the things all at once. Instead, name what is to be learned. How does the melody sound? what’s the fingering? how’s the rhythm go? where is the harmony? what is the order of phrases? all the things! Focus on what you can hold in your brain – when it starts to fall apart, focus on a smaller chunk. And while you’re at it, don’t compare yourself to others – I know that I can learn a lot more in one go (fingers, melody, rhythm) than I could when I started learning (when I learned one note at a time!).

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory”

– Coco Chanel

To paraphrase – before you start practicing, prune what you’re going to try to learn in one practice session!

What needs work? What is the weakest link? That’s what you want to focus on. Having trouble with the fingering? Just work on that. Can’t remember the melody? Just work on that. Screwing up the rhythm? Just work on that. Don’t try to work on everything all at once!

What are you doing? Remember that practicing is not a one-shot thing. You are going to practice day after day, week after week, month after month, etc. You’re going to practice the rest of your natural harp life. Remember that your practice will have arcs like a series of novels or a particularly convoluted tv series. Keep those arcs in mind – the short arcs (technical exercises), the mid arcs (etudes and “work pieces”) and the long arcs (your power repertoire). Just like novels or tv shows, all the arcs need to be integrated and make sense individually and together! Keep the end in mind.

What are you watching? It’s not enough to just practice or even to just practice the right thing. You also need to be demanding of yourself. Monitor your practice so that you can see what’s coming along and find what needs more work, different work, or both. Don’t accept poor work from yourself, you’ll only be shorting yourself. Each time you play/repeat, evaluate the outcome and determine what needs to happen next. This doesn’t mean be ugly to yourself – you need to be supportive but firm. Not sure if you’re judging yourself correctly? If what you just played would also cause you to check your teacher’s reaction out of the corner of your eye in a lesson, then it wasn’t good, and you need to keep at it.

All this seems like a lot, but likely you’re already doing most of it. It is important to remember that practicing is part of learning (certainly not the only part!). You still can look forward to loads of mistakes, frustration, errors, questions and laughter, excitement, and the thrill of getting it!

If, after you read this, you think, “that’s all well and good, but it’s one thing to know this and another to practice this way” try this. Tell your third-person self how to do it – write a lesson plan for that person. Be detailed and specific – what needs to be done, what you expect the outcome to be, and what to do next. Don’t forget to leave a motivational boost to remind yourself that you’re showing progress, and even if you’re not finished yet, you’re proud of your growth!).

Which parts of this did you need to hear? Do you feel like you are able to tell yourself what to practice? Will this help you make better progress in your practice? Let me know in the comments!

Ready for the day?

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It is, I’m sure you already know, practically that most important of holidays, not to be missed or overlooked and certainly never able to be over-celebrated.

Yes, it’s nearly St. Patrick’s Day. The one day everyone believes themselves to be Irish, or at least Irish-adjacent. As a harp player, it’s best not to be caught flatfooted and you need to have a tune or two ready to go. So, I thought I’d share one with you.

The best known composer in Irish history is Turlough O’Carolan. It would behoove each of us know to at least one tune by the man. He was, if nothing else, prolific with over 220 compositions to his name. And regardless of how you feel about the man, his story, his music, or St. Patrick’s Day, it’s never a bad idea to be able to whip out something by TC. He was active during the Baroque era, so you can definitely do double duty with these tunes when you’re scouring your brain for something to play for various specialty programs. Another reason to play Carolan tunes is that they are harp tunes, written by a harp player so at least they make sense and fit into your hands!

So, I wanted to share one of those with you today. This piece is Number 171 in the collection and is often referred to as Carolan’s Welcome. It’s recognized by audiences but it’s not one of the top tunes (like Ellenor Plunkett or Fanny Power) – so it resonates with your listeners but is not overplayed. This arrangement is fairly gentle so you can have it ready to play by St. Patrick’s Day and it’s also a bit spare so you can (when you’re comfortable) add your own ideas and nuances to make the arrangement your own!

So, here’s the tune. Give it a whirl* and let me know how you go (especially if you have a place to share it!). Let me know in the comments.

BTW – do you have any idea how hard it is to find a graphic for St. Patrick’s Day that is not insulting or ridiculous? Between the unending beer mugs, creepy leprechauns, and countless shamrocks – ugh. Hence the coin <sigh>.

PS if you’ve gotten this far and are not sure where the link is, click on the link and download the music!

Have great vision

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You might have noticed that at the turn of the new year, I assiduously avoided talking about setting goals (except to encourage you to plan on coming to Ireland and Scotland with me in October!). But that doesn’t mean that we can’t still have some idea of where we’d like to get to as we keep learning and growing throughout the year (and beyond). A vision board might be just the tool you need to keep focused!

A vision board is really just a collage made of graphics, photos, words, and any other visual elements that help you keep in mind where you’re going. No matter how you put it together, making yourself a board gives you an opportunity to think about your playing and progress in a very different way. Because how often do you think of a visual to represent your music? It is relatively easy to speak of it, but what visual would symbolize where you’d like to go?

How might you go about making a vision board for your harping? I thought you’d never ask! First you have to choose a couple of parameters – you can make your board virtual (online) or physical (on paper). Then the hard work begins! You need to ask and answer a few questions –

> Where are you coming from?

> Where are you going to?

> What would show your thinking?

Once you’ve asked and answered these questions (and any others you dream up), then you can get started in a series of steps.

1. Collect pictures and other ephemera that will display those thoughts.

2. Organize these items to reflect your thinking.

3. Using those organized items, generate a collage that shows your thoughts (as well as dreams and desires).

4. Look at it – every day – and remind yourself what you’re working toward.

5. Change your collage as needed – so that it continues to stand for your thinking. Nothing about making the board is “permanent”. You’re not stagnant and your vision shouldn’t be either!

You can make a vision board as simple or as complicated as you like – after all, it’s yours. What matters is that you know what you mean when you look at it.

You may find that coming up with ways to show your thinking helps you get clearer on what you want to do. Or you might find that trying to find the right photo helps you refine your thinking as you try to capture your thoughts visually*. Keep in mind that it will be dynamic and that you have to leave yourself room to grow and change.

Will you give a vision board a try? What do you think will be the most challenging part of putting it together? Would you be willing to share yours? Let me know by leaving a comment!

* I’ve really focused on visual representation, but don’t feel like you must use only one sense – if you want to include audio, do it! Want to put your vision in smell-o-rama, use it! It’s your vision and your reminder!

Lesson Performance

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There is not a teacher that I know that hasn’t heard some variation of, “it was so much better at home”! I know, right? Sadly, I know this not only as a teacher but also because I’ve said it myself! Because we have practiced so much and we’re expecting so much of ourselves when we get to our lesson.

Therefore, we could be excused for being bemused when we sit in our lesson and … bomb! It’s like we brought rented fingers. Like we didn’t bother to practice. Like we play some other instrument. Like we’re no good. What happened?

What happens is that you have practiced playing the tune, but you haven’t really practiced performing it. Nor have you (probably) practiced playing in a different environment. I know that none of my students has a carpet as challenging as the one in my studio. They don’t have the same lighting. They don’t have the same harp (some have a different model, others have a different brand). And they sure didn’t practice all week with me looming next to them, watching what they do.

The reality is that your lesson is not a stage performance, but it is a type of performance. You are playing for an audience. And you know that your audience is judging.* The question is what will you learn when you do these performances? Here are a few things you might do to learn more to take away from your next lesson performance:

Optimize your setting. Make sure you have enough light, enough room, are comfortable, and can relax before playing. You can still do this, even if you’re at a lesson. It will give you space for your performance. And it might give your teacher some insight into how their studio looks to a student.

Have a run through. This is a good idea to help you settle down. If you’re nervous, just play a “throw away” – play through the tune just to settle in, get used to the harp, and shake off the commute and the day and get your head fully into your playing. You might ask your teacher to busy themselves doing something that isn’t listening to you – just to get in the groove. Once in that groove – then perform the tune.

Lean in to where you are. If you’re still learning a tune, don’t pretend (or expect) to play it flawlessly. Think about what’s not working and start there. Rather than plopping on the bench and belting out a bunch of notes, start a discussion about what you have had trouble with, what’s tripped you up repeatedly, what you’re dreading as you come up on it, and what’s going pretty easily.   All this will help you and your teacher focus on what needs work. Don’t make your teacher figure it out – you’ve had all week to find out where the problems are, so use that information to move you forward! After working on the kinks, then you can play the tune!

Just these three things will make each of your lessons more effective and will shift your thinking about performing in your lesson. You will be able to prepare better, learn more, and get farther each time. And that will get you ready to learn even more!

Do you feel like your lessons are performances? How does that help (or hinder) you? If you haven’t thought of it that what, what else do you think you might do for your lessons? Let me know here in the comments!

*All teachers judge – but good teachers judge your playing – not you!

Put it on repeat

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One of the most frustrating things when learning a new piece of music is getting it established in your head. Whether you get your music by rote or by reading (or hybrid), we often feel like we should have a tune quickly. But is that really reasonable?

In a word – No.

Learning a tune and learning to play a tune (and I’d argue those are different but related) require repeated exposure. Repeated means – repeats….and lots of them!

You might wonder why you need so much repetition – even if you’re a quick learner. Well, there are two basic reasons – first, because there’s a lot to learn and second because you probably don’t make as many repeats as you think when you practice.

There is a lot to learn, and I find that we typically underestimate how much we need to learn for each piece we take on. While we focus on our fingers, it’s our brains that have the lion’s share of the work here! We need to recognize and recall a lot of stuff. Here are just a few of the things you need to learn for each tune:

> You have to know how the tune sounds

> You have to know where the tune goes

> You have to know where your fingers go

> You have to know the order of the notes of the melody

> You have to know the chord progression of the harmony

> You have to know the notes of the harmony

> You have to know the order of the fingers

> You have to know the rhythm

> You have to know the dynamics

> You have to know the phrasing

> You have to know how this tune relates (or is contrary) to other tunes you already know

> You have to remember all that

And more. Hopefully, that gives you an appreciation for what you’re doing as you learn.

So, then the question is, how many repetitions. Often, we feel like we’re playing something over and over and over and over. And we are. But look at that list again – each of those things is impacting each repetition. So, you can begin to understand why so much repetition is needed.

Let’s start by thinking about what we’re trying to by making those repetitions. We are trying to memorize how the (entire) piece sounds. We also need to perform serial recall of two different lines – the melody and the harmony which more often than not are completely different, yet related. We have to master the motor activity of placing, playing, closing, moving, and doing it again and again. But more importantly, we have to connect all of those things, in the right sequence within the appropriate relative time, while detecting anomalies (aka mistakes) and correcting them. Whew! No wonder it’s hard!

There is no set number of repetitions required (that would be too easy!). One metric is easiness – how easy does it feel to play? Yes, it’s qualitative, but this isn’t rocket science, so it’s ok. When you’re moving along your learning curve, there will come a point when you realize that it is just easier to play – you’re not struggling as much to remember what comes next, your fingers actually feel like you are in control, your brain doesn’t feel like you’re about to combust! You may be more able to play faster or to keep both hands going.

The keys to getting there probably include not counting your reps, but instead focusing on what you’re doing, what you’re thinking about, what you’re not able to do just yet, and how you have done compared to yesterday, the day before, etc.

If it helps you to keep focused on practicing, you can use pennies, beans, or beads to keep track. These tools can be helpful to show yourself that you are actually practicing as much as you think you are. As long as you recognize that time (and number of repetitions) isn’t all that matters – what you do with that time is what matters.

The last thing to keep in mind is repetition has to happen across days and weeks, not just within individual practice sessions. You can’t really learn all that (see the list again) in a single sit down, so don’t think you will! If you feel compelled to have some detail, the next time you learn a new tune, keep track of how much time you practice, over how many days/weeks, and how many repetitions you actually perform each time – it should be fairly eye opening.

What’s your experience with repeats? Let me know … in the comments!

Something in the Air

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Harp care is one of those things that I know we all keep at the back of our minds, but one element is easy to overlook. Shockingly easy. And that would be keeping your room at a comfortable humidity for you and your harp. Why shockingly? Because when the humidity falls low enough, you’ll know it because that’s when static electricity rules!

How much is enough? Well, you want it to be higher than constantly getting static shocks and lower than sticky! What will be about 40 – 50% humidity which will feel pretty comfortable. And if you want to keep an eye on it, buy a hygrometer. They’re inexpensive and can sit on the shelf near your harp so you can have peace of mind.

Once you know what the current humidity is, there are a number of ways you can improve it. Here are eight ways to enhance yours:

  1. You can get a room humidifier. They have cute ones for children’s rooms, and they do the trick. Or you can get a larger one, but they’re not cute. (and they do the trick too, just industrially).
  2. Run your crock pot – it’s designed to run all day (or night) so you can be comfortable having it on. If you’re fancy, put some cinnamon and cloves in it (or essential oils). Set it to high and fill it with water. Put the lid on until it warms up then remove. You can see the steam rising. Be sure to watch the level of water and add as needed.
  3. Same idea but slower – put a pot on the stove and bring it to a boil – all that steam will go into the air! When I do this, after the boil I lower it to a simmer (I stopped this because it’s a lot of energy and you can’t forget about it either!).
  4. Put out a bowl of water – it will evaporate. I use a bowl with a wide opening – larger surface area for the evaporation to occur.
  5. Run a tabletop fountain – it’s pretty, makes lovely bubbly noises, and is soothing as well as hydrating.
  6. Put a vase of flowers in the room – they’ll be a pretty addition and will help bring water into the air.
  7. Bring in houseplants. This is so far down because this only works with living plants. Since I only have dead houseplants, it didn’t work for me!
  8. Get a fish tank!

Managing the humidity around your harp will definitely make the wood happier. And it will probably make your skin happier too. These are all fairly low-tech and impermanent. Of course you can put in a whole house humidifier – or you could use that money to buy a new harp – that’s up to you.

Do you have any other ways to keep your air comfy? Let me know in the comments – you know I learn so much from you!

Start up

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You probably aren’t keeping with the “thoroughly modern music teaching” online space. There are loads of teachers teaching other teachers to make more money by teaching. I keep an eye on them just to see what bubbles up in the idea streams. One thing they tend to do is drop stuff (music, ideas, games) the week before you need it. As in, they post a new Christmas arrangement on December 16th or a tune for St. Patrick’s Day on March 15th. Maybe all their students are way more efficient, but I would never ask my students to learn a piece that quickly! I know I wouldn’t want to get a piece of music and have it ready to go inside of a week!

I don’t know about you, but I need time. There’s so much to do – learn, remember, test out, reject, try again, for every single note. It’s thorough, but not speedy. I do know that it’s just nice to be ready – especially if you need the music to perform!

Ready for what? Perform where? Well, for all the things we know are going to come around like they do every year. There are learning opportunities like Ohio Scottish Arts School, Somerset Harp Festival (25th Anniversary!), Virginia Harp Center Festival, the Harp Gathering, and the list goes on.

But there are also the putting yourself out there and doing stuff to show yourself that you can. These are events like Play Music on the Porch Day in August and Random Acts of Harping in June. For these events you need to know some music – at least enough to fill the time – and feel comfortable that you can play it.

By giving yourself a little time to plan and prepare, those events will be easier on you – less stress and more fun. That also means that right now is not too early to start learning a new piece or two to have on hand. You can even look forward to debuting them – but that will be easier if you get started.

Before you think it’s too early, remember that there are a number of steps. You have to find some tunes that might be what you’d like to be playing, select from those the tunes you decide to work on, learn the tunes, really learn them, get the arrangement squared away, and then polish, polish, polish. When you consider all that, it’s about time to start!

Whether you’ll play at festivals, schools, or sharing events, give yourself time to enjoy the process! It really is nice to share. It’s nicer to share when you don’t feel like you’re not ready! What tunes are you going to start up? Let me know in the comments (I’m always looking for ideas!).