Author Archives: Jen

Always commit, but not too soon

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For harpers, one of the most challenging things to learn is fingering.  I don’t mean “learn” as in getting it into your head.  Rather I mean internalizing the concept and grounding everything you do in that.

After all, we know that fingering can make or break your tune.  We know that while we’re ingesting a tune, we need to pay attention to getting the fingering into our head so we can do it again.

But making that knowledge part of our intrinsic fabric of self is challenging.  Precisely because you learn it along with the tune.  And that’s what makes it slippery.

Commit

Because when you learn the fingering as part of the tune, rather than embedding the need for fingering in your core, you just let it sort of wash over you.  In effect, you don’t really pay attention to the fingering as an element of the tune, it’s just a means to an end. 

You learn it but you don’t commit. 

And at the beginning of acquiring a tune, that’s a good thing.  After all, before you know the tune, how you can you know what the best fingering can be?  How can you understand where the phrases are going to take you?  Where will you place your stamp?  So, at the beginning, you do need a fingering that will get you through the tune.  But do you need to commit to it?  Or is it too soon?

To successfully play the tune, make it yours, and frankly, to enjoy it, you might need to mix up that fingering, so it might be too soon to commit.  You might change the fingering as you develop your overall approach to the tune and to the harmonies.  You might find that the whole thing will go better if you take this note in the other hand.  Or that a big fat lush rolled chord just there is exactly what you want so you now will play the melody note with the thumb.  Well, those things, those changes, those modifications, those betterments will change your fingering.  If you have already committed to an earlier fingering, it will have been too soon.

If you’ve committed to a fingering too soon, it will chafe.  And of course, once you’re committed, every change becomes harder to implement (because you have to unlearn what you were doing and relearn the new thing). 

Once you’ve settled on what you’d like to have, then you could commit to the fingering.   When you have assigned your imprimatur, then you can commit the fingering to memory, based on the development and analysis you bring to the tune.  And then use it!

When you’re learning a tune, yes, work on the fingering (especially if you’re a newer and shinier harper – if you’re still learning how to play, all of this will apply after more development… learning elementary tunes as taught is helping you build the foundation you need to then later do what I’m advocating here).  As you cultivate the tune, give yourself the freedom to explore other fingerings and approaches to rendering the tune.  Then you’ll be ready to commit, and it won’t be too soon!

How do you help yourself make the commitment at the right time?  When do you feel ready to commit?  Let me know in the comments!

Being Musical-y

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The president of my fan club doesn’t know much about music but sometimes lofts the question, “how is your musical-y thing going?”.  It’s meant to demonstrate support and caring.  It’s sweet…not helpful, but sweet.

“Musical-y thing” in this context means “everything” …and everything is a lot of stuff when we’re talking about music.

Be musical-y

But we are musicians and so we should understand what makes up the musical-y stuff.  We need to know the difference between and the relationship of the musical-y things.  They sort of easily fall into two elements – Musicianship and Musicality*.

Some people think they are the same thing, but they are actually very different.

Musicianship is the technical stuff – the playing, articulation, fingering, accuracy, closing, good reading, good posture, thinking, incorporating technical elements into your playing, etc.  Musicianship leads to strong playing.  Musicianship fuels analyzing the music to find the patterns, the themes, the work arounds, and applies all that technique to result in solid playing.  Musicianship is the hard work, the repetitions, the focused practice – the discipline. 

Musicality is the expression, the emotion, the feeling, the inflection.  Musicality hears the potential in each phrase, each pattern, each mis-note**.  Musicality is the recasting of the phrase, the on-the-fly improvements, and adds that sparkle to the performance.  Musicality injects the life into the music.  Your listener can feel your musicality.

Musicality is the life of the party while Musicianship is refilling the dip.  Without Musicianship, Musicality (and everyone else) leaves early.  These are both essential to having a great event!  And frankly Musicality is so much easier to bring forth when it’s leveraging strong Musicianship.

Developing each of these is essential to continued growth but that can be a challenge.  For some, the focus is on musicianship – those very technical things that can be measured, assessed, built incrementally, and tracked.  For others, the focus is on musicality – the feelings expressed and the connection with others – things you can feel but can’t necessarily point directly at to assess.

If you have fallen into the trap of focusing on only one, dig your way out!  Why?  Because no one ever said, “I love rote, mechanical, robotic music”.  But also, no one ever said, “Despite almost every note being so wrong that I didn’t recognize the piece, I loved the emotion of whatever that was.”  These are two sides of the same coin – musicianship without musicality is flat and uninteresting.  Musicality without musicianship is just about noise.  To be a complete musician, you have to capitalize both!

You can develop each – but how? (You already know what I’m going to say) Practice!  But balanced and complementary practice. 

To develop Musicianship, do the “usual” practice – careful, precise work.  Deliberate practice of the technical elements applied to your tunes.  Focus on the skills.  You know how to do this.

To develop Musicality, do the “unusual” practice – craft the story you’ll be telling by visualizing the elements, hear the emotions you want to evoke, yep – use your imagination!  Use movement to reinforce your story.  Calibrate your finger control, position of your hands, and placement of your arms so that you evoke the sound you are imagining.  And because it’s hard to do all these things at once and assess the outcomes, record yourself, find what you like, and build on that!  In addition, write down your ideas, thoughts, and insights as you practice.

Here’s a homework assignment – select a new-to-you song (songs are easy – they have words that tell you what the story is – easy-peasy!).  Learn the tune with good technical proficiency (strong Musicianship).  When you are comfortable playing the melody, think about the story and its associated emotions so you can craft your playing and – bake that feeling into your tune practically from the beginning (Musicality).  Keep testing for doneness (make throw away recordings) and monitor your technique (which can so easily fall by the wayside while your brain is trying to focus on everything).  Remember it is never finished, so you can change how you feel about the emotions you seek to evoke at any time!

Are you musical-y?  How do you feel about your musicianship and your musicality?  Have you tried this homework?  Let me know what you learned in the comments!

*Yes, of course there can be more or different bins – be my guest, tell me a better way to characterize this!

**Some people call a Mis-note an error but that would be a mistake 😀

The Beauty of Error

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We talked about defining “right” and of playing “perfectly”.  One of the problems with so many definitions of right is that they can blind us to the Beauty of Error.

If every time you have a variant note you make a “lemon face” you might miss what could be right in front of you. When you play something that isn’t “right” you haven’t played something wrong.  Instead, you’ve played something different.  Something you didn’t intend.  Something you hadn’t thought of.  Something you hadn’t seen before.  The caveat is we are not talking about when you begin to learn the tune – it is important to know the melody.  But after you have that learned…

In those times you inadvertently play something you hadn’t planned, you open a big door of possibility.  The question is, will you go through?  Or will you slam it shut?  (You know which one I think you should do!)

Beauty of Error

Because these variations could be serendipitous.  Some of them will work ok.  Others – meh, not so much.  And some won’t work at all, no matter how much lipstick you pile on them. 

But some of them will just explode into an amazing array of new sounds, new thoughts, new textures.  Like a prism bends light, your new find might bend your entire perception of the tune.

Others will explode in another way – shining a light on a new way to look at the tune.  Or click something in your mind that changes how you look at some other, completely unrelated tune.  You might find a new interval combination you hadn’t noticed before.  Or you might find some new rhythm twist that you hadn’t thought possible (or hadn’t thought, period).

This is especially true when we’re working harmony or improvisation – because there are no wrong notes.  There are combinations that may be less satisfying than others.  We might have created a sound environment that does not match our original intention.  But each of those has its beauty – even the discordant options -as long as we are willing to hear it. 

Funny thing about sound – once you make it, it’s gone relatively quickly.  So, even if you lay out a stinker, it doesn’t last. In fact, before you can even examine it, it’s gone!  That tempus is fugit-ing which makes those sounds hard to hang on to. 

So how do we become more appreciative of these unintended consequences?  How do we find the Beauty of Error?  Honestly, you already know –

Practice.  No really – the more you allow these variances to occur, the less they take you by surprise and discombobulate you.  Practice not stopping for every little blip.  Get in the habit of paying attention while you play so you hear them as they happen, not belatedly.  Record yourself to be sure you’re not making lemon face, or rolling your eyes, or any of the other things that telegraph to your audience that things might not be going quite to plan!  All easier when you’ve practiced it!

Boldly go.  Specifically set practice time to explore the sound space around your tune.  Specifically violate the carefully set arrangement you have built.  Challenge your assumptions.  Challenge yourself.   Throw open that door to the unknown and fling yourself through it.  What’s the worst that can happen?  Be kind to yourself – this is what practice time is for!

Capture, review, learn, iterate.  As part of that practice, make the sounds just a little less ephemeral and capture your work.  Record your noodling.  I just use an voice memo app on my phone.  It’s no Deutsche Grammophon but it’s clear enough for me to sort through.  I have loads of little snippets.  Then I go through them and mark in a notebook what’s wheat, what’s chaff, what’s just garbage.  When I’m done, I d-e-l-e-t-e them – like they never existed.  All my secret bombs are gone – *poof* – the sweet gems remain, and no one’s the wiser.

Stop chasing perfection.  We have already talked about how perfection is overrated.  If your listener wanted perfection, they’d get a cd.

Did I mention practice? This doesn’t come overnight.  Nothing about becoming a better musician does.  You just keep practicing – hearing things you didn’t expect, gliding on past like a swan, filing away the sparkly ones – the more you do it, the easier it becomes.   

What beautiful errors have you had lately?  Do you have other ways of cracking that nut and seeing the beauty in the errors?  Have you set aside time for finding them?  Let me know in the comments!

To err is human

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Are you a perfectionist?  When practicing, is your sole intention to “get it right”?  To make no errors?  Is your focus on defeating the old saying, “to err is human”?

Are you making yourself miserable chasing perfection in your playing?

To err is human

Now, don’t get me wrong, it is important to “get it right” – but let’s think about how we’ve defined “right”.  And no, it’s not a simple or easy question.   There can be multiple, varied definitions.  Here are some:

  1. The Copier Definition – the tune is right when it is played exactly, invariantly, as written, with no errors (sometimes known as the “if I don’t execute every element perfectly*, my teacher is going to think I didn’t practice” definition).
  2. The Plan Definition – the tune is right when absolutely nothing is missed, there is no deviation from the plan. There are no errors. Ever.
  3. The Communication Definition – the tune is right when your audience heard the story you were telling and felt the emotions you were trying to convey. There might have been some deviations in some notes, but they got the point.

You can probably guess which definition I prefer.  Is one of these definitions the “right” one (see what I did there?)?

No.

But some are more useful at times than others are.  When do you want to use which one?

The Copier definition is especially useful when you are learning a tune.  After all, if you don’t know the basic elements of the tune, do you know it and will you be able play it?  Pr’oly not.  This definition certainly gives you a solid foundation from which to play.  The focus on securing the notes, the rhythm, and phrasing will help cement the tune in your head.  But if you stop there, you have stunted your musical growth.  And then you will probably get stuck in the Plan. 

The Plan definition is to just stick to the plan.  Play what you practiced but do not make any changes.  This is a cold and unfeeling place from which to make sounds, but not really music. 

One thing the Copier or the Plan don’t include is sharing a message with someone else.  They can both result in emotionless, mechanical playing that leaves the listener feeling like they have heard a robot playing.  Technically correct yet not quite satisfying.

Because music is a form of communication.  And the purpose of communication is, well, to communicate!  To share an idea, to build a relationship (no matter how brief), to interact with other humans. 

The Copier and the Plan are all about you, not your audience (and remember, even the cat and the curtains enjoy your musical conversations – they want to hear from you).  This is about holding dominion over – and defeating – the music.    

So, the Communication Definition.  This is the only of these definitions that is outside you, that includes an audience.  The focus is on sharing.  Note production is important – but only in service to the message.  The tune is “right” when the recipient understands what you meant to convey.  The Communication definition is appropriate when you have learned the tune and are ready to actually play it (rather than beating it to death in practice). 

So, what is your definition of “right”?  And how do you move between them as you develop and practice your repertoire?  And what do you do with your mistakes?  Let’s get back to Alexander Pope and his thought, because we often forget the rest of it.  He wrote,

“To err is human, to forgive, divine.”

Now, do not take this as carte blanche to be sloppy.  You still need to have the tune so you can play it.  But you can be forgiving of your work, your attempts to learn, your progress as you move toward gaining the tune for your repertoire.  Being forgiving is not equivalent to being slack.

As you are practicing, as you move between the definitions during your tune development, remember that you will make errors and that they are not the end of the world.  Next week, we’ll talk about how they can be just the beginning!

What is your definition of “right”?  Has any of this changed your mind?  What kind of errors do you find the most unforgivable?  Let me know in the comments.

 

*perfectly – whatever that means

Which teacher do you need?

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In a previous episode we talked about what lessons are for (and what they’re not for) and a comment was made about learning going on forever.  How true!

But you have to start somewhere.  And we all have teachers.  Even teachers have teachers!  The question really is – which teacher do you need?  Or perhaps more appropriately, which teacher do you need now?

Because we need different teachers for different stages of our harp life.  These different teachers might all be housed in a single body, or you may move from one teacher to another.  Or you might make a loop and eventually have the privilege of teaching your teacher!  One important thing we’ve learned over the last two years is that we’re not constrained by geography any longer (which is excellent!) with teachers available online, you can learn a great deal. *

Which teacher do you need?

In your harp infancy, you need a Mother. A teacher who works with you to learn the things you need to know to be a competent harper without hurting yourself.  This teacher gives you a  foundation from which you can grow. You learn how to care for your harp, how to interact with it, and start to build a repertoire.  Perhaps most importantly, the teacher initiates you into the tips and tricks that make playing easier (technique) and helps shape you into a musician.  I think this is the most important thing people who are self-taught miss out on – these not so obvious things that make playing easier (Don’t worry self-taught people! You can get there too – read on!). 

As you continue, you grow and your needs change.  Once you’ve learned to play make sounds come out accurately, now you need a Professor.  You are ready to learn the why for the things you do.  It’s important for you to understand how your initial technique underpins more advanced skills, how all the elements are related, and to point out areas for focus to nudge your progress forward.  And to corral you when you (inevitably) move backward a little – to help form you into a musician.

Then you are ready for a Coach. **  This shift is important because this is where you shoulder most of the burden of steering your own boat.  Rather than sitting like a baby bird, mouth open waiting to be fed, you know enough to ask yourself questions – what is still weak? What is becoming your “signature”? What music do you want to learn?  What music do you need to learn to fill in your repertoire?  As the student, you push the envelope while your teacher helps you to structure your questions, honestly evaluate your feedback, constructively apply what you learn, provides suggestions for your continued growth, and helps you discover answers. 

Finally, the Peer.  This teacher is someone with whom you share the joy of playing – trading tunes, making suggestions (as needed), encouraging trying new things, and energizing you to keep on growing.  This is a less formal teaching relationship and reciprocal.  Don’t be fooled – you are still learning (perhaps more than ever before), still growing, as a musician. 

You might move back and forth along these lines – as needed.  And you might find all these in a single body.  You might be in a regular relationship with one person, or you might go to all the workshops you can manage to get different perspectives and approaches. 

Now for the tricky part – which do you need now?  A good teacher will provide a bit of each of these, as needed, and in varied measures as you grow.  Of course, early on, you will need more mothering.  But don’t be fooled, I have more than one student who has come for lessons because, although they are advanced harpers, they recognized that they needed to go back to shape up their technique.  And frankly, I’m grateful, because that helps keep me focused on examining my own!

It is also easy to slip into a crack – you might “outgrow” a teacher and decide you’re good on your own.  And you probably are for a bit, but if you’re not actively teaching yourself (by doing all the things we expect the professor or coach to add to your learning), then you may lose ground, lose motivation, lose excitement.  That would be sad.  But it’s easily fixed by finding another teacher.  

Remember that, like hairdressers, teachers understand that sometimes it’s not a good fit, or something has changed and you’re ready to move on.  And like a good hairdresser, a good teacher will be sad to see you go, but wave you a cheery fare-thee-well and look forward to seeing you at a harp event soon!

Do you have a teacher for where you are now?  Which teacher is the right fit for you?  Are you in between?  Let me know in the comments!

 

* I will stick a caveat in here – if you are geographically constrained and don’t live close enough to have in person lessons, be sure that your online option is a good teacher.  One downside to everyone having an internet connection is that anyone can say they are a teacher – and as a beginner, you’d be at their mercy.  Caveat emptor.  In addition, if you are taking lessons online (and any competent teacher will tell you this…in fact, if they don’t, reconsider their competence) – go to workshops to work with other teachers in person whenever humanly possible.  There are amazing options like the Ohio Scottish Arts School, Somerset Folk Harp Festival, the Harp Gathering (which I’ve not participated in but have heard great things about), Feis Seattle (again, I haven’t been to this, but I know a guy), Catskills Irish Arts Week (again, haven’t been but I hear good things), or individual workshops anywhere near you – and you will learn incredible things, and not just about playing the harp!  Go!  This isn’t an exhaustive list, just a sampling, just go!

 

** The Coach refers to an approach to teaching and isn’t necessarily someone who is presenting as a coach.  It’s about the approach not the title.

The Pandemic Slump

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It’s been two years of pandemic.  Two long, challenging, isolated, soul-smushing years.  One thing I have seen really grow over these two years is the Pandemic Slump*.  I am experiencing it myself.  And I know all too well that many of you are too. 

What is the Pandemic Slump I hear you ask? 

Well, it’s not a downturn in the economy.  It’s not the weird ennui we’ve been feeling and struggling to shake off, even as things begin to look up.

What is the Pandemic Slump? Check your zoom window, you might see it there.  Do you still have the lovely posture you worked so hard to develop while on the bench?

Pandemic_Slump

The Pandemic Slump is, in fact, actually likely the fault of (insert the name of your favorite online video interaction app here – zoom, skype, teams, facetime, messenger, or whatever app you’ve been using to soldier on with lessons and workshops).  As we try to make do with our phones or tablets or laptops with their fixed cameras and microphones, the slump has crept up on us.  After all, they said it would only be two weeks, and then only a few weeks more. And we’re not rich tech oligarchs, we’re musicians, so we can’t really be splashing dosh all over the place for a complete cinematographer’s set up.  We have been making do with what we have.  We’re staying connected and making progress.

And now we’re in a slump – literally.  That’s not good.  And I, as a teacher and as a CME (Certified Music Ergonomist), just cannot stand it anymore! 

Now, to be fair, the lockdowns have done more to impact our posture than just moving to online lessons.  We’re slugged out on the couch more, binging Downton’s Anatomy and Parks and Thrones.   And while it has been good fortune that so many have been able to work from home, very few had a well designed space.  It’s home after all – not focused on working for hours each day and so, many also have a poorly designed, badly set up space using laptops on beds, kitchen counters, floors, etc. because having an expensive (but supportive) ergonomic desk chair for home wasn’t really a priority. 

The slump is also bad because it changes your position at the harp. Your hands are at a different approach angle and your arms have to reach farther (because when you slump, your chest caves and your shoulders, going along for the ride and taking your arms with them.

In addition, to see the camera (which is in wide, landscape format), a lot of people have had to crouch down so that there was also enough harp in the picture to be helpful (and to move the lesson along).  And, a lesson or workshop is a social interaction, so we want to see each other which also requires getting your face in the frame, even if you have to contort your back to do so.  The lighting is bad and often becomes variable (due to digitization), so you may be squinting at the display. 

After two years of this, you might not even notice you’re doing it!  What can you do? Let’s work on fixing all that!

First, you can get out the same way you came in – use your computer camera!  You can do this in real time by starting a meeting in your app (just don’t invite anyone else) and watch yourself.  If you’re having trouble watching yourself and monitoring your posture while you play, then record and review later – use your app or the video on your computer.  I like doing this in real time because then I can fix it as soon as I see it and I can see when it starts (do you slouch when you’re working to learn or remember, or do you slouch all the time?).  But recording and reviewing later also frees you up to focus on playing and seeing more things while you’re focused on reviewing.

If you’re not a techie (or you just don’t want to do the above), use an egg timer and a mirror – diddle with the timer so it goes off randomly. When it dings, freeze, and look in the mirror – do you like what you see, or do you need to straighten up?

Second, when I start students, I often give them a “starting checklist” to run through before they start playing.  Playing the harp is challenging and remembering all that stuff (head up, back straight, “puppy paws”, “baby waves”, breathe, oh, and play) can be a lot to remember.  Hence the checklist – I suggest that you make the checklist you need and run through it before you start to play.  Just make sure that don’t slouch/back straight is prominently placed in the list!

Have you noticed that your posture has taken a hit lately – do you have the Pandemic Slump? Or have you had other problems crop up like overuse injuries developing, trouble with playing stamina, or reduced accuracy and speed?  Want to learn more?  I’ll be giving two workshops at the Somerset Folk Harp Festival – Ergonomics 101 (in person, Friday, 22 July 3 – 4:30pm) and Selecting the right harp for you (in person, Saturday, 23 July 10 – m 11:30am) – come learn with me!  And if I can help you, we can make that happen! **

Have you noticed the Pandemic Slump in your zoom window?  Let me know about it in the comments! 

 

* Why yes, I did just make up that name but it is also a real thing.

** Ok, this is a shameless commerce plug, but it is a real thing – don’t play in pain, work with me.

It’s Spring Cleaning time!

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Spring has sprung the grass is griz! Time to shake off the lingering winter blahs!  It’s Spring Cleaning Time. 

Ugh, it’s bad enough to pretend like you’re going to air the linens and beat the rugs and clean behind the washer, but it’s worse that we know we could also spring clean our music life. Just ugh.  Not my favorite time of year, but a necessary  evil   activity.

Because, just as our closets cause things to disappear (but also to multiply (and shrink!)), our harp lives can also generate detritus and, well, frankly, dust!

So, what would a Spring Cleaning of our Harp lives look like?  There are a lot of things we could do including:

It's Spring Cleaning TimeClear off your music stand(s)!  Is your music stand a nightmare like mine (again)?  It’s probably also a fire hazard!  So much paper.  So many projects.  So much potential to drop it all and get everything mixed up!  And this is only one of them (yes, there’s another one for teaching – same sorry state, just different music).  It really is an indication of the churn of my thoughts.  A music stand is meant to hold the music you are playing – not to be seconded as a desk.  When you let everything pile up and get jumbled, not only is it slightly hazardous (ref fire and spillage above), but it also actively interferes with your work.  What’s at the back will be hidden (and likely forgotten and later presumed lost).  What’s in front will distract you from the other things that are in front but just behind them. Take some time to sort through it and you’ll be amazed how much freer you will feel to play!

If everything is important, then nothing is important,

so prioritize the music (and notes).  I’m not averse to “horizontal filing” if that’s your thing (it is mine) but use a desk, table or the floor so you can keep straight what you’re working on with which layer (trying to learn, barely learned, ready to polish, etc.).  Don’t let your projects get swallowed up by the Music Stand of Doom (cue scary music!).  

Tidy your space – now that you’re on a roll, don’t stop!  Now you can move on to the rest of your space.  Dust your harp and the legs of your bench (and your bench if you’ve not been practicing so much).  It is Spring Cleaning, so move your harp and your bench and vacuum underneath.  Put away music you’re not using and dust the storage.  Throw away the pens that no longer write, sharpen the pencils.  Wash your coffee cup(s).  If you have a music desk, clear it off and wipe it down.  Yup, this is the romantic part of being a musician.  If you have windows, air out the room a bit too.

Sort your paraphernalia – we’re musicians, we collect a lot of useful stuff.  Sometimes we collect too much useful stuff.  Sort through it all.  Do you have a full set of replacement strings (and do you know where it is)?  If not, order the ones you need.  Toss the string leavings – or cut them in to string ends for later.  How many nail clippers do you need right by your harp?  Are all your tuners and tuning keys collected in a space where you can find them?  Are your index cards in a file box (and in order)?  Have you put your cases away or are you still tripping over them?  Dust all your harp tchotchkes (and fondly remember who gave you each one as an encouragement and in appreciation of your music-y-ness).

Sort your Music – Did you know that there’s no prize for the person who collects the most harp music? Or that you’re unlikely to surpass the Library of Congress with your giant collection?  One of the best things I have recently seen was from A Slob Comes Clean who says that if you can’t find (something), you don’t have it.  So, here’s a good time to sort, organize (and purge) all your music – so you can find it!  Be it sheet music, audio files (come on, I know some of you still have cassette tapes you made at some workshop you took in a year that started with a 1), videos, or velum handwritten by monks, you can’t learn, practice, and play music you don’t know you have.  Don’t let anyone tell you how to organize it – suit yourself and sort and organize your stuff in a way you can use.  I have sheet music sorted by title (the title it has in my mind – whether that’s in English, Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, or whatever (including tunes that I think of as “that tune I learned from….” and are filed by the person’s name).  I have my books sorted by place/style (Scottish, Irish, American, broken classy (baroque and classical), piano, bagpipe, fiddle, song, and borrowed). CDs (sadly) are sorted by last listened to (ok, they’re not really sorted).  Never lose sight of the reality that organization is defined by the user not some on-line guru!

Clear out the pockets of your cases – Did you know that a harp case pocket can hold all the contents of Fibber McGee’s closet?  I am certain that my 18-pound harp weighs about two megatons in its case.  I pulled out about six million old set lists, a fistful of programs, seventeen harp keys, twelve tuners, four thousand pencils, three hundred hair clips, a dozen cookies, three pairs of gloves, two chapsticks, and a partridge with its accompanying pear tree.  I found out my dog hadn’t run away*.  After removing all that, then it weighed about four ounces**.  The pockets are large.  And they are deep.  Horror movie plots have been written about the depths of the harp case pocket.  You might want to check yours and give it a clear out.  Your back and shoulder will thank you too.

Get your harp regulated – no, seriously.  And no, my beloved luthier didn’t pay for product placement.  But really – how long are you going to go on playing slightly out of tune because your levers aren’t spot on?  Take care of your harp.  If you have the patience, tools, and know-how do it yourself, otherwise, visit your luthiers – they miss you!

Instill some order so you have a space in which you can create!   Imagine how much more pleasant it will be to play in your newly spiffed space!  It will be so much better if you have spring cleaned for your harp.  Do it now while spring is young and we’re not entirely sure we’ve seen the last frost.  

Do it for your harp, but more importantly do it for you! What Harp Spring Cleaning tasks do you do?  Let me know in the comments!

 

* Joking.

**Still joking – it still weighs 18 pounds.

 

When do you stop taking lessons?

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The other day, someone asked me when do you stop taking lessons?  Sounds like an easy enough question.  If only.

There are a lot of reasons to stop taking lessons – money, time, fit with the teacher, and more.  Money I can’t do anything about for you, so we’ll just glide past that.   

First, let’s get time off the table and let’s separate time available and time duration.  We have to assume that you have time available – both for lessons and for practicing between lessons.  As for time duration, you can’t really expect to set a timetable.  If you’ve been playing the harp any length of time, then you already know that learning the harp is anything but a linear process.  And that some things feel easy while others feel like insurmountable obstacles.  If you haven’t been at it for long, you might still think that there’s an end – a point at which you’ll have nothing left to learn (quick hint – there is no end).  Those of us who have had more experience already know – you will always have something more to learn!

OMG – is she saying that I’ll be taking weekly lessons forever?!  No, that’s not what I’m saying.  That’s not the right question. 

The better question is: 

What are lessons for? 

There are at least four reasons for lessons:

Lessons can give you a foundation. The harp isn’t easy to play. It requires finesse and skill to play well.  A teacher in regular lessons can help you build the foundations you can grow from so that you can (eventually) play the music you are moving toward.

Lessons can help to protect you – Leon Fleischer called musicians “athletes of the small muscles” and in lessons you’ll typically learn good technique which can help protect you from injury.

Lessons can teach you a framework – We don’t make music in a vacuum and lessons can help you build your own framework from which you can develop your musicality and musicianship.

Lessons can help you learn to teach yourself – I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret – teachers don’t want to have you in lessons forever! (for a lot of reasons)  But no teacher will want to “graduate” you until you have learned how to teach yourself.

A teacher can use the time in lessons to help you navigate the pratfalls of playing, make clear those things that are opaque, and illuminate the path so you make progress faster.

Of course, the flip side is just as important.  So another good question is:

What are lessons not for? 

There are at least four things lessons aren’t for:

Lessons are not to keep you motivated to keep playing. In the end, music is a solo pursuit. Even if you’re in a group, ensemble, band, or orchestra, there’s only you playing the harp.  Only you can motivate you to play and while lessons might contribute to your motivation, they will not act as your sole motivation.

Lessons are not to provide you with accountability. Relatedly, if you only practice because you’re afraid to look bad at a lesson, you haven’t solidified your self-accountability. Lessons won’t change that.

Lessons are not to keep feeding you music. While we expect child students to need a lot of guidance on music, adult students would have increasingly greater latitude in music selection – which would include selecting the music you want to move toward.  But you need to figure out what that is for you.

Lessons are not to prevent you from being a responsible musician. Lessons are not a substitute for thinking for yourself (ref earlier comment about teachers wanting to help you learn to teach yourself).  This goes beyond selecting music and includes analyzing the music, self-critiquing (not self-criticizing!) your playing and developing your repertoire.

What other reasons are there to take lessons? And to not take lessons?  Let me know what you think in the comments!

What’s this thing do?

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When you’re learning a tune, it’s really easy to know what your right hand is going to be up to – after all, it pretty much completely owns the melody.  But the left hand? Sometimes you’re left wondering what’s this thing do?

When you learn a tune, if you’re given an accompaniment, you’re set.  After all, what do you get when you are given an accompaniment? In modern parlance, you get a

“curated set of harmonies that perfectly compliment the melody”

Of course that’s a little tongue in cheek, but you do feel like you get a free pass because someone who “knows” has put it together.  As long as you play it correctly, you will be “right” (whatever that means).  No argument.  No guff.  After all, some acknowledged shining light has written it, not you.  No one will gainsay you. 

And that’s such a safe and comfortable place. 

What's this thing do?Because once you’ve learned that left hand and “perfected” it (whatever that means), you have a whole package, and it can be incredibly challenging to break out of it. 

It might be a trap.  Safe and suffocating share too many letters!

But what if you only get the tune itself and are left to fend for yourself for the accompaniment?  Then you really will be asking what to do with that left hand!  And that probably feels really uncomfortable.  So, what should you do with that left hand thing?

Well, you know you could just lay your hand on the sound board and wait for the tune to end.  That would be weird.  And possibly boring.  So, you might feel compelled to fill the space with sound.  And that’s an idea.  But let’s think about it for a sec – what does filling the space with sound from the left hand do for us? 

It makes us feel comfortable.  Most people are ever so slightly scared of silence.  Ok, many are deathly afraid of silence.  So, we throw a bunch of notes into the air and expect that to act like a sort of sonic weighted blanket. 

It makes us feel better.  We all know that if the right hand is going, it will be more challenging to keep the left hand going (especially initially).  But most of us are always comparing ourselves to others and we seem to be inclined to find ourselves wanting.  Putting up a bigger sound fence is more challenging and so we can be content that we’re better at playing.

Do we need to fill up all that space?  Probably not.  A very wise teacher told me years ago,

“The Melody is what’s important!” 

The rest is, as they say, just details.  The accompaniment is ancillary.  There’s a reason it’s called an accompaniment after all.  So, we need to press that left hand into the service of the melody rather than hoping to make it so spectacularly mesmerizing that no one can actually play it!

What does service to the melody look like?  Well, it might be:

A simple set of supporting tones.  When I say simple, I mean simple – single notes, light and broken octaves, tenths, or fifths? Simple. And usually beautiful – you do play the harp after all – use it!

The chords of your choice – blocked, broken, rolled, arpeggiated, unstructured – up to you.

Big fancy countermelodies – variants and shifts around the melody can be a nice accompaniment.

Lending a hand – sometimes the left hand can lend a hand to the melody taking a note here or there to help the right hand render the tune better, faster, stronger.

Combinations of those – a little variety is helpful to maintain the interest of the player and the listener.

When you’re putting your ideas together, have the left hand do those things that –

Can actually be done – don’t craft a left hand you cannot actually play! (don’t ask me how I know this)

That enhance the melody – make your accompaniment like a delightful perfume not a cloying cologne!  It should be just enough to keep your interest piqued and not so much as to be repellent.

Don’t steal the show – if the only thing your listeners remember when you’re done is that flashy left hand, you might not consider that a success of sharing the melody.

Help the melody convey the story – one of my favorite exercises is to play a tune and change its tenor via the left hand.  Try it!  Make a “happy” tune “sad.”  Or make a “sad” tune “pensive” then “hopeful” and then try to invoke a crying jag.  It’s up to you what the story is, but your left hand can help you be in control of it.

No matter what you decide to include, ensure that the accompaniment acts in service to the melody – that it improves, impels, or increases the melody.  Because that’s what that thing does!  What do you do with this thing?  Let me know – I’m always looking for ideas!

It’s time to plan – Summer Camp!

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I know, I know, it’s only mid-March and we’ve just turned the clocks back so it’s still dark through breakfast!  But…

SUMMER IS COMING! Time for Summer Camp!

I know it seems like summer is really far away.  But really, summer starts in just 99 days (when I wrote this, so even fewer by the time you read it!).  So, if we want to be ready, we should start planning now.

Summer CampThere are a lot of summer programs available.  You can tailor your planning to your type of playing.  I have some real favorites and I’d like to encourage you to join me at all or some of them!!  These are all adult friendly, beginner friendly, and well, just friendly!  Here’s a chronological list:

The 41st Edinburgh International Harp Festival, 8 – 11 April 2022.  Ok, not strictly summer, but… This year has a hybrid program so you can participate in classes and workshops, attend concerts all from the comfort of your home computer or you can be there in person!  This is very exciting because so many of us have wanted to go and have now had our appetites whetted with two years online but with travel still a bit snarled, this is a great option for those of us who don’t live in the UK.  There are a number of exciting presenters and the concerts are fab – even if you are watching on your computer.  The events are available online during the Festival and on demand afterward.  The price is very reasonable – and a la carte!  All the info is available at harpfestival.co.uk

Ohio Scottish Arts School, Saturday, June 25 – Friday, July 1, 2022.  Aaahhhhh – to me, OSAS is the quintessential Harp Summer Camp!  This year OSAS is breaking in a new venue – with Air Conditioning!!  Woohoo!  An entire week of great in-person instruction, wonderful tunes, amazing people, and Scottish music coming out your pores!  I liked Scottish music before I came the first time, but I LOVED it by the end of my first week.  I think the best sales pitch for OSAS is the number of students who have come year after year after year – both adults and kids (and adults who started as kids!).  This year’s instructors are Corrina Hewat, Sharon Knowles, Seumas Gagne, and me.  Registration has started and will close when the class fills so don’t wait.  For those of you who have come in the past (or specifically haven’t come) – I’ll highlight – AirCon!  All the details at ohioscottishartsschool.com

Somerset Harp Festival 21 – 24 July (in person and 1 July – 31 October online). Somerset is possibly the most flexible event I’ve seen – even in this new world of working!  There are in person events, online events and subsequent events that will occur throughout the open online period!  There are options to fit every schedule whether you can travel or not.  And there are still the additional events like Harpers’ Escape and special add-on workshops.  Be sure to read the registration page and sign up for the best fit for you.  I’m excited to be teaching two workshops this summer in person and I hope you’ll come see me!  All you need to know is here: somersetharpfest.com

There are loads of other summer programs as well.  I can’t list them all here.  Many are pedal-y-er and oriented to younger harp players (by which I mean kids).  Most are listed in the Harp Column with info available here: harpcolumn.com/summer-harp-camp-directory

If you have never come to a harp summer camp, you have missed out!  I can’t tell you how much you will learn, but you’ll definitely learn a load of great music, applied theory, excellent arrangements, and what a great community the harp world is.  If you are hesitant, give yourself a little push and give it a try.  I think you’ll be surprised – and delighted!

Are you going to a harp camp this summer?  Which one(s)?  What made you choose it? What did I leave out?  Let me know in the comments!