Go Wide

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Jen

One of the best things about teaching is how much you learn from your students. I’ve told you that before and it only becomes more true with each passing day.

Another thing I’m always going on about is practicing. Of course you need to practice. You know that. You know you need to practice most every day. The more you practice, the better you’ll play – you’ll know more, you’ll be more confident, and you’ll just have more to show for your time.

Duh.

But then I have a student say something really profound in its simplicity. And I realize I have to tell you more.

My student and I were talking about “old stuff”. The stuff she knows. The stuff she didn’t really practice any more. Tunes she knows, maybe even loves, but have fallen by the wayside of her mind/list/index card library. The stuff is dying in her repertoire. She was struggling to figure out how to keep those tunes from dying! You have probably also had this experience.

What? How should you structure your practice?

You already know that the longer something you have learned sits, the less well it’s going to go when you give it a dust off. You might be able to pull it out of your head, buy you’re likely to be unimpressed. Or (in my opinion, worse) it’s brilliant…the first time. But when you play it again immediately after, it’s a nightmare! So discouraging.

But if you spend all your time practicing your old stuff, you won’t have time to practice your new stuff. You’ll be stuck. Ugh. How are you ever supposed to move on?

Well, the path forward is through practice. (You knew I would say that).

We often talk about practicing – but we focus on the daily level – the simple, day to day of sitting down, warming up, doing exercise, working through tunes, polishing, and finalizing music before finishing by playing a little something for yourself.

But after you have learned more than about five tunes, this schedule is going to leave you with not nearly enough time to work on every tune based on where in development each tune is.

So you’ll have to go longer each day. Or you can change your focus. Your practice planning will have to expand beyond what you do each day. You will need to think about your practice time across the week. And across the weeks!

Rather than the list we have above, your week plan might include a different focus for each day. That means that while each day holds the basic outline (from warm up to playing for you), the “work” part in the middle of the practice might have a specific concentration. Some examples –

Monday Musing – make sure your plan for the week fits what you’d like to work on just then
Tuesday Technique – you know the little bad habits sneak up on you, this day helps conquer that
Wednesday Work – focus on really working the tunes so you identify the fingering, rhythm, etc you need to work on
Thursday Throughplay – play through all your old tunes (you don’t have to save this for the weekend!)
Friday Furbish – take a day to burnish the tunes that are nearly there
Saturday Survey – assess what you’ve worked on and tweak things from the week that might need a little more time and attention
Sunday Sport and Merry-making – you need to have one day that you just play for fun!

This is just a set of suggestions. You know where you want to go, so build your map for you. Taking this wider view of your practice may help you to be proactive while learning.

Of course, you probably also have your sights set higher. If you’re in a development phase (for instance), you might need to think even wider and build a collection of weeks. But this week’s suggestion will work just fine for learning new tunes to increase your repertoire and help you keep your tunes in your hands.

How would you structure your week? Let me know in the comments!

Composition Challenge – Whew!

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Jen

You always amaze me!

Here we are at the end of the Composition Challenge – and WOW. Just WOW!

First, THANK YOU for all of you who sent compositions, a noodle, an idea. I am so gratified to be entrusted with your art.

For those that sent something but were not ready to share with the world, I encourage you to keep going! And eventually I’d further encourage you to share, share, share! It always amazes me how receptive people are to new music – but you won’t know if you don’t share and ask the question!

And, believe me — I know, that sometimes the deadline sneaks up on us and we are a little bit flat-footed. So if you’re not quite ready to share, but you will be in future – you keep working on it and let me know when you’re ready. I’ll be happy to share my platform with you!

I’d also like to remind you of one really important thing. Like playing, composing requires p-r-a-c-t-i-c-e! We have talked before about ways to get that practice in – improv, noodling, brute force. I guarantee that it gets easier with practice. It does. With practice it will feel less like you’re forcing it. Less like pulling teeth. Less like work. And with time and practice, it will feel more like joy. More like expression. More like breathing. Why yes, it might even begin to feel like music is literally oozing from your pores! But you have to let it.

Here are some of the amazing things some of you were willing to share. Some carefully composed (or carelessly composed!) and some noodling. Some a combination of the two.

The first is titled Noodling BADGE from Barb Costello –

Then we have Sue Richards Herself, using the technique Sue shared and I posted last week –

Then we have Ca’ the Meows – a playful take on a classic –

and our last share this week is from me, Dimitri’s Revenge, from my deep and abiding love of Shostakovitch but in a mock Celtoid style –

Be sure to give these pieces a listen and a play through. And PLEASE – leave comments – be lavish with your praise for the music and the sharing (and frankly the bravery!) of the people who contributed. I know all who shared will enjoy your feedback and encouragement. And remember, if you do take these pieces on and begin to play them for others – attribute the work. A little acknowledgement is nice to receive and a little respect is well deserved!

*All rights held by the composers and shared with permission. Please give credit where it is due!

** If you particularly like one of these and have a hard time getting it downloaded, let me know and I’ll think of a solution!

Composition Seeds

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Jen

Next week we’ll be sharing our compositions – so exciting!

How’s yours coming along? Some of you have sent me delightful peeks at what you’re working on. Some of you are already done.

What’s that? You haven’t started? You don’t think you can do this? You have no idea how to get started?

!!!

No worries! You CAN do this. Please, please, please do not talk yourself out of giving this a try!

I realize this can be daunting. It can be intimidating. You may sit on your bench repeating over and over in your head a low moan: Ican’tdothisI’mnotacomposerI’mnotabrilliantartistIhavenogreat ideaswhydidIevenconsiderthis! *

Here’s the thing, it might be intimidating because, unlike a writer or a painter, you have few constraints. A writer has only the single sheet of white paper. The painter has only to consider the single canvas.**

But we musicians? We have time and space, pitch and rhythm, tempo and time signature, timbre and technique. We have oodles of variables and we haven’t even started thinking about what shape we might be headed toward!

So, to help you along, I’m going to help you narrow your scope. Remember, you don’t have to write a masterpiece! Just compose something. You’re not Mozart or Shubert or J.S. Skinner! And remember, those guys may be known for their masterpieces, but they all started somewhere! We are all beginners at some point (side note – avoid people who forget this important fact! They are toxic – you can do this!).

Remember the major parts of a tune – you need rhythm and pitch. Find that overwhelming? Start with one and then overlay the other on top of it.

I brought you some rhythm seeds that you could start with if you don’t know where to look – to get your creative juices flowing! Use whichever ones you like or add more – there are literally loads of options! They look like one composition (maybe they are?) but feel free to cut/paste as you like – or throw them all away or pick and mix! It’s your composition!

Keep it simple – there are only seven notes in a scale (in modern western music) so that’s fairly limiting in and of itself!
While we’re keeping it simple, stick to a single scale. Like light and happy? Use a major. Feeling dark and moody? Use a minor scale. Feeling stressed? Use a pentatonic scale!
If you’re stuck, use a simple time signature that you’re used to playing in. Like 4/4? Then use that. Always seem to be thinking in 6/8? Then use that.
No source is too good for you! In the comments last week Sue Richards shared a great starter idea. If you missed it, she said,

” Recently on the Nordic FB group, we learned from Mark Harmer how to write tunes based on your name. Here’s the thing:

So my name, Sue, is EGE. Richards is DBCAADDE. So I made a tune out of that. You choose the time signature and key, and develop a LH. It’s pretty cool! I’ll try to post the tune I wrote. I also added my husband Bill: BBDD for the second half of the tune. Good luck, be creative!”

Another way to get rhythm and pitch is to listen to yourself saying something (which might become your lyrics?). You can use the rhythm of your words and the pitch of your voice as a guide to what you tune might shape up to be. Use a favorite poem or saying as a starting point.
Finally, please do not compare your output to anyone else’s. This is not a competition! It is a challenge to each of us to get out of our own way, to try something different and a little bit stimulating! In no way should anything about this make you feel bad (well, unless you told me (and yourself) that you were going to do it but you’re letting yourself slide because it’s a little uncomfortable!).

If you find you are still getting in your own way, sit down on your bench, BREATHE, turn on your phone recorder (the one with the really big red “DELETE” button which is ever so useful!), and tickle your harp. And when it starts to giggle – you can giggle too. Then you’re having a fun time and you’ll probably enjoy the whole thing (just a little…even if you won’t admit it out loud!).

How’s your composition coming? Remember you can send a video, an audio file, sheet music, a photo of the napkin you wrote it on. Still stuck and want other suggestions? Let me know in the comments below! When you’re ready to send me your composition (which can totally be in draft form, it’s not a race after all!) – let me know in the comments and we’ll get these collected for next week!

Happy Composing!

*I realize this is hard to read (it was a little bit hard to type) but it says, “I can’t do this. I’m not a composer. I’m not a brilliant artist. I have no great ideas. Why did I even consider this!” – All TOSH!

**Yes, gross oversimplification, but the idea isn’t to turn you into a writer or a painter!

The March to Autumn – Composition Challenge

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Jen

Think back. Way back. Think back to February when everything was “normal” (whatever that might mean). We were starting a Composition Challenge. Remember that? And then, in the middle of that came the beginning of where we are now. And we were focused on other things – like staying healthy and safe and helping each other get through the beginning of a hard time we are still working our way through.

Earlier in the year we talked about theory and technique and practice and ways to work up our own compositions and I challenged you to develop a composition of your own and I hoped you’d share them. We talked about noodling (here) and ostinato (here). We crossed into March (little did we know what was coming) and talked about the theory that would help you cultivate noodling into a composition (here). Then we endured a time change and we talked about the utility of noodling when you’re tired (here).

But then we were all consumed with trying to care for ourselves and others and the composition challenge seemed to be a little naff in light of people sickening and dying.

Nevertheless time keeps passing and it occurs to me that we should not have abandoned the challenge. After all, making music is helping us hang on to our sanity. Making music gives us succor and allows us to share with others to make their lives just a little bit better.

So, let’s rejoin our game!

Your composition does not need to be complex or complicated. Instead we want to celebrate the process of becoming comfortable with generating musical ideas and putting them together. You can perhaps put together completed ideas, or possibly just fragments. Give ostinato a try (keep in mind that this can be humbling). Poke around the modes and roll them around in your (figurative) mouth, keeping the tasty ones and building from there.

Let’s spend the rest of September working on this. That’s two weeks – plenty of time. It has been my experience that, if you don’t spend all your time telling yourself that this is hard and you can’t do it, you will put out loads of ideas. Some will be keepers. Some will be dreck. And that’s ok! I’d suggest you just set your voice recorder to go (I prop mine up on a music stand) and let your fingers do the walking! Don’t have a voice recorder? Just download a free app and you’re good to go.

But don’t be timid – give it a go. You won’t know what you’re capable of until you try! I’d also like to encourage you to share – this is a warm and generous group and you probably will never find a more welcoming and accepting audience. Perhaps you generate some fragments but don’t feel like you’re successful…but you might find that someone else has also made some fragments – and wouldn’t it be exciting if those fit together to make a tune?!

We’ll finish up Sunday 4^th October – send an audio, a video or a score (fancy-schmancy or handwritten!) and we’ll share them soon after – just in time to enjoy for autumn! If you have questions or need some help let me know. Looking forward to what we come up with!

Ways to do it wrong!

Posted on September 14, 2020 by Jen

I’ve told you that I am immensely lazy, and I hope you are beginning to believe it! Take the holidays, for instance. My favorite time of year – pretty much the same music year after year. Once you learn it, you are good…f-o-r-e-v-e-r! (cue maniacal laughter).

Holiday music – easy-peasy. Or is it? Same thing with your regular repertoire, of course, but it’s at the holidays it becomes really clear. There are still loads of things you can do wrong – here are just 10:

Don’t start practicing until right before you have to deliver. After all, you’ve played it all before, so it won’t take too much time. By assuring you don’t have enough time to practice everything you will be left feeling less confident – and who doesn’t like to perform feeling less than ready? It also assures you don’t actually know the music cold – especially important because everyone you play for will definitely know the tunes, so you really have to deliver.
Don’t add any new tunes. One sure way to keep it dry is to play the same stuff year after year after year after… That way all the tunes can be stale and as boring to you as you can get them. And that won’t show when you play – really.
Don’t keep up your “non-holiday” repertoire. By the time the holidays are actually occurring, the people you’re playing for definitely won’t have been hearing holiday music since Halloween and they won’t be sick of the stuff. And you won’t want to keep their interest by including a few non-holiday tunes, just to keep it fresh for them.
Play everything like you always have. One of the best things about leaving practicing until the last minute is that you also won’t have time to insert some new ideas and you really won’t be able to work on new arrangements…and that way everything can be boring!
Pick one holiday and stick with it. After all, it’s not like people from varied traditions don’t all have holidays at the winter solstice time. If you are in a widely diverse community or if you know you are likely to need music from different traditions – you wouldn’t want to be ready to serve everyone.
Spend all your practice time on tunes. After all, what else is there to practice? Working on exercises and technique builders certainly won’t help you play or learn new music.
Don’t think ahead to next year. It will be so much better to come out of the holiday season flat footed. After all the hubbub of the season, you will not experience a motivational low or just the doldrums of the dead of winter, so failing to think ahead will definitely keep you from getting off to a good start in 2021.
Definitely play all one type of tune. There are so few options at the holidays that you will definitely want to only play Christmas carols. Or the old tried-and-true Christmas songs. That way you and everyone you play for can be railroaded into boredom.
It’s just your family, it doesn’t have to be musical. After all, they’ll have heard you practicing day after day –they won’t really need anything special from you. So definitely just bang out the notes but don’t waste time on making it musical, just for them.
Don’t forget that gifts are all about stuff – so no one (family, friends) would want a gift you’re your gift…or would they?

I know there are many other ways to do it wrong – at the holidays or any time through the year. Let me know in the comments what I forgot…and what I got wrong!

Celebrate Labor Day

Posted on September 7, 2020 by Jen

Happy Labor Day! Hope you enjoy the day, celebrate the end of summer, and have a little time to play – on your harp! What do you have planned for the day? Thank you for spending a little time with me and I’ll look forward to seeing you next week!

You are filled with a sense of urgency. Be patient.

Posted on August 31, 2020 by Jen

– thus spoke my fortune cookie

It is the end of August, that magical time of year…when it has been so hot that it is nearly impossible to believe the winter will ever come. When the holidays feel so far away that you can’t even think about them (even though Halloween candy has been on shelves since the afternoon of July 4^th). And this year, any planning will be done while wearing a mask, contemplating how to have your usual holiday celebration while everyone is inside small boxes on your phone screen.

So, it is exceedingly difficult to get motivated to begin to practice holiday music!

But really, it’s already September, and with accelerated schedules, some might normally be expecting to play Christmas music by early November. Of course, this year, everything is off. But even that isn’t much comfort – because people are trying desperately to be out and about and back to normal and we don’t know when what we have always considered to be normal will return. Which means that just when you’re sure you’ll have nowhere to play, someone will contact you begging you for help!

Any of these can really tarnish your willingness to bring your holiday repertoire up to snuff while simultaneously possibly putting you in the situation of not being ready when the call comes.

And no matter what angst others have expressed, I’ve also heard a lot of people saying some variation of, “I’ve had all this time, I should have already mastered an entire new repertoire, but I haven’t even warmed up!” And that’s about when the Fortune Cookie seems to be prescient!

It’s entirely possible that you will have absolutely nowhere to play holiday music in 2020! It’s also possible that – even if you only play for the cat and the curtains – they won’t be really up for holiday music this year. And although I don’t have many, I am already booking for holiday events, so –

2020 is definitely going to be a test of your internal motivation! Here are a few reasons that I’d like to encourage you to start working on holiday music now:

You already have most of it! One of the best things about holiday music is that, after the first few holidays, you pretty much have the repertoire licked. That isn’t to say that you don’t need to take it out and dust it off and give it a good polish. But you really don’t have to start from scratch – score!
Since you’re only having to polish and shine, you really can use this part of your repertoire to both evaluate your growth in the previous year AND to work on expanding what you already know. If you’re not struggling to remember the melody and the chord progression, you can work on new bits of arrangements, adding introductions and codas, making holiday mashups, etc. And with most of the tunes already in your memory, you can select a few to add for this year.
Think of it as an easy exam! This is rep you play every year! You can use it as an opportunity to see how you’ve grown over the year. (If it helps, pinch your own cheek while saying “My, how you’ve grown” in a sing-song-y voice).
Fake it ‘til you make it. I don’t usually run into the holiday season squealing with glee…if I could drag my feet any more on it, I totally would. But the reality is that the tunes are friendly and that can be uplifting. And while playing holiday tunes doesn’t make me giddy with excitement, they do help propel me out of the darkness of the expanding night. So, practice the rep, paste a smile on your face, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t start to get the holiday spirit (no matter how hard you try to avoid it).
You really may have no where to play this year – but that’s ok. Having a package of holiday tunes will give you the opportunity to play for yourself. I don’t know about you but, especially in the busy holiday season, it can be really nice to reconnect with your instrument…and remember why you fell in love in the first place…and easy, well-learned tunes can help with that.
And, if you are socially distant from everyone you love, like, or tolerate – you can have a ready-made gift from the heart! Even I have managed to make a ton of videos – mostly for students, but some for other things. If I can do it, you can do it. Prop your phone up on your music stand, turn on a lamp, and make a video to share. It’s easy to share with those you love/like/tolerate – and it makes a lovely holiday gift at a very reasonable price!

So, throw off the ennui, plaster a smile on your face, dig out your holiday standards, and blow off the dust. Be patient as you work through the doldrums of the time and allow yourself to have enough time to do the work. What are your favorite holiday tunes? Do you feel like you comfortably know how to make a video and share it? Am I fishing for ideas for upcoming blog posts? Let me know in the comments!

When practice time is fundamentally inadequate

Posted on August 24, 2020 by Jen

Do you know anyone who feels like they’re not getting anywhere with their harp playing? Someone who practices and practices and practices. That person believes themselves to be the poster child for getting enough practicing. Yet, despite this, they feel like they’re not making any improvement.

Sound like anyone you know?

Sometimes, it isn’t your practice time itself. Sometimes it’s what’s happening during that time.

Some people use a brute force approach to practice. They sit on that bench and whack away. They do things over and over and over. They end their practice exhausted and frustrated. All that time and the needle hasn’t moved, the tune isn’t any more aligned with their vision for it, and it’s certainly not any more ready to be performed!

No wonder they’re frustrated! If you keep that up long enough, you wouldn’t want to play either!

But why is that happening? Aren’t the 10,000 hours needed to “master” this gained on the bench? Shouldn’t more practice lead to more accomplishment?

Wellllllll…. It depends.

It is really easy to focus on the pretty, complex, moving parts. To try to play faster. To try to play complicated harmonizations. To smell the sizzle but not see the steak.

You need to include your fundamentals. In – every – practice.

Harp is seductive like that. Unlike the piano, all our scales and arpeggios are the same, no matter what key we’re in. I see a lot of harp players turn that simple truth into this internal conversation, “since all the scales are the same, I only need to do them the one time, learn them, and I’m done – easy peasy!”

And yet, it’s not that simple. We need to continually work on the fundamentals. We need to keep them sharp and ready to go. Why is this? Well – simply –

FUNDAMENTALS ARE THE BEDROCK OF ALL YOUR PLAYING!

You cannot do anything well without those fundamentals – that’s why they’re called fundamentals!

If you critique your hours on the bench – what will you find?

Is your fingering shoddy? Do you chase the strings, using “just in time” as your placement strategy so that you’re never really confident that you’re where you need to be?

Do you have “roach antennae” fingers? Or do you close and relax your hands when you are between finger shapes?

Are you a slouch? Or do you have strong posture that allows all of your body to support your music?

Are you breathing?!

Are you critiquing your work without being judgmental? You can pay attention to what you’re doing, be critical, and only accept good complete work as “done” without condemnation!

If this is new to you, start simple. Can you play a well-executed one octave scale with quiet strings, and accurate fingering? Can you do it in both hands? Can you then do a two-octave scale? Can you play scales the length of your harp? Can you do it in time, on tempo, without errors? If not, start there! If so, go on to add the chords, inversions, arpeggios. Remember that you’re focusing on the fundamentals of playing the harp. While you want this to become automatic for your fingers, you don’t want your brain to be on autopilot!

There’s no need to face these elements of your practice with dread. I said you needed to do them. I didn’t say they had to be boring or horrible! You can spice them up – work in complementary keys, around the circle of fifths, bring over activities from other instruments you play (I’m always recreating my piano practice on the harp). Just do it in a way that allows you to pay attention, learn, improve.

It is worth scheduling time in your practice to work on these (and other) fundamentals every day. By doing this you will not only improve the specific activities but also help them to become habitual and automatic. Only then will you have the mental bandwidth to work on the “fancy” stuff!

By adding this bit of fundamental work to your practice, you’ll find that you are able to improve your tune acquisition and retention. Need help with your fundamentals? I’m happy to work with you!

What fundamentals are you going to add to your practice? Let me know in the comments below.

Stringing along…

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Jen

This week two different people asked me pretty much the same question. That usually tells me that something “everyone knows” is actually not something everyone knows!

The questions were about replacing strings. Not how to replace them, but tips and tricks for replacing them more easily. Broken strings are a fact of life for harpers. And needing to change out dead or “thuddy” strings is also something every harper has experienced (or will) – necessitating changing strings or completely restringing the harp.

Like any activity that is essential if not fun, it helps to be prepared. I have restrung my harp (that could be a whole other post!), but I am mostly prepared for having to replace a broken string at a performance. I have a handy-dandy kit just for that! I made it for my harp case pocket, but when I’m home in my studio, I have it on the shelf. I’m pleased with my set-up and I think from the reactions I’ve gotten from other people at workshops, competitions, and schools, many others think my set-up is pretty cool.

So, this week I’m going to share it with you. As with so many things, this is my way. It is, by no means, the only way or even necessarily the best way. But it has worked for me for a long time. It also makes me smile when i see it. Silly, yes, but so what?! This set up not only keeps all the things I need close to hand, it also keeps everything organized, clean, and unbroken. Is everything you might ever need for a broken string at a gig in there? No, but there’s enough to get out of trouble.

This all started because I would toss my tuner into my harp case pocket and then worry that it would turn on and run the battery down, or get broken, or just come apart. So I started looking for a way to protect it. Then I realized that I also wanted to carry the pickup which is also somewhat delicate. That’s where the box came in. But that was a lot of room, so the other stuff slowly joined in!

Note that these are all items from my set up – this is not an endorsement of any product or brand. Use what you have and stock your kit with what you like.

Let’s get started on our tour.

First, the outside. I use a sandwich box. There’s nothing special about it. It’s just inexpensive – grocery store bought sandwich box. I like it because it fits everything I want to have without taking up a lot of volume in the pocket. What’s really important is that the lid fits and stays closed and that it has enough room for what you want to carry. This assures that the tuner ON button doesn’t get accidentally pushed which is really my biggest concern!

Next, let’s take a look inside! Under the lid, you can see that it takes a little bit of finagling and tessellation to get everything in – but it works! I do capitalize on the flexibility of some of the items to overcome the limitations of the inflexibility of the others.

So, let’s unpack so you can see what’s in there. Remember too that this is a gig bag item, so it has to serve both tuning and string replacement.

First I have a pickup. I know this is likely not strictly necessary, but my sound board is beautiful and responds to just about everything. I think using a pickup helps me tune faster and better – so I use it. I keep it in the box because it is somewhat delicate and the wires can be broken and I don’t want to have to be buying another one every time I turn around!
Next is the tuner itself. In all honesty, I have another tuner but this is my favorite…and you can see that it’s small and flat and fits into the box really well (I keep the other tuner in a different box – mostly because although I like it but it wouldn’t fit in this box!). Additional bonus? Not having to fish around in the case pocket trying to find this tuner – the sandwich box is big enough to easily grab from the pocket.

Now we get to the accoutrements! These are things I have added over time because they came in handy! They all either are essential to replacing a string, or just make it easier. Because remember – this is in my harp case, so I’m not at home, and I may be under time pressure to get the string changed before I have to perform! So I have:

String ends. String ends are used in a harp knot to give it a little more structure against pulling through the sound board. I have two types of string ends. The first are the traditional ones – bits of an old string cut into 1 inch pieces. These work and if you don’t have any, you can make some from a thicker nylon (or gut) string (preferably one that has broken) or you can buy them from reputable string sellers (some string vendors will send them gratis if you buy a lot of strings). But I also have a leather shoelace – the kind sold for boat shoes. They can be cut to the same one inch length as the bits of old string. The benefits of the shoelace are that they are a little easier to hold onto while tying the knot and they are soft and flexible which means that you don’t get buzzing which sometimes happens with the harder string ends. I keep the whole lace, but it would be more space efficient to make some cuts and keep them in the box.
Candle Sticky Stuff. I got this tip a long time ago. Putting just a little bit of candle adhesive onto the knot after you tie it makes it so much easier to seat the knot and get on with winding the string. This small tin holds wax. Just work up a small ball (like a pearl) – just enough to give you just enough tackiness to hold the knot together while you feed it through the soundboard (especially on the very thin strings at the top). It does save you a great deal of frustration and swearing! You can find this online or in hardware and craft stores and there are multiple brands available.
Major nail care. I don’t know about you, but there’s something about having a gig that seems to make my fingernails grow! They can be fine when I leave but when I get ready to play, they have magically gotten too long! So I have this little cheap nail kit – I wouldn’t want to use it for day-to-day nail maintenance, but in a pinch, I can be sure that I feel confident that I’ve gotten my nails short enough. Bonus – I use the nail clippers to cut the string after I’ve gotten it wound on. I got this at a drugstore or a large square footage discount department store.
Minor nail care. I found this little “matchbook” set of nail files and they have been in this box ever since. I prefer emery boards over metal nail files but have also used them to smooth chapped fingers as well. I got this at a drugstore or a large square footage discount department store. A single emory board would also work, but I thought these were cute.

Thanks for taking a tour of the box! I hope it helps you plan something similar for your harp case. Do you have a similar box? What do you have in yours? What’s really worked for you? Let me know in the comments!

Practice Gratitude

Posted on August 10, 2020 by Jen

I hear that we should all be practicing gratitude. Especially now. The sentiment seems to be everywhere.

But I’ve heard it so much that my mind started bending it a little – shifting the emphasis. I can’t hear it the way everyone means anymore because in my head it’s:

PRACTICE gratitude

As in, be grateful for your practice time.

Hmm.

Why would we be grateful for practice time? I can think of a few reasons:

It’s time we spend on ourselves to grow in an area we find important
It creates a little oasis of time in our otherwise busy days
It provides an element of normality when things around us are unpredictable or uncertain
It is a moment of self-development (and not a self-indulgence)

So, we can pretty much dispense with the any puerile comments on how we “have” to practice “again”. Instead – we “get” to practice again!

Practice is clearly not only good for us, but something we want to do, no matter how it might not feel like it in the moment. How might we do that? Here are 15 ways we can practice and enjoy the time and be grateful for our practice time:

Enjoy the ritual of tuning. Rather than seeing it as a chore, take the time to slow down and reconnect with your instrument.
Don’t waste your time doing garbage practice. When you’re practicing, focus.
Don’t accept anything less than your best effort.
When something is not coming, reframe that frustration as gratitude for the opportunity to learn.
Enjoy the little things – each time you practice, remind yourself of at least one thing you enjoy about playing.
Take note – identify the progress you’re making and notice the improvement day on day.
While you’re practicing – breathe!
While you’re practicing – smile at least once.
While you’re practicing – feel it. Enjoy the touch of the strings, the sound of the music, the feel of the harp as it vibrates on your shoulder.
Practice with an aim to being able to share – this can be with your cohabitants, your neighbors, or the world at large – but keep it in mind.
After you have worked on something particularly tough, whether you’ve gotten it or if it still needs some time – provide honest praise for the work. Yes, I mean tell yourself you did a good job!
No matter how little time you have, end each practice with a tune you know and love and like to play.
Take a moment in each practice session to tell yourself something you enjoyed or are grateful you can do.
Take a moment at the end of your time to jot down what you’re grateful for in your practice journal.
Find time to play every day.

I’m sure there are a zillion other ways we can be grateful for our practice time and express that gratitude. What do you do to Practice Gratitude? If you haven’t been having Practicing Gratitude, which of these will you start to get you on your way? Let me know in the comments below!

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