Jenius Creations

Author: Jen

  • Tired of Christmas yet?  So, what’s next?

    I get it.  We’ve been teaching, learning, practicing, and performing Christmas music since it was hot!  It’s a limited pool of tunes.  It’s a short window to share them.  And they really aren’t that different from one another.  It can get boring.  And at this point, it is too late to start changing them up…or you’re already doing that and you’re running out of ideas for changes that you can perform on the fly.  After all, by December, we’re likely to be operating on autopilot just a little.

    So, while you’re on autopilot, you might be thinking about what’s next!  What do you want to do?  What tunes are you going to take on?  Do you have a longer-term plan?  Now’s your chance to make a workable plan for the post-December season.

    To do what’s next, we need a plan.  How do you make a plan for your music?  Same as any other plan you might make, you just need to take a few (ok, 10) steps –

    1. Know where you are – take stock of where you are right now.  Be honest and rigorous and identify where you’re starting.  And it’s the foundation of the plan. If you’re not honest, you will have a hard time succeeding in the plan.
    2. Set realistic expectations (based on your real life).  It’s easy to build a perfect and beautiful plan.  But if the plan doesn’t reflect your real life, it will fail.  Do not promise yourself that you will get up at 5 and practice for 2 hours if you are responsible for getting your household up, fed, prepped and out the door by 6:30 every morning!  While it’s a lovely plan, it won’t fit your life. (we’re back to being honest and rigorous with yourself).
    3. Make a schedule.  No matter how good your plan is, it will help to write it down and ensure it fits into your (real) life…the messy one with chores, and work, and meals, and traffic, and showers, and all the other stuff of daily life.  Writing it down will let you see the conflicts and were you have (actual) practice time…and plan in free time – you’ll need it.
    4. Where are you trying to go?  You should begin with the end in mind.  ‘Nough said.
    5. What will it take to get there?  You have to see the space between where you are and where you want to go.  In business and engineering this is called a Gap Analysis.  Be sure to note which specific, steps, techniques, etc. are missing to close the gap.
    6. When do you expect to arrive?  While you may not know how long it will take you to master skills, techniques, or tunes on your path, you may want to develop some idea of how long you think it might take.  Be prepared to be thorough, but also be ready to be wrong.  Remember to be flexible too.
    7. How will you know when you get there?  Before you begin to execute your plan, you will have had to identify where “there” is…so you’ll know when you have arrived!
    8. Do you know why you’re going there?  It helps to define what you need to work on (where you’re trying to go), but it is also important to keep in mind why you’re trying to get there!  Are there techniques you need to learn or perfect?  Is there a particular repertoire element you wanted to build in?  The why is essential to getting there!
    9. What happens if you don’t get there?  Sometimes your plan is to achieve something before a specific event.  Or you need to tackle a particular element on your way to nailing a particulate tune you want in your rep.  But what if you don’t get there – what’s the worse that will happen.  Do you have a contingency?
    10. Did you write any of it down?  You know I’m a fan of keeping track of stuff – and this is no exception!  Take notes, write on your plan, keep a calendar, make a scrap book, use a practice journal.  I don’t care how you keep track, just be sure to keep track.

    Like the meme says, no matter where you go, there you are.  Make a plan so you’re there is somewhere you’d like to be.  What are you thinking you might make a plan for?  Let me know if the comments.

  • Memorize or learn?

    A few years ago, I set myself a goal of having enough music in my head so that I could play a three-hour background gig without sheet music.  This was largely driven by my innate laziness –  I just didn’t want to have to pack up and carry a music stand, a binder of music, a lamp, an extension cord, laundry pins, and whatever else I might have needed to read music to fill the time.  And, to be honest, I also liked the clean look of just a set list, no music stand cluttering up the place.  But mostly I liked not having to carry all that stuff.

    Some of you have asked me how you could memorize all that music.  And you’ve likely seen the questions of memorization come up repeatedly in forums.  So many people believe that they must have sheet music.  That they cannot possible hold music in their heads.  One or two of you have indicated that it is impossible for you to memorize music, that you must read, you cannot depend on recalling anything. 

    Memorize or learn?You say that you can’t memorize, but clearly you can memorize some things – e.g. how to spell your name, how to spell my name!, the recipe for your favorite cookie, the names of the days of the week, the rules for bridge, etc.).  It has been my observation that often what you think is a failure to memorize is often something very different.  

    Memorization is the ability to recall information from memory.  Learning, on the other hand, focuses on the content of the music, the relationships between the notes, and the structure of the tune. 

    Memorization is fragile.  Learning is resilient.

    Memorization, because it is fragile, will desert you when you most need to be able to rely on it!  this can lead to gaps in your ability to deliver a tune when you’re stressed (like on stage!).  Sometimes failure to memorize is actually just a crisis in confidence.  In lessons, when I turn the music over and ask you play, often you do a good job – maybe not perfect, but usually fairly accurate.  That suggests that you actually do have it memorized, mostly, you just think you don’t. 

    Sometimes it’s a crisis in speed.  When I teach tunes aurally, we always want to go faster.  When I ask if you know it, I ask in two different ways.  One is that, even though your fingers aren’t keeping up, you know where you mean to go (and if you’d slow down a little, you’d be fine!).  This is a lack of confidence.  The other is that you have no idea what comes next!  So, you haven’t learned it yet – easily fixed by spending more time.  This is a lack of information.

    When the tune falls apart (when the music is turned or you have no idea what comes next), it’s easy to move on and continue to work – the tune is not yet learned!  But we often skip the learning step.  In a wild-eyed zeal to memorize the tune, we brute force our way through it. We repeat and repeat and repeat.  And we bash it into our hands and our heads.  But we don’t actually know it.  And when you come back tomorrow, you’ll have learned a part of it, but you’ll just have to keep bashing away to get more of it in your head.

    What if we spent more time learning the tune?  Figuring out – for ourselves – where it goes, how it gets there, why it works?  This would allow time to think about the tune as a whole (or at least large sections) rather than focusing on each individual note.  We can learn the relationships between them rather than each individual note of the right hand and each note of the left hand.

    Be honest with yourself – have you learned your tunes?  Or have you just bashed them into your head?  Have you given yourself the time to be thorough and careful, to identify the relationships and to make them meaningful to you?  Have you used your time to identify how the harmonies work and what you like (and don’t like) about them?  Come at them different ways and build strength in the learning so you have a cogent foundation.

    Start today.  Build a collection of tunes you have learned, not memorized.  From that you can build your go to set list that can be as long as you need for each event.  You can even go back to tunes you know you have bashed into your head and specifically work on learning them.  You’ll be surprised how much easier they will be to play!  Be comfortable that those tunes will be there when you need them – and you can lose your music stand too!

  • Happy Thanksgiving!

    Hoping you have much for which to be thankful.  Thank you for reading and being part of my harp life.  I am so grateful for your presence, your humor, your wit, and sometimes your patience!  Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Starting again, again

    I’m on that high you get when you’ve had a great lesson where you’ve worked hard, learned a ton, enjoyed receiving information, knowledge and wisdom from a good teacher, had a genuinely good time, and are now exhausted!

    Woohoo!!

    What? you want to know why I would be taking a lesson?

    That is an easy answer to give – because I needed to start again, again.

    Start again, againThere is so much to know and to learn.  We all have some of the pieces, but none of us has all the pieces.  However, I keep working on the puzzle, so I gathered more pieces from another source – and I think the picture in the puzzle is starting to take shape and be visible!

    I have a beautiful Wurlitzer Starke.  I am so fortunate and grateful to have it.  But, to be honest, it has been collecting dust in the corner.  Of course I play it – occasionally.  But I didn’t play it enough.  And I was making no movement toward the music I got it to work on – music I insisted I needed to play!

    I have a confession to make.  I don’t just like Scottish music.  I love music.  I particularly like Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music.  I’m also a picky taster at the modern table.  But it was hearing Faure’s Impromptu on the radio that compelled me to venture into the pool of the pedal harp.

    Yes, I heard that piece and I was smitten!  Just one teeny-tiny problem – I didn’t actually know how to start.  Because, while yes, a harp is a harp, I was a little bit afraid of my pedal harp.

    So, I needed to start again.

    In that weird way the world works, just before all of this, separately, two of you mentioned needing to start over again – in the same week!  So, I’ve had this idea of starting again, again in mind as I headed out to my lesson.

    Do you need to start again, again?  It’s not a bad idea, and here’s why:

    1. Beginner’s Mind.  You might have heard this concept of keeping a “beginner’s mind” – holding curiosity forefront, being eager to learn, being grateful for each step forward no matter the size.  And perhaps most importantly, the beginner’s mind has no expectations of performance – no disappointment on not getting something right the first try or impatience that it’s “taking too long” to learn something.
    2. No matter where you go, there you are (but you’ve worn down your shoes!) – you might want to start again again just to get a “tune-up”. I’m always amazed how quickly small bad habits can build (and band together!) – a little slump leads to a little neck craning leads to dragging your arm on the sound board and a one way ticket to poorer playing and possible injury.
    3. Someone out there knows something that could push you just a little farther along on your path.  But if you don’t ask for the help and information, you might never get that little shove you need!  And you never know who will have it or what it will look like, so you need to pay attention.
    4. No one wants to become stale.  And it’s easy to do.  It’s so much easier to play the same ten tunes forever, but it’s very motivating to have new repertoire the next time you see your harp buddies.  Whether you have a lesson, go to a workshop, or find new music to learn, you’ll prevent yourself from becoming musty and have an opportunity to start again.
    5. Something worth having is worth fighting for.  It is easy (as in the above) to become complacent, but you know you want to be as good as you can become, and while it might not be a “fight” per se (although that might depend on the tune!), working for something you want has it’s benefits while not working will have significant drawbacks (like being disappointed in yourself!).

    Taking the perspective of starting again, again can be freeing.  Of course, we’re not always in a place where we need to start again, again so if you’re not there that’s great!  But if you find yourself thinking that starting over might be the best way to move forward, really step into it and begin again…again!

    Have you found yourself in this place? How did you know?  what did you do? Was it worth it? Let me know in the comments!

     

  • Veterans’ Day

    Just a thought…

     

     

  • When injury strikes – plow on! (but carefully and smartly)

    One of my students recently broke her arm*.  Really broke, with surgery and plates and screws, and other barbaric medical necessities.  It was not pretty.  She needed time to heal, and I encouraged her to take the time to recover so healing would go faster and more successfully. 

    And with good care and physical therapy (and more patience that I would have shown), she’s been on the mend.  I’m delighted to have her back at the harp (with clearance from the physician and the physical therapist).

    But, she’s a trooper and while she was recovering, she didn’t lay on the couch and moan!  Nope – she plowed on!

    When injury strikes - plow onNow, let me explain what I mean by “plowed on”.  What she did not do is ignore the physical therapist or the physicians.   She did not just sit around.  So, what did she do?  She did the work she could do – carefully and smartly.

    1. She listened to music – because she knows this is a good way to perform mental practice.  You may have heard the old saw, “if you can sing it, you can play it”.  Listening to the tune helps you get the melody in your head, learning the patterns of the notes, the relationships of the phrases, so that you can anticipate what comes next – in your mind!  So when she was healed up, she had a lot of the brain part of learning already done and she was ready to go on to the finger part.
    2. She did her physical therapy – She told the PT that she’s a musician so the therapy could be tailored to her needs.  And she actually did the exercises her PT taught her – both during their sessions and as prescribed between those sessions.  She knew that although the exercises were no fun, they were fun-damental to her recovering and being able to get back to playing sooner.
    3. She continued to play with the other hand.  My students know that we will work to play the melody in both the right – and the left – hands.  Sometimes we also ask the right hand to play the harmony.  We do this both to exercise the left hand to make it more limber but also to make our brains more limber by switching the roles of the two hands.  She was able to keep that up throughout her injury.
    4. She rearranged some tunes – when you can only play with one hand, you rethink your harmonization.  This is an interesting exercise in inversions and it’s a good opportunity to think about the shape and structure of the tune.  Earlier work on hand shapes also meant that she was comfortable building harmonies in one hand…and she knew these would help transition to two hands when the time was right.
    5. She thought before she played – asking so much from your hands really does mean that thinking first makes sense to save unnecessary movement and work.  She analyzed the tune before playing to figure out how to accompany with harmony in just one hand.
    6. She thought after she played – gaining a new perspective from playing with one hand results in new possibilities to analyze your playing, the structure of your practice, and the outcomes.
    7. She rested – after all, your body needs time to recover so resting is certainly necessary for recovery.  And practicing in a new way meant becoming more tired sooner.
    8. She was patient – she understood that this was a serious injury and that, not being a child, it would require time to heal and to knit back together.

    Being injured is never fun and injuring yourself may impact your playing.  But once it has happened, it is what it is – so take care of yourself while you heal – but don’t abandon your harp!  At a minimum it might soothe your hurt to play what you can!

    * like any good article, this is based on a fiction derived as a composite of students.  But if you break an arm – I’d suggest you be smart – just like my composite student!

  • Happy Anniversary! Our 10th year

    It’s amazing to realize that I started writing this blog 10 years ago this week!  The time has flown by.  I started to blog to get the word out about the Harp the Highlands and Islands trips.  And here we are, so much later, talking not only about the trips but also about becoming better harpers and learning stuff! 

    Have you ever wondered how the trips came about?  Through serendipity of course!

    My first trip to Scotland was to St. Andrews.  I didn’t even play the harp then.  The weather was horrible – grey, drizzly, much colder that I expected.  And then – it snowed.  And it was windy and the water looked angry and the beach was bleak – and I l-o-v-e-d it!!

    Over time, I went back to visit, getting a better appreciation for the varied areas.  And the people, the geography, the history, and the sky – the breathtakingly, achingly beautiful sky!  I had a favorite hotel, a favorite B&B, lovely friends to visit, etc.  My favorite place was anywhere within 70 miles of the ocean*.

    Then I began to play the harp, and after a few desultory attempts at celtoid music, my wonderful teacher gave me a gentle nudge that introduced me to Scottish music.  And I found that it was quite possible that I loved the music even more than I loved the sky!

    While at the Ohio Scottish Arts School one summer, it hit me (finally) that nearly all the tune names referred to real places, real people, real events.  I had just seen Killiecrankie Leap – and was possessed with the need to play the tune Killiecrankie.  It was while walking to a meal in Oberlin, Ohio that I was struck by how cool it would be to sit on that rock where the great leap occurred and play that tune!

    I wanted to go to all the places and play all the tunes!!

    That thought simmered for a few years.  I had no idea how would I drag my harp along all those rivers, braes, burns, battlefields, towns’ streets, and through all those castles and stately homes!

    In January 2009 I was invited by my dear friend David to play a Burns Supper.  It was an incredible event and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  At the end of the trip, on the way to the airport as we chitchatted as friends do as their time together draws to an end and I shared my crazy idea to “play the harp at all the places” with him. 

    Well, he took those wisps of thoughts and crafted a trip that landed in some great spots by getting off the beaten track to show people Scotland unpackaged – the place I had come to love and not just some glossy brochure “Outlander” paper doll cut out!  And he scheduled in time to play the harp – every day!  I put together arrangements of tunes that fit the itinerary (and a few extras, just in case) and the trip was born!

    We focused on very small groups in a highly curated approach to travel (and we still do).  David is an amazing host.  I got to meet harpers I would not know otherwise and share tunes I love in locales I adore.

    In 2020, we’ll celebrate our 10th year of sharing with you!  Perhaps the highest complement is how many people have come back to travel with us repeatedly.  In the digital age, I know I should have more photos, but I’m usually too busy being in the moment, sharing with new friends, or making music to take too many photos, but others have done a great job.  In addition, our 2020 trip is sold out already!  Thank you for joining us!

    We’ll keep at it as long as we’re having fun.  If you’ve missed us for our 10th year but you want to come along, leave me a comment and I’ll add you to my contact list for the next trip.  And lift your metaphorical glass – to our anniversary!

    * FYI, no part of Scotland is 70 miles from the ocean!

  • Theory Moment (redux) – Get it your way

    Last week, we talked about why theory is good for you.  But I know that not all of you believed me.  So, this week, I’m going to show you that you’ve got this – but you might have to gut it out!

    But what if you don’t feel the need to share your musical ideas? Do you think that leaves you off the hook?  Of course not! But there is always hope and it comes in two bite sized pieces.

    First, you know more theory than you know you know.  At those workshops we talked about before, they handed out sheet music at the end – could you read it?  I’m not quibbling over whether you’re an expert reader or if you should be sitting at the red bird reading table.  You can read it!  So you know those rules (or at least you know a large number of them).  You also know when you play a chord that just doesn’t “fit” – that’s the rules kicking in.  That “not fitting” is cultural and learned – it’s where a rules violation occurs.

    So, you know those rules.  You have learned them and use them every day.  And they serve you when you’re playing music written and arranged by other people.  Give yourself credit!  (BTW – you know that to move past the red bird table – you just need to practice your reading, right?). 

    Yes, you can just keep at it, learning how chords come together in their various forms, finding what sorts of intervals appeal to you (and which don’t), identifying sorts of chord progressions speak to you – all of that is just various ways of getting to know the rules.

    You can experiment, explore, poke around.  You can thrill at sounds you love and cringe at stuff you don’t.  You can use your harps as a (much loved) tool and work the music until you’re happy.   You can record or make notes. And those notes can be in any form you like.  I once wrote a tune on an airline napkin with a relative scale so I wouldn’t forget it.  I have no idea now why I didn’t bother to sketch in the staff.

    You can be a theory ninja – at your own level, for your own purposes.  But what if you want to make your own arrangements?  Or write them down? Well you can get out your theory book.

    And whether you take the studious approach of learning theory in school or you take the hands-on approach of learning the rules doesn’t matter – as long as you learn the rules.

    Regardless of your path, the point is to better understand the underlying structure of the music, it’s movement and flow, and to render the tune the way you mean to – with more ease and perhaps more confidence.  The road you choose to get there should be a personal choice.  The assumption is that if you “gut it out” you will work harder (and that might be true) but you may develop a deeper understanding if you feel those rules out rather than read them from a book – we all learn our own way.

    Keep working on your theory – read the material and gut out the relationships – so long as you keep going!  Get your theory the best way for you.  Take a risk, explore, enjoy.

  • Theory Moment

    Theory is one of those things that people love to hate.  After all, it is the grammar of music.  The rules.  Written down.  To be learned, memorized, and used.  Theory is the liver and onions of being a musician!

    Some people love liver and onions.  And it’s good for you*.

    But for most of us, theory is hard and unapproachable.  It’s challenging to read.  It’s confusing to read.  It’s boring to read…and if you have to sit through lectures – ugh.  It’s torture to do those listening exercises.  And if you’re not formally trained (by which I mean forced to learn it), it may keep growing into a behemoth of stuff you are going to put off as long as possible.  Maybe you think you’ll hold your musical breath until it’s over.  If you find yourself in a workshop where the presenter starts spouting off theory, you just try to ride the wave, bide your time – does it really matter what key the tune is in? Don’t you just need to know which levers to set?  Why do you need to know that stuff?To be honest, there are loads of reasons to learn theory.  After all, it is the rules of our game.  Like golf, football, or figure skating, the rules are complex and complicated.  But just as a thorough understanding and knowledge of the rules is one of the things that distinguishes a great sports player, that knowing the rules of music will help you be a better harp player. 

    Have you ever sat in a workshop and felt like you didn’t understand what was being said?  Do you have that weird feeling like, although there are harps and people you recognize…it also feels like you’re watching a foreign language film – with missing subtitles?  Knowing your theory makes you part of the club.  The people in the club don’t mean to exclude you (ok actually, unfortunately, sometimes they do, but it has been my experience that often those are the people who only think they know stuff).  It’s ok – you can learn that stuff (no really, you can!).  Knowing the rules is your passport to getting into the “club”. 

    These rules of theory serve to create a language of music.  And that language allows people who know the rules to talk to – and to understand one another. They can easily share their musical ideas with loads of people…and be accurately understood.  They can have an impact!  And that’s kind of important.  Especially if you want to get as much from your musical life as you can – each workshop, each lesson, each harp circle, and each performance.

    And if you want to share your ideas, it is helpful to speak the language.  It’s certainly easier than waving your arms making vague finger shapes in an effort to tell others what you’re thinking!

    There are a number of books on theory if you want to study it yourself.  One of my favorites is Music Theory Made Easy by David Harp (and not just because of his name).  No, it’s not spectacular reading, but it is a handy reference.  I also like the Music Theory For Dummies (go figure) and I found the Alfred books while, if not approachable, at least they’re useful**. 

    It’s true that knowledge is power.  I fought learning and studying this stuff for a long time. But once I had studied a little, things began to fall into place.  And once some things fell into place in my head, playing actually became easier…well, a little easier!  Whether it’s being more familiar with well used chord progressions, making better phrasing, or building sets that make sense, every little scrap of theory you pick up, encode, and use will move you a little farther along your journey

    I hope you can see that actually studying theory may help you play better because you will have a better understanding and will start from a more knowledgeable place.  Do you have a reference you prefer?  Let me know what it is in the comments.

    *  please don’t start a word war about nutrition – you might have noticed that I’m not a nutritionist.  It’s an analogy.

    ** these are suggestions and the links are provided so you can find the books if you want.  I’m not an affiliate, I won’t get any money if you buy the book, I just want you to know what I’m talking about.

  • Harp Room Bling

    Sometimes you just need a little, visible nudge to remind you of what is important to you.  So this week – a downloadable poster.  Print it out (up to 18 in x 24 in) and hang it up near your harp so you remember each time you sit.  Yes it’s goofy – but if it makes you focus or makes you laugh, at least you’ll already be at your harp – so you might as well play a little.To get your copy – just let me know you would like to have it – leave me a comment and I’ll get it to you!