Author Archives: Jen

Getting out of the Land of Should

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I love teaching.  I learn so much from each of my students.  They all have their own strengths and challenges, but I find that there are sometimes overlaps.  This week, no less than three students have been trapped in the Land of Should – a dark and horrible place which is easy to find and sometimes hard to leave.

You might have been there. You might be there right now.  You can tell you’re there by the signs:

“I should practice more”

“I should be more motivated (even though there’s a global pandemic and nothing is as it typically is)”

“I should be able to ignore the things going on in my life and keep playing”

“I should be able to play this by now”

“I should be better than I am”

I get it.  The Land of Should can be very seductive.  And sometimes it seems like it’s the only place the bus stops.

But being trapped in the Land of Should is actually painful and not very comfortable.  After all, WHY should you (practice more, be more motivated, be more accomplished, and by extension, have a pristine home, have read all the “right” books, being wearing the right look, etc. – whatever)??

But shoulds are often unhelpful – these thoughts don’t get you any further ahead. Telling yourself you should do (or be) something doesn’t change anything or suggest useful changes.  It only sets you up to feel like you’ll never get where you’re going.  The Land of Should is like that.

One way to look at is that these thoughts are actually you bullying yourself!  You’re telling yourself you’re a disappointment.  Would you say something like that to your best friend?  I didn’t think so.

And right now, we all need a little more TLC – especially from ourselves!  Even the most stalwart and resilient among us are feeling a little peaky.  So, it’s no surprise if the pull of the Land of Should is becoming stronger.

How do you escape its terrible orbit?  Here are five ways to get out of the Land of Should:

  1. Journal.  You know I’m always exhorting you to keep a journal of your practice.  Here’s a good use for it.  First, you can document your practice time – what (objectively) did you work on, where did you leave it, where will you pick it up next time?  Secondly, you can also capture how you are feeling about the time you had (especially if you’re feeling like you have not done enough).  As always, keep your journal in any means that works for you – in a notebook, on your computer, as an oral history in your phone voice memos, as an abstract drawing – it doesn’t matter how you keep it as long as that medium works for you!
  2. Be realistic.  There’s a lot going on in the world, no matter who you are or where you live.  With the ongoing uncertainty and changing information as physicians and scientists learn more about it, it’s easy to feel like we’ll never have our feet on solid ground again.  You can use your time at the harp to help soothe your frayed nerves and the anxiety of not knowing.  Maybe this isn’t the time to double your repertoire or add those highly chromatic pieces you admire but don’t feel ready to take on.  But you do have repertoire already with which you can be fairly comfortable – play that.  Noodle!  Improvise.  Play nothing at all.  But don’t cut yourself off from your harp.  At a minimum, allow the reverberations of playing the notes impact your body.  Take some time and take some ease.  No matter your level of play, you can do this!  Are you a rank beginner, still trying to remember which finger is 2?  No worries, play a single string and let it ring while you feel the gentle vibration and hear the beautiful timbre!  Then play another. Think that’s only for beginners?  Nope – there’s a lot of soothing in a playing a single string and letting it reverb for you for as long as it likes…then play another one, etc.
  3. Reframe.  It is easy (especially in difficult times) to focus on the negative, to beat yourself up and as a result to feel bad.  Reframe your thoughts! It isn’t that you didn’t practice enough.  Rather, you made the best use of limited available time.  It isn’t that you aren’t progressing.  Rather, you currently have higher priorities requiring your time and attention.  It isn’t that you’re not motivated.  Rather you are dealing with a lot and will be back and focused soon.  But DO NOT tell yourself you’re not “good enough” because you haven’t done something.
  4. Study your history.  You haven’t always felt this way.  Think back to a time when you didn’t feel like this and understand that you have ups and downs and that’s ok.  Your truth includes being strong and resilient and sometimes it includes being a little bit fragile and that the fragility passes – and all of it is part of you!  And that’s kind of cool – because there’s interesting in there (to be found sometime when you’re transitioning from fragile to strong!).
  5. Be nice…and positive.  Be nice in general, but especially be nice to you!  And don’t torment yourself.  Instead, focus on the good (if only because it’s so easy to focus on the bad – and who wants to do easy stuff?).

If you find yourself lost in the Land of Should, perhaps one of these might help.  If something works for you, please let me know.  And if you have another way to escape – please share in the comments below.

World Art Day is this week

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The silent siege rages on.  We the fortunate work from home, stay inside, and “do our part” (whatever that means).  Sadly, people are becoming more isolated, even while feverishly posting to social media – lighting a match to hold back the darkness.

But this week can be just a little bit different.  This week we honor the fine arts by celebrating World Art Day on 15 April.

Which is ever so much better than Tax Day (if you just had a moment of panic, relax, they moved the deadline to 15 July – you may resume your regularly scheduled delaying).

The International Association of Art (www.iaa-usa.org)  declared 15 April as World Art Day (I cannot make this stuff up) to promote awareness of creative activity world wide.  They chose this day because it is also Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday.  And if ever there was a walking personification of the fine arts, ‘twas he.

In case you’re wondering what this has to do with us as musicians – in a word, everything!  Many think the fine arts only includes painting, drawing, and sculpture, but it is much broader.  And you guessed it, includes music!  (and other things like literature, architecture, dance and more)

In the US there’s a big celebration in Los Angeles with loads of events planned.  Well, there was to be a big celebration in museums all over the area.  But as you might have guessed, that will not be the case this year.  With museums and other public spaces closed, these events will certainly take a different from (if they occur at all). 

So what are we – we fine artists – to do? 

Let’s be creative!

And let’s share our fine art.

Because now more than ever, we need to be making art. We need to be making art to care for ourselves.  And perhaps even more, non-artists really need to be experiencing art!  So we need to be making art to care for others.

So, let’s share our arts. Not to put too fine a point on it – our art is fine.  There are many things you could do.  Here are a cursory few:

  • Put on a driveway/balcony/porch concert for your neighbors and other passersby (and if you really only perform for the cat and the curtains – go onto your back porch – the neighbors will benefit and you will too!)
  • Make a YouTube/Facebook/Instagram sharing event
  • Write some music that shares all the feelings you are experiencing while being at home, waiting – or reflect your musical thoughts on the difficulty someone else may have shared with you
  • Curate a playlist of music that reflects your mood
  • Create a set list (maybe for your driveway concert) that celebrates our resilience and what we’re going to do when this is past us
  • Take some online workshops
  • Make all kinds of fine art and put it in your windows to share with your neighbors – paint, draw, write, act, play

How will you celebrate World Art Day? Let me know and share photos!  And remember, if you want – every day can be World Art Day!

 

Kate sent me this photo of her Covid-19 protected harp!  Kate’s a nurse and knows the importance of keeping healthy – 

Summer? Maybe not…instead –

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It’s that time on the calendar when I usually take some space to mention some of my favorite summer programs and activities so you can save your pennies and dates and plan to go to as many interesting, educational, and cool adventures as you can swing.

This year – not so much.

We’re still watching from the windows, waiting for the shadow to pass.  Hopefully it will leave us alone, but not before many of the summer activities will be cancelled or postponed.

But we are the lucky ones – we have our beautiful instruments and our soul-touching music – our companions in times good and bad.  We have a port in the storm that feels like it will never recede.

It will recede, as storms (and diseases) do.  And after a while we will timidly leave our homes and venture out.  Slowly, as we do, things will return to normal.  Normal – and all that it entails – too much going on, too much to do, too much to accomplish.

Don’t be one of the people who, at the end of this confinement, looks back and wonders where the time went!  If you are home and you are not sick – what a gift – you have time!

You can use this time chained to the constant blather of news that isn’t – or you can go to your harp!  But what will you do there?  Well, what would you like to do?  While the answer to that depends on you, here are some ideas to get you started:

  1. Basics.  Get our your favorite love to hate source – Grossi?  Friou? Salzedo? Sylvia?  Doesn’t matter (they are all useful).  Pull it out and turn to page 1.  YUP – Page 1!  Then do the things we know we are supposed to do, but somehow there’s rarely time for.  Go slowly.  Read carefully.  Be your own terrifying maestro – accept nothing short of excellence from yourself.  Close!  Watch your posture!  Breathe!  Do it right!  Then do it again!  Don’t speed through just to get to the next one.  Savor each exercise.  Ask yourself – what am I meant to learn here?  What tunes that I currently play can I apply this to?  There is no race – compare yourself to you yesterday and identify where you’d like to be tomorrow and find how will this help get you there.  And through it all – enjoy it.  Dig in and feel your growth.
  2. Read.  Reading is a skill you develop and a tool you can use.  Reading will help you broaden your perspective and possibly open you to new ideas.  Don’t use the excuse that you play traditional music to put off bettering your reading.  You don’t always have the luxury of hearing everything either.  Reading will make all sorts of things accessible – collections, other genres, stuff you read just to practice reading.  But you’ll only get more facile at reading by doing it (just like when you were in first grade!).
  3. Listen.  You learn so much by listening.  You’ll learn new music of course.  But, like reading, you’ll get better at listening if you practice.  What do you hear first?  What do you struggle to hear when you listen (I’m talking about what you process, not how well your ears work).  How do you transfer what you hear to the harp?  Listen to everything you can lay your hands on – other harpers but also fiddlers, pipers, drummers, classical music, modern music, traditional music outside your usual sphere – everything.  I’m listening to Depeche Mode as I write this and I’m keying in on the base line and wondering how I could adapt the idea to a tune I’m arranging just now.  Yes it’s a stretch, but it only takes the kernel of an idea to get started, if you work it (usually over time).
  4. Learn.  You’re never going to get this kind of opportunity again (I hope!) so pull out all those tunes you half learned, never really got up to speed, used to play all the time but have sort of forgotten – and set out to learn them.  Really learn them.  Don’t forget all the new stuff you haven’t even started on!  Like all the other stuff, don’t accept half way.  If you’re having trouble with something – go back to 1 (above) and find an exercise that will help you (or make the tricky bit into an exercise), find a source to look at (and write on!), find recordings (if possible), and work with your tunes until they can worm their way into your head.
  5. Enjoy.  Have fun – never forget why you play!

Summer may be cancelled, but we still have our harps!

Next week – ways to get yourself sorted, organized and keep from spinning around not actually learning anything!  How are you spending your harp time while staying at home?  Let me know if the comments!

From me to you

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The tyranny of the invisible thingies continues.  And this makes many remain feeling a little unsettled.  We pretend that words like AloneTogether make us feel better – but really, they don’t.  The upside is that we have the technology to keep reaching out to one another – to maintain contact and be together even though we’re at least six feet apart.

Since we have this connection, I wanted to reach out to you my subscribers – with a little poster you might want to print out.  I made it to help cheer you when you’re not feeling so much like playing…even while you know playing will probably help you feel a little bit better and help you to count your joys.

This whole thing won’t last long (in the grand scheme), so stay safe, stay the course, stay home.  And keep practicing.  Maybe take your harp out to the sunshine and play for your neighbors to help cheer them as well and share a joy for them to count as well.

Not a subscriber yet?  You can sign up here.

Breathe

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There’s not much that I can tell you that you haven’t already heard about the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.  If you need information, there’s loads available in all the usual outlets.

What I can do though, is strongly encourage you to take care of yourself and those in your life.  There all the usual precautions – avoid others, wash your hands, disinfect surfaces.

You might be surprised I don’t have a lot to say – especially since I usually do.  In this case, I just don’t have a lot to add.

But one thing I can stress to you is that this is a time of turmoil.  And in those tumultuous times, the importance of spending time with your harp only increases. 

No, this is not my usual exhortation that you practice.  This time, I strongly encourage you to play for you.  To bolster your spirits – and the spirits of those around you.  Never underestimate the succor your harp can provide you and those in your household in times of turmoil.

The anxiety and stress of times of uncertainty may leave you feeling like you don’t want to (or don’t have time to) play.  Don’t allow stress and concern to convince you that you “must” practice – because you might not want to.  Don’t let your anxiety pull you away!

Whatever you do, just play.  Allow the music and the reverberation flow over you and soothe frayed nerves.  Enjoy the feel of the harp itself.  Revel in the meditation of tuning and the simple joy of warming up.  Play what helps you feel centered.  There are many opportunities to share your music and I encourage you to do that but if you’re not interested in doing that, just play.  If you are of a mind, share video in the usual places to help others (don’t have a usual place? send it to me and I’ll be happy to share it for you).

Help others by sharing your gift.  We will all be better for it.   And of course, if you’re playing, you are likely social distancing!  Are you playing for yourself? For others?  Let us know in the comments below.

March is National Noodle Month – I’m SO Tired!

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Who knew?!  Yes, March is National Noodle Month, and with the return to Daylight Saving Time, we’ll need it!

I always warn you about the time changes.  Especially those of you that live far from the equator where you gain or lose multiple minutes of daylight each day.  The imposed time change is hard on people, and we are no exception.

But you’re in luck!  If you’re playing along with the four week composition challenge, you’ve now established noodling at every practice session.  That noodling might just help save your practicing while you adjust to the new weird daylight that isn’t happening when it is supposed to.

March is National Noodle Month...Noodling can lead to composing!Because…

  • you can noodle when you are tired. 
  • there’s no right in noodling.  And possibly more importantly
  • there is also no wrong in noodling either! 

It’s just the thing for when your brain and your hands are just not up to working together.  Or working at all.  Perhaps best of all – noodling is still playing, so it totally counts as practice!

One of the first things I learned as a fledgling harper was the pentatonic improvisation.  I typically share it with my students in their first or second lesson (they might use a different verb than share – a verb like impose or coerce!). 

If you’re not familiar with pentatonic improv, the pentatonic scale has five notes (from the Greek – penta (five) and tonic (note)).  On the piano (if you’re so inclined) the black keys make a lovely, easy to find pentatonic scale.  On the harp, set yourself to the C major scale and PLAY ONLY THE WHITE STRINGS!  This will give you a lovely pentatonic scale from which to easily work.* 

Go ahead, give it a try.  I’ll wait.

What you’ll notice about a pentatonic scale is that there’s no “ugly”.  You truly cannot make a bad noise if you stay in the scale (that is, play only the white strings).  Everything you play within the scale sounds pretty good.

Isn’t that freeing?  Now you can noodle with abandon, regardless of how tired you are, because nothing, literally NOTHING you play will sound bad!

And because nothing will sound terrible, you have no reason not to click your recorder on while you noodle.  After all, you have a delete button so if there’s nothing inspired, no loss.  And you have a record button, so if you listen later and hear amazing – you’ll be able to reconstruct those musical thoughts and build them into a composition (or just keep them as something to amuse yourself).

All that from a little noodling when you’re too tired to practice!  Give it a try – and see if having a fun, easy poke around the harp doesn’t maybe give you a little energy boost.  Maybe even enough energy to practice when you’re tired. 

Keep noodling even after you’ve adapted to the time change – it’s a great addition to your practice and it’ll get you used to collecting your thoughts!

 

* of course there are other pentatonic scales on the harp (or the piano) but the ones I’ve presented here are so easy that you’ll have a scale that requires no effort to find.  If you prefer something other than the G major pentatonic scale, go for it!

Theory Moment – Noodling Support

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So, we’re beginning week three of our composition challenge. How’s it coming along?

Hopefully you’ve found some stuff you like in your noodling and have begun to string some of those ideas together. And hopefully you’re enjoying the creating and not pooh-pooh-ing every idea you have generated!

Some of you may be ready to keep going in your compositions and to add some harmonies. There are lots of ways to do this. You could generate countermelodies or simple harmonies. Or you might want to stick in some chords to build harmonization. Here’s where being familiar with music theory could help you along.

Come out from under the bed. Music theory isn’t scary! It sounds scary, but it really is just a way to talk about what we already know (yes, of course, we could make it scary – but why?!).

What might help you with your noodling composition? Maybe knowing what scale you’re using?  Is it one of the frequently used scales (major or minor or one of the other modes)? Or have you used (or made) a different scale? Once you know that, you can begin to fit some chords that will enhance your melody*.

Scales are defined by the relationships of the notes in them.

Whaaa?

The intervals (whole and half) are the way scales are “measured”.  Intervals are the distance between notes (if that doesn’t mean anything to you, no worries, it will eventually – you just keep noodling…and reading!).  So, a Major scale is Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half. The Major scale is also called the Ionian mode. Meanwhile, a (natural) Minor scale (or Aeolian mode) is defined as Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole. The Dorian mode is another popular scale which starts on the second with the intervals Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole. A number of traditional tunes from Scotland, Ireland, England (and others) are Dorian. We’ll stop (for now) with the Mixolydian mode which starts on the fifth and is defined as Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Half, Whole (note it’s very close to the major scale). This is the bagpipe scale so loads of Scottish (and Irish) tunes are in this scale.

What about the chords? Well, that’s sort of up to you, but if you were looking for a “rule of thumb” you might consider that for the Major (Ionian) scale, you might like using the I (root/tonic), IV (the fourth), and the V (the fifth). You could actually use this for everything, and it’ll probably work.  But if you’re clearly in the Minor (Aeolian) scale, you might try the I, the VII, and the vi. And if you’re in Mixolydian, maybe the I and the VII.

Of course, there is no wrong. There might be jarring or sweet or “interesting” or perfect or harsh. This is when it’s time for your trusty recorder. Get your ideas down and listen to them over and over and over. Do they actually sound like you thought they did? You might find that what started as jarring becomes less harsh and more interesting as you listen to it more – all because you’ve become accustomed to it.  And you might find that what seemed perfect is actually a little uninteresting…

So don’t throw out ideas. Capture them. Nurture them. Let them marinate in your ear and in your mind before you decide what to do with them.

What have you heard? What did you do? Did you modify your growing melody or it’s developing harmony? Let me know in the comments.

* this post is not meant to be a comprehensive theory lesson. There are many theory resources available in bookshops and online. But this isn’t meant to be an excuse to hide in a book – go forth, be bold, make mistakes, make memories, have fun, just enjoy…the theory words can be fitted later – just make some music!

Putting the Ah in Ostinato

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Ostinato as meditation – you know, like in Ahhhh-stinato!

One thing I love about ostinato is its origin – it is from the Italian…for obstinate!  Which is exactly what you need to be to get this very useful element locked into your head and your fingers.  An ostinato is a pattern that repeats and can be a repetition of pitch or of rhythm.  And while some people find them terrifying, there’s another way to look at them.

The fabulous Maeve Gilchrist is a wizard of ostinato (check out her book Rhythm and Hand Separation Exercises and Etudes Book 1).  She has worked hard to master all sorts of patterns and she is rock solid.  One of the things I love about her playing is the unexpected things she can weave over that bass pattern – and you the listener can just sit back and enjoy, buoyed and comforted by that underlying rock of sound.

Because ostinato is difficult time consuming to get solid, many people avoid it.  But it totally worth the time.  A real challenge though, is to first focus on the ostinato itself.  It is very easy to think you’ve got it when it’s not quite there.  And it does take a little grit and determination – because it’s like other foundational elements – it has a hard slog in the middle where you feel stuck.  But you will get there if you keep at it. 

Nope, I’m not going to tell you it’s worth the time because it’s useful or builds strong finger or hones your rhythm (although it does).

Ostinato is a great tool, once nailed down, to check out.

What?!?!?

Yup, think of it as a meditative thing.  Once you have got the basic idea inculcated, you don’t really need to watch the pot (so to speak).  And that frees up space capacity in your brain so you can do one of a couple of other things:

  1. Just rock the ostinato and let your mind wander around.  Make it a meditation.  Really.
  2. What might be cool if you put that pattern with it?  Where would you go?  How might you get there?  This could lead to noodling and eventually to a great improv, some really useful vamp or an entirely new composition (which you could also do by looking at great art, a la last week’s post).
  3. Once you have the pattern down, you can mess around with the pattern itself – see where that leads.  You might find more cool stuff down that rabbit hole. 

Start with an easy pattern – maybe an Alberti bass or find a pattern from an technique book), jut to get the idea.  Keep working it.  Maybe think about it as you noodle on the 4 week challenge we set last week.  How might you noodle over that pattern?  Give it some time and you’ll see how it can become hypnotic – go with it.  Let it ride, find the ahhhhh and see where you end up.

And let me know where you end up in the comments below!

Why should Mary Poppins have all the fun?

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Do you remember that scene in Mary Poppins where they join hands and jump into a sidewalk painting?  They become part of a new world that was wondrous and fantastic.  It was great and they were totally immersed in their art – LoL.

There is a frequently suggested exercise for composing that is the same idea.

Composition seems to come so easily to some.  Not to me.  But I do know people who seem to compose a new tune with each breath they take.  I’d hate those people if I wasn’t so enamored with them!

This disparity in apparent ease can quickly and easily become an insurmountable wall.  The barrier between us and them.  But it doesn’t have to be.  Because composition, like anything else, improves…with practice.

Jump in with both feet using art as a prompt for compositionEven if you don’t want to be a composer, you might want to give composition a try.  It’s certainly not the same as playing and simply by dabbling, you might learn a lot.

But let’s say you do want to give it a try – to make some small thing that is truly yours.  Here’s a way to go about it –

Try this exercise.  Find a piece of art that captivates you.  Any piece of art.  Could be a work by the Old Masters.  Could be a photograph or a sculpture or interpretive dance.  Or an ad on a bus stop.  The form is irrelevant – that it piques you is essential!

Now, sit at your harp.  Turn on a recorder.  Look at (or think about) the artwork and just noodle.  NOODLE – DO NOT COMPOSE!  Noodle only.  Keep your recorder going. Keep thinking about the artwork and what about it captured you.  Just keep noodling.

Any time an “I can’t” surfaces in your mind reply with, “Thank you for your input.  Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”  Then take a deep breath and jump right back in and keep noodling. 

If you’re having a hard time, set your harp to C and play only the white strings.  Think about the art.  Keep going.

Will this result in a composition?  Probably not…the first time.  But keep at it.  Make it a part of your practice time.  Set 10 minutes aside each day.  You will find that it becomes easier to do it the more you stick to it.  When the art isn’t speaking to you any longer, choose a new work.

Will this turn you into Williams or Telemann or Bach or Schumann?  Maybe not.  But it might just set you free from constraints you didn’t know you had.  For example, I did an impressive impression of Cage one day! (Cage is credited with copyrighting silence as a musical composition entitled 4′33″)

So, a challenge.  Let’s give this a try.  Choose a piece of art that inspires you.  Then for the next four weeks, follow that plan above.  At the end of four weeks (that’s 14 March) send me a picture of the art and an audio file of what you’ve come up with.  This isn’t a contest, so your work doesn’t have to be complicated or polished – or even finished.  We’re just encouraging each other to be bold and experimental and creative and open to sharing.  We will all win by trying! 

Are you in?  Shall we jump in with both feet and see what happens?  Let me know in the comments below –