Five Things I Can’t Live Without

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Jen

Harp players cannot live on practice alone. There is, after all, more to life. Like performing. Or maintenance. Or just plain enjoyment. We all have those things we need to have – things that are essential to us. Stuff that makes the difference between a good day and a less than stellar outcome. Have you ever thought about what you just can’t live without at when it comes to playing your harp?

Well, I have. We all have those things that we really rely on. And since you asked (after all, where do you think I come up with these ideas for blog posts?) – here’s my things I can’t live without, my essentials* –

Tuner – there are loads of tuners out there. They range from fairly simple to awfully complicated. I have four – a Snark ST-2 (the red one), a Korg CA-1 with a pickup, a free app download (G-Strings), and a tuning fork. Clearly each one has a different application. I like the Snark because it’s small. The Korg is great in a group. I love that the app is almost overly precise. The tuning fork is just for fun – and when I feel like I need a challenge I use it to tune by ear and then double check my accuracy of the tuning with one of the other tuners.
Spare strings – ok, this is a “duh”, but I am always surprised when someone tells me they don’t have a spare string. My strong recommendation is that you get a spare set of strings – an entire set. And, if you have already broken a string, don’t forget to order an extra with the set (one to go on the harp and one to complete the set). That can be kinda pricey, but it’s the only way to have a string on hand when one breaks.
Recorder – I am always suggesting that you record yourself – so you can hear what you haven’t heard, so you can see what you can’t see, and so you can know what you would otherwise know if you weren’t too busy playing when you needed to know it. I use a(nother) free app). It doesn’t have a lot of features, but it does have my favorite – the big red DELETE button. We’re not recording for posterity – just to learn…and then we ditch it!
Notebook/journal – You didn’t think I’d leave this off the list, did you? We’re all busy and it can feel like we don’t have time to journal our playing, but that’s a missed opportunity. Be reflective, think about your playing, practice, and performance. Be active, not passive, and write it down.
Great tunes – All that stuff is really in service of great tunes. After all, it’s more fun to play really great tunes you love than to just bang through stuff you don’t like. An incredibly wise teacher once told me to play music I like and leave the rest. Someone else will like the tunes that don’t beg you to play them – focus on the ones you love.

There are, of course, load of other things that could be on this list – like a harp, the tuning key, the perfect bench, that light that makes everything easier, and more. What do you find essential? What can you not live without? Let me know in the comments.

*I’m not smart enough to be paid to endorse stuff, so these are my opinions – do with them what you will. I really am interested to know what your favorites are – I’ll learn something and possibly shift my list!

Reading Reading Reading

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Jen

Last week we talked about music from paper. But for adults who don’t read yet, this can be intimidating. Reading does take practice. It always has. It’s just been a (long) while since you were at this same stage with letters. But if you think back to when you learned to read words, you will remember the big pictures of the letters over the board that showed you (constantly) what the letters looked like. Over time you learned to associate each shape with “its” sound. Then you learned how the shapes could be joined together and that you could link the sounds for the shapes and soon they were just like the words that came out of your mouth. And you learned the rules (and the exceptions!). You practiced every day. With time you got much better at it!

Let’s do a little math – if you practiced reading for 20 minutes every day at school when you first started reading, that means that you practiced about 60 hours just in the first-grade! That doesn’t count weekends. Most of us are significantly past first-grade, so if you did about 20 minutes of reading every day (granted, an estimation) you will have practiced reading nearly 500,000 hours by the time you eligible to retire! So, if you’re just learning to read music, you may still be at the stage of identifying shapes and linking them to their associate meaning. And if you get 60 hours of practice reading in the year, you will likely be at that first-grade proficiency. If you get more practice, you will become more proficient.

Keep in mind that each musical note has more information than each letter – you get pitch and rhythm and direction, so you might expect it to take more time to get easy with reading. And that’s ok – because it’s something you can add to your practice time!

If you’re struggling with your reading, here’s a suggestion. Find a piece of music (or use a Notespeller). Make a few copies so you can repeat the page – yup, we’re making “workbooks” just like we had in school. Start at the beginning and for each note:

Point to the note on the paper.
Say the name of the note out loud.
Point to the string on the harp – make sure you’re in the right octave!
Play the note.
Use all the tools/help you have (e.g., if you know the “tail” of the G-clef wraps around the G line, then start there and use your finger to move up or down the staff until your finger is on the right note. If you know the blue string is the F use your fingers to keep track of the distance to the note you’re pointing to on the paper.
Double check your work.
Move on to the next note.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Because I’m parsimonious, you can do this “straight” (the way you would normally read the page) and then later, turn the page upside down – and make the staves whichever you like (treble or bass) and go through again (a whole new workbook page!).

One reason to do the same page multiple times is to just get more practice at the same level. You might remember that Dick and Jane ran up and down the street a lot. So, you can point to and play the G above middle C just as many times as Jane said, “Oh, look!” (or more)! And the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it. Another reason to do the same page again and again is to get more confident – the more you do it, the more comfortable you’ll be as you test and then incorporate those linkages.

Don’t be cowed by dense music either – when you’re learning to read, use music made for young readers – the notes are bigger and there are fewer of them so you can practice your reading more easily. Even if you’re a significantly experienced human, you might be very young in harp years and possibly even younger in music reading years! And just like word reading, as you get more practiced and confident you can work your way up to the “chapter book” types of music (densely populated with too many measures on each line and too many lines on a page!).

So, how about you? Do you practice your reading? Do you read as well as you’d like to? If not, what’s holding you back? Let me know!

Ah, Paper

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Jen

There is a lot of music out there. Probably millions of tunes through the ages. Last week we talked about the joys of learning by ear, which are many.

But for all the lovely tunes available out there, if you’re going to learn them by ear, you have to find a source from which to learn. And that’s not always a possibility. You might live in the hinterlands. Your SpotiTube could be clogged. You might have eaten your Apple tunes. It might be that no one has thought to record the tune. Or possibly that no one remembers it?

And this is where writing music down is so helpful. I’m sure even the most amazing of harper bards of old would have been hard pressed to learn, know, and use all the tunes available – then or now. So, I hope we can agree that writing the music down is a helpful thing – if only to try to keep track of (at least a little corner of) the universe of tunes. Ah, Paper.

This is true for any type of music. Don’t be fooled – even the hallowed classical music is not meant to be played strictly as written. Mozart made his stock and trade writing and performing his music. And when he performed – his shtick was improvisation – that is not found in the writing! And he is just one example.

There is an easy trap in believing that the printed music is better than aurally transmitted tunes. It absolves one of all need to really internalize the music. And unquestioning devotion to the dots (the notes) excuses us from putting in the effort to make the music our own.

Written music is simply a tool. It can serve as a memory aid or it can act as a framework from which to pull the music. But it isn’t unassailable, nor does it require strict adherence. Ick.

As a tool it has myriad uses including keeping a record of a tune for later use, holding a tune for others not present when it’s being played, and for memory keeping. Writing it down allows one to capture of ideas, snippets, measures (and other stuff), even if they’re not “interesting” just now (not everything is popular all the time – but eventually the wheel turns).

Like any tool, the written music has limitations. For instance, it can’t capture all the feeling or the interestingness with which individual players imbue a tune. It will, with time, lose parts of its meaning, leaving future generations to conjecture (ok, just guess) what was meant by what was written, how it was played and what it was for. Don’t think that’s true? Look at the Song of Seikilos (found on a grave marker) – I’m pretty sure they thought they were capturing that for posterity*….

Which highlights another limitation – the written music can’t really capture the “à la mode” or “dépêche mode” (like how I did that?!) for the tune – you’ll get the bones but not the juicy cultural meat – you have to research (or guess) what the tune might have meant. You can have dogmatic discussions all day long but, in the end, you’re going to play it the way you hear it in your head – because that’s all you can do with the dots.

But most importantly, the dots can serve another function – that is helpful in the concrete, rather than in the abstract. This visual representation of the music makes music more accessible to those who are not good at hearing (don’t process auditory information well). When you look at the dots you have another avenue to getting at the tune – the relationships between the notes are spaced in the plane of the staff rather than over time (as in auditory representation). Some people can better understand the relationships of pitch and rhythm when looking at them than when listening to them.

Perhaps the most important point is that there is no “better” – learning the tune by ear has many benefits and some drawbacks. Learning from the paper also has many benefits and some drawbacks. These benefits and drawbacks maybe different, but they point to a potential strength – using both!

Using both auditory learning (learning by ear) and visual learning (learning by reading) may help you learn even more faster and more better (yes, I meant to say it that way). Just like learning by ear, the more you read, the better you’ll get at it.

Ah paper, a wonderful tool!

* If you’re not familiar with the Song of the Seikilos, it is the oldest surviving musical composition, believed to be from the 1st or 2nd century. The composition was found on an ancient Greek grave marker https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/oldest-song-in-the-world/

Hear Hear!

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Jen

One of the most interesting things you might hear a musician say is that they can’t learn by ear.

Ok, when I say interesting, I really mean odd (and maybe a little horrifying).

Because it is kind of funny that people who enjoy making and sharing sound admit that they don’t think of themselves as being able to learn via that same sound! And I’ve heard a lot of harpers say they are not able to learn by ear. Typically, I hear this as I prepare to teach them … you guessed it, by ear.

But learning by ear is an important skill. It really is central to playing. And like any skill, it can be learned and needs to be practiced – and the more you do it, the easier it will feel and the better you will get at it.

You might be one of those who resists learning by ear. You might wonder why you should bother. After all, there’s loads of written music and it tells you everything you need to know. Or you might not be interested in playing traditional tunes, focusing on classical or modern music – and that’s all written*.

But there are loads of reasons to learn to play by ear:

You will learn music faster. After all, making music is an auditory activity, so listening is pretty much essential!
You will think about the music differently (than if you’re simply reading). Of course, when you look at the music you see relationships of the notes and rhythm, but when you listen you perceive those relationships differently and detect other relationships.
You might just be more playful and creative with the music – without the tyranny of the dots telling you what you must do, you might just branch out and play what you feel rather than what’s written.
You may learn things about your instrument while you’re playing (and maybe about yourself?).
You will learn to hear. Really hear, not just listen.
You will become a better musician (ear training is taught at conservatories!).
You will understand theory better – because you’ll be experiencing it in a new way.
You will gain confidence as you become more proficient…and you’ll not be held back by a lack of (sheet) music again!

All this for the low, low price of – listening.

Just listen.

Don’t be fooled – it isn’t easy at first. The first tune I learned from a CD took me forever. I had listened to it a lot, than then I started counting… I listened to the tune over 1000 times (after I started counting). I’d get lost. I’d be listening and then realize I was enamored with the accompaniment and hadn’t been listening to the melody. Or I couldn’t tell the parts apart (not realizing it was a four-part tune not a two parter). Even now, when I listen to music, I hear it in layers (and the most important layers hide from me until last … maybe I should have been a drummer?).

You’ve probably been told,

“If you can sing (or hum) the tune, you can play it”

If so, you have been given the nugget to begin to understand how this works. When you can sing the tune, you know the pitches, the relative lengths of those pitches, and the relationships of the pitches to one another (up or down to the next one? a small interval or a large one? a third or a sixth? (ok, that last one takes more practice)). But think about it – if you “can’t learn by ear” and I challenged you to find Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – you could do it. You know the tune and that’s a big part of the challenge. When you know where it’s going, you are a long way down the road of playing the tune!

Now, to find Twinkle, you might have to do some picking at the harp. After all, if learning by ear is new to you, you’re not practiced at finding the first note, nor are you adept at identifying intervals (yet). But you can find the tune (even if by trial and error) … because you know how it goes. And that’s all you need to get started.

Let’s not put lipstick on a pig – it does take practice and it can be frustrating. But stop comparing yourself to that person sitting next to you at a workshop – just keep at it. Practice on your own. Hear, hear. Listen and Hear. Start with something you can sing – and go from there.

If you want to build up your ear, practice, just like everything else we do –

Start by finding a tune you already know – Twinkle? Happy Birthday? Frere Jacques? Memory (from Cats)? Back in Black (from AC/DC)? What it is doesn’t matter as long as you actually know it and are patient enough to pick it out on your harp. I’d suggest you start with simple children’s tunes – they are designed to be easy to learn!
Be patient – you’re trying to capture and recreate an entire conversation (or soliloquy) – give yourself permission to take your time. And even if you’re a product person, try to enjoy the ride…because this ride will take you to many destinations!
Keep track of your progress. Remember that learning by ear is more than just finding the tune on your harp – this is just a first step to playing new music.
Don’t be afraid to mess up – if you really know the tune (can sing it) then you’ll get back on track quickly. And if you don’t – you’ll need to go back and practice listening to it more, but you also might find some cool stuff on your harp along the way.
Don’t forget to record it – use whatever mnemonic devices you need to keep what you’ve found available to you.
Like everything else we do, the more you do this, the easier it gets. But if you avoid it, when you “have to” do it you will not only not have that practice under your belt, but that lack of practice will chivvy away at your confidence.

Hear hear – work on learning by ear. You CAN do this! It might be a challenge, but you can do it. Focus on the music rather than on the voice in your head telling you that you can’t.

What are you learning by ear? How’s it going? Let me know in the comments below! Are you hopelessly lost or so frustrated you can’t speak? Let me know and we can schedule a lesson – I’d love to help you!

*BTW – classical musicians also learn ear training. Never mistake written music for instructions. If you learn to think of it as a “cheat sheet” – a quick and easy memory aid – you’ll temper your love affair with the staves! More on that another time.

The Other Modes

Posted on February 1, 2021 by Jen

It’s already February! But that’s ok, you have goals! You have thought about them, codified them, captured them – possibly in multiple ways. You’re ready to go! Woohoo! Your goals are where you’re going – mental joy ride time! But how are you going to get there?

You may have heard of the various modes of learning. You might even know what your particular strengths are. The question is – do you use these in your practice to help you learn? Before we go on, we need to agree that for our purposes, practicing is actually more about learning than anything else. And possibly even more about learning that your lesson!

In your lesson, you get the gist of what you’re meant to be learning. But even the best students learn relatively little while in the lesson. In the lesson is where you get the basic materials and the guidance needed to build your music. So, no, I’m not saying you don’t need lessons – we all need lessons! There is so much to learn. The lesson is actually not about you playing. Lessons are far more about the guidance you receive from your teacher than about anything else. This is especially true for adult learners. You are guided on how to interact with the music, how to coax sound from the box, how you might think about what you’re doing, and of course, the physical stuff you must do to accomplish your goals. Your teacher is helping you learn how to think and interact with the music so you can do it yourself.

So, of course you are being taught during your lesson. But let’s say you practice one hour each day that you don’t have a lesson. That means of the seven hours each week you spend at your harp, only 15% is spent in direct interaction with the teacher. The other 85% of the time is by yourself, leveraging what you got in your lesson so that you can learn the music. When you realize that, it’s clear that it will be while you’re practicing you need to spend your time wisely. This is when you will learn the most through implementing the information you received in your lesson.

Then the question becomes, how can you best spend that time, so you maximize your learning (while also maintaining your enjoyment)? Because now you really know that pointless, unexamined iteration is a waste of your time. What should you do then?

The first thing you might consider is how you learn best. You’ve learned lots of things over your life in many different ways. You’ve learned to talk, to read, to cook, to drive, to balance your checkbook, to play the harp, and so much more. And while being taught those things you might have noticed that you really prefer to be left alone to read the manual. Or you might instead prefer someone who knows what they’re doing tell you how to do it. Or you might want someone to do it while you watch and then watch you while you try. You might be very disciplined and work carefully through a piece. Or you might analyze and examine the tune before you start working on it. Or you might just pick at bits and pieces until something sticks. You have a preferred mode of learning.

All of those are good approaches – and using your best approach will certainly help you learn while reducing your frustration. You already know that not everyone learns the same ways and you probably intuitively know that when there’s a mismatch, you are likely to become exasperated – or just get in your own way.

So the second thing you might consider is which ways are not for you – and give those a wide berth! Using methods and approaches that you know do not work for you is just pointless (unless your intent is to learn nothing but to bother yourself in the process).

However, this leaves another pool of ways to learn – those that are neither your strengths nor your weaknesses. These all hold some (potential) promise. If you listen really well but read really poorly (that is, you are auditory but not visual), you can read the music while listening to it (yea youtube) thus combining them to give yourself a new way to think about the tune. If you are tactile but all over the place, you might set yourself the challenge of finding the similarities and differences in the fingering patterns throughout the tune. Combining modes of learning can help you learn better. This idea of pairing up two ways of doing it opens up some new ways to get the music into your head!

Next, we’ll talk a little more about some descriptions of ways of learning and how those strengths might apply. Until then, learn your practice. Are you visual? auditory? tactile? Something else (there are loads of ways to talk about how you learn) – let me know how you learn in the comments below…I’m sure between us all we have similarities and differences.

Trying things you’re not good at

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Jen

We all like to succeed. And it’s always more comfortable to do things we already know that we can do and do well. And we are, if nothing else, creatures in search of comfort.

Unfortunately, there’s no challenge in always doing stuff you’ve done before. And there’s only paltry reward in continuing to do things you’ve succeeded at before.

Last week I suggested that you should make goals for the year and capture them. I suggested you do that visually if you didn’t want to do it in writing. And I wanted to do it too. I’m

t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e

at pictures – I don’t really enjoy drawing and I never know where to start when someone says find pictures that show (just about any idea) (because you never need to find pictures of concrete things!). Ok, I really didn’t want to do it.

But I did it anyway. Here it is:

But the point is not my collaging abilities. The point is that, by doing something I’m not good at, I learned a lot.

1. I really can do anything if I just get over myself. I hemmed and hawed before getting started, but once I made up my mind to get going, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared!

2. Doing something in a medium you don’t prefer is challenging, but it also is eye-opening. In order to come up with ways to present my ideas graphically, I had a to really think about what my goals meant. I also had to get over worrying about whether you would understand what I was trying to say…when the point of the exercise is for me to understand what I was trying to say!

3. Not doing something the “easy” (or preferred) way really makes your brain work – none of your “usual tricks” work so you really have to use other techniques and strategies to get the project completed.

I hope you tried this exercise – if only to help record your ideas for what you should be focused on this year.

But perhaps the real take away is that these points also apply to our music! (you knew I’d come around to music, you just might not have known how I was going to do it!).

First, you have go get over yourself (and get out of your own way). How often do we inhibit our own learning and playing?

Second, you have to think about what you’re practicing and the music you’re playing so that you can you want to share.

Third, when you do things differently you have the potential to uncover new approaches to your old (or typical) way of doing stuff.

You can learn new ways to think about ongoing challenges. And you can bring these new ideas to your practice (as well as to all the various parts of your life).

While trying to capture my ideas graphically I had a couple of ideas on how to look differently at scores that might help me learn more music faster. My explorations of improvisation may improve my questionable recipe modifications. And the strategies I use on the bench to push through something hard may help me improve my running.

And most importantly, I have now got multiple representations of the things I’ve identified to keep in focus throughout 2021 – so I might be even more likely to complete progress toward my goals throughout the year.

Of course, as a product person, I will need to keep referring to my captures (graphical and verbal) to keep myself on track!

Hope you were able to capture your ideas graphically – anyone want to share? Let me know in the comments!

Looking forward

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Jen

It’s one thing to know more about how you approach things to help shape your goals but it’s quite another to capture that info and use it!

I have seen research reports that indicate that only 8% of people who set goals actually achieve them. Yikes!

When you look at what helps those 8% get over the hurdle – writing it down is the prevalent shared element. Those people are no more motivated or dedicated or special than the people who don’t write their goals down, they just used a tool to help them get along.

This might sound familiar – I’m always telling you to write it down. I encourage you to have a practice journal so you can keep track of the day-to-day mundane parts of practice (what metronome setting? which phrase still isn’t right?) as well as the delights (f-i-n-a-l-l-y got through that tricky part successfully!) and the disappointments (ugh, I feel like I’ll never get that phrase….but when I look back I see I have only been working on it for 2 days, not the 2 millennia it feels like!).

All this documenting can start with the goals themselves. Now, maybe you have broken your pen, or you used all the writing paper in your house to line the hamster cage, or you just don’t want to write. Ok. I get that – you think I’m wrong (although I have multiple students who will tell you otherwise!). You might enjoy this suggestion anyway.

Once you’ve formulated a goal, you still want to capture it. Preferably in an enduring way that allows you to center and focus on it – not just now when you’re setting the goal or at the end when you’ve achieved it – but more crucially, in the middle of working on it. You know, that time when it’s so easy to lose interest or to get sidetracked (shiny object syndrome anyone?), or to begin to despair that you set a goal this is achievable, just not by you. You can think of this as the “worried in the dead of night” phase of working toward something.

Another thing those successful goal setters do (after they write it down) is to keep their goal(s) in front of themselves so they can remember what’s important to them. So, how might you go about capturing your goal(s) so you can keep your eye on them? Well, if you’re like me, you’ll write lists and maybe a narrative [of course, if you’re really like me, you’ll lose the paper, or write on the back of it and then throw it away…and then you’re stuck trying to remember what you had thought was so important to do]. But if what leads to success is keeping the goals in front of ourselves, maybe a better approach is to go with something we look at.

Maybe we take it to the wall! What if you made a visual representation of your goals instead of just writing them down?

A what?!?

Bear with me. Not everyone is verbal or likes to write. And sometimes doing something that feels a little uncomfortable actually changes your vision of the activity (for example, trying to write with your non-dominant hand makes you think about the act of writing differently). And it is a lot easier to hang a visual item on the wall to look at it frequently than it is to pin a bunch of words to the wall.

So, give it a try – this year, as you capture and form your goals make a visual representation of them. You can do this however you choose – make a collage of photos (from magazines or online), draw in your favorite medium (I’m currently shifting from my washable markers phase to crayons…but I just bought some chalk pastels, so I feel another change coming!), paint, sculpt, mixed media – whatever. I’m really keen on a mashup that is part bullet journal, part sketch book, part junk journal. You will probably need some words too – but those can be written, lettered, drawn, cut from magazines or newspapers (if you’ve never seen one of these, they are an ancient form of communication rarely seen in the modern world!) – again however you choose. When you’re done you can hang this where you’ll see it – near your harp? next to your bathroom mirror? next to your tv? Doesn’t matter as long as it’s a place you can see it, reflect, and keep your goals in mind.

And if, like me, you’re more verbal and your mind is screaming “NO!!” – try this anyway. Expressing yourself in a different medium will give you an opportunity to think differently.

Because what’s important is that you keep your goals in mind so you can become a better harp player!

I’ll be working on mine. Let me know if you’re really going to give this a try… and if you’d like to share, I’d be delighted to see how you have captured your goals! Just send a photo!

Happy Goal Setting!

Process – Product – So what?

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Jen

WOW! Last week you had some great comments and questions! A couple of you privately asked what the point was. If you were wondering what the point of all that was – or if there even was a point, you’re about to find out!

I don’t know about you, but I try really hard to not make resolutions at the New Year. If I do make a resolution, it’s usually at an equinox or solstice. Why then? Why not? There’s nothing about 1 January that makes it more special than any other day, although it does feel momentous and there’s great fanfare to its arrival, but any day is a good a starting point.

However, the New Year is the beginning of a year and one could argue that at the beginning is an excellent place to start something. It provides an opportunity to focus on the action needed and to set goals.

So PROCESS? PRODUCT? So what?

Well, goals work best if they are actually aligned with what you want. Goals work worst when they are really good….for someone else! If you’re primarily a process person, you will be better served to have goals that align with you and are more process driven. If, on the other hand, you’re a product person, then setting process goals will likely just result in failure and self-recrimination.

And who wants that?

Since you’ve had the opportunity to think about how Process or Product you are, now you can craft goals for yourself that build on your strengths. By starting with your strengths, you’re much more likely to be successful.

If you’re more Process, you might define goals for the coming year that focus on the journey. These might be longer term, stretching throughout the year (or even across years). Because you’re process oriented, you will do fine with these goals. And you have the flexibility to have any “products” happen when they happen rather than adhering to a schedule. And if there are no products, so what?

If you found you are more Product focused, your goals might look really different. Products are likely to be shorter term, and each of them might be very finite. You can schedule them and then adhere to the schedule as part of the goal. And if you don’t reflect on how you got there, so what?

The lovely thing is that you can use either Process or Product for any goal! If the goal is to play all of the Carolan compositions (since those seem to be all the rage just now with multiple approaches to collecting and arranging them) it’s more how you state the goal and then work it, rather than the goal itself. For a process person, stating the goal that look like this: “I will play through all the Carolans by the end of the year”. For the product person that might be too nebulous, so it might be stated, “I will play one Carolan tune each day for the next 261 days.” Same goal, different approaches. The process person would probably chafe under the product approach and the product person might get nowhere with the process statement – but stated in their own best way, they can each have a great year and achieve that goal!

By focusing on your strengths, you can also develop goals that are less “should” and more “will“. For instance, your goal could be, “I should organize all my sheet music” (can you hear the sneer of that “should”? That sneer is what makes me think, “I should but I won’t”). But what if we shifted it around and removed the “should”? Then it could be stated, “Alphabetize and arrange my music library” (more product) or “Read through and bring some order to my music” (more process).

Of course, this is also the opportunity to set a goal to practice things that don’t come as naturally to you or are uncomfortable for you. This is an opportunity to strengthen your weaker Process or Product side. Do you see how that subtle wording shift above makes the goals more approachable? Also notice that they’re the same goal? Of course in this example, many of us might smush it all together and enjoy a ramble through all the music we want to get to but might not (on the line between Process and Product), but we’ll enjoy the time we spend.

No matter what your goals might be this year, putting them in the context of your strengths will certainly make them more appealing. And more accomplishable. And more enjoyable. Avoiding “shoulds” will also give you the opportunity to shake off the shackles of expectations that don’t fit you.

What are your goals this year? I’d love to hear them – share in the comments!

PS, you may have seen that sometimes I post a comment in which I reference an email rather than a previous comment. I know that not all of you are interested in sharing every thought you ever had with everyone on the planet. You are always welcome to send me an email sharing your thoughts. Usually you have excellent thoughts that I might edit and share your thinking with the group but know that if you send me an email comment and I post it in the comments, I will strip it of all attribution to protect your privacy. I really do like hearing from you so please don’t hide your light!

Welcome to the Process and Product of 2021!

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Jen

It’s that time of the year when we reflect on the past year and think about what might come in the next twelve months.

Of course, the last year wasn’t really all that nice and we might be inclined to avoid thinking about it at all. But that would be a mistake.

You probably learned a great deal in the last year. Some of it good, some of it bad, almost all of it about you. So think about what has happened so you can make a better start to the coming year.

You might think that I’m going to tell you to make your resolutions or goals for 2021. But I’m not. In fact, I think that would not be a good idea. Let’s wait on those goals for a sec and instead, let’s talk about something you’ve been telling me.

One of the things you told me – a lot – was that in the past year, you weren’t motivated. That you weren’t practicing. And that this not practicing lead you to feel badly…because you knew you should be maximizing your time by practicing more.

And if you’re on social media, this might have made you feel even worse as people made videos and wrote music and built complicated multi-window concerts that included participants all over the world and shaped facebook empires and instagram realms, leaving you to feel like you needed to be just as creatively productive …even if you were still working full time (or were mildly depressed by the situation and your infatuation with doomscrolling!).

And possibly even worse, you told me that this made you doubt if you should keep playing. Doubt if you’d ever get back to your harp. Bemoaning your lack of progress…and motivation. Wondering if you ever really were a harp player.

Some of you said something to the effect of – if there’s no one to play for there’s no reason to play and if there’s no reason to play there’s no reason to practice and if I don’t practice then I can’t play…so maybe I should just give it up!

Poppycock!

What you might see as a lack of motivation is likely just a need to determine your style. Once you know what that style is, then you can focus on what works for you.

Some of us are Process people. We are in it for the journey. We love to explore the nooks and crannies of the path. We just love the route – and if we never get anywhere, that’s ok too – we’ll amble along taking in more information, learning as we go, enjoying the ride. We like a unending, undefined pursuit.

Some of us are Product people. We don’t really have a lot of thought for the journey – we are focused on the destination. We love to arrive! We honestly don’t give a fig for how we get there; we just want to get there. And then (possibly even before we get there) we’ll look for our next destination and work on getting there ad nauseum.

The process focus is popularly held as a more enlightened approach. And smugly superior process people like to point out that product people are missing the point, aren’t mindful enough, etc. Product people don’t even look up of course, because they are busy getting where they’re going and don’t have time to listen to process people prattle on about the path.

If you’ve been feeling unmotivated because there’s nowhere to play, you’re probably a Product person.

But as you might have already guessed, there is no one right way. There are even some hybrid people who both enjoy the journey and rejoice in arriving at the destination. As we continue to move through the year with ongoing uncertainty, the process people might appear to have an advantage. But the real advantage will be to those who know what their approach is and going from there.

It is important is to know what you are and to work with that knowledge to achieve two aims:

To encourage yourself to continue
To stretch yourself to be more like you aren’t (and observe how that helps you grow as a musician)

You likely already know which of these you are. If, over the last eight months you were a font of great ideas and noodled around with them and maybe put at least a few of them into play – you are likely a process person. If, on the other hand, your ongoing self-talk included something along the lines of “there’s no one to play for, there’s nothing to do, why would I bother to play” you’re probably a product person.

A Product focus begins with the end in mind – you practice because you have a gig coming up. Or a harp circle. Or a lesson. It might not be in you to practice just for the joy of it. And you might feel silly when you just sit to play – rather than practice – when no one is listening. You typically do practice (only because when it’s time to perform, there’s not many tunes you can just pull out of your ear without practice). For you practice is a means to an end, not a journey.

A Process focus is much more open ended. You dally. You practice things just to know them rather than to prepare to perform. You may look forward to the feel of the harp against you and the sound of the strings as you play. You might noodle for hours just to noodle. And if you never perform that stuff, so what – look at what you learned.

It is important to note –

– most people have a some of both Process and Product,

– one is not better than the other, they’re just different ways to look at the world

So, as you begin to feel your way into the new year, but before you get down to defining what you think the year might look like in terms of your harp life goals or resolutions – I have some homework for you!

Assess yourself and determine if you are more Process or more Product. Be honest!
Once you’ve determined which you are, mark where you are on the continuum
Write down three things that might come from being more what you aren’t (e.g. if you’re mostly process, what are three things that you might benefit from being more product focused)
Write down some ways you anticipate this will make you uncomfortable
Note how this exercise (and actually implementing the three things you identify) might improve your practicing and playing.

Are you more Process or more Product? Let me know what you’re like and what you think your three things might be in the comments below!

Harpy New Year

Posted on December 28, 2020 by Jen

Why, no, that joke never gets old. I’m happy to say “harpy birthday” too!

Well, 2020 is in the rear-view and we can confidently move onto a new, hopefully different and better, year in 2021. Here’s to hoping we have an excellent year full of laughter, life, and music!

I hope you will take a little time to review the year past and find the good things that happened – even if they are small or very far apart. Be realistic, not overly critical, with your attention trained on your positive steps. May I suggest that you look back and reflect positively on all that has occurred.

So, I say to you:

Harpy New Year!

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