Feynman was right

Posted on by

There is one more place available to come with us to Ireland and Scotland in October! You know you want to go so check out the details and get your spot secured!

You already know that I really enjoy teaching. I have wonderful and amazing students, and I am certain that I learn more from them than they learn from me!

Richard Feynman (the genius scientist – and yes, I am an unabashed fan girl) was well known for pointing out that the best way to learn something (and to be certain you had learned it) is to teach it. The part he didn’t really highlight was that your own depth of learning would grow by teaching the same material to different people. Each of them will start where they are (where else could they?!) and take in what they are able in the order that they need to make sense of the world as you (the teacher) have presented it.

This means that I, as the teacher, must break out of my own place to provide what they can accommodate in a sequence that makes sense – to them. That’s a challenge – and I love it! Simply by being themselves, they push me to bend and stretch and reach for the stars. And when a student “gets it” – whether it is a tune, a harmony, a phrase, or even an interval – I rejoice! Because learning is demanding work and I’m grateful to be a part of it.

I sometimes worry that they will think I’m mocking them – and that’s when I wish we had LED displays on our heart – so they could see the joy for what it is – pure delight!

All that sounds like it’s all about me. And true, some of it is. After all, it can be brow breaking work to be flexible and creative hour after hour, day after day on the bench. But more importantly, 99% of is all about the student. Each thing they learn makes a brick to build the bridge from where we are to where we’re going – the next step of their journey. I’m just the tour guide.

Is there anything more fulfilling than being that guide? I don’t think so! You can have that too – I’d like to suggest that you offer a “come and try” (or “harp petting zoo”). You can make it part of your Music Day or Random Acts of Harping event. Because, for all my blether here, you – yes, you! – could share the same joy by teaching someone about the joy of making music and of playing the harp in particular!

Here’s your lesson plan:

  • Put your harp in Cmaj (no sharps, no flats).
  • Invite them to sit.
  • Hold onto your harp and guide it to them. Remind them not to lean forward (no, really, everyone does it).
  • Tell them to use their pointer finger on either hand to play any white string.
  • Demonstrate that they can’t really break the harp by pulling really hard on a string. Do NOT let go of the column (so you can stay in control of the harp).
  • No matter how much you want to jump in, (and as long as everyone is safe) let them explore for a moment – even the timid. Pay attention to their cues to pace yourself.
  • After a decent interval, teach them to Gliss (everyone one loves to do that most harpy of things).
  • If they seem keen, you can teach them Twinkle Little Star or Frere Jacques (using just the 2 finger).

It’s about them learning and enjoying. Don’t pin the reluctant to the bench and encourage the engaged. And on occasion check in with your heart – it’ll probably be full of joy!

Have you done a come and try? Tell me about it! Never done one? Are you going to try now? Let me know with a comment! BTW – I’m excited to be doing a come and try at the Ohio Scottish Games on Saturday, 28 June at 3pm. Come to the Harp Competition which starts at 9am and stay for the fun!

National Music Day is Saturday – perfect opportunity to get out there! Pair it with Random Acts of Harping and you’ve got a slam dunk!

Random Acts of Harping

Posted on by

If you’ve played the harp for any length of time you might have heard of Random Acts of Harping. Joanna Mell started it years ago. It used to be a specific day that people would randomly go out and play – in a park, at a nursing home, wherever. The idea was to make a generous contribution of your music to the world and post it to social media. Nowadays we would call it a pop-up concert!

This year she called for it to be any time in the month of June, which is a great idea, because of course there’s no one day that’s good for everyone all over the world to have the opportunity to go out and play. And I’m sure it hasn’t escaped you that it is, in fact, already June.

While I’m good for popping up unannounced and randomly to play for passersby, complete strangers, and even-stranger strangers, I’ve never been good about the social media part (doubt me? check out my social media pages – very thin).* Frankly, when I’m playing, I’m not thinking about posting or even getting photos or video. Yes, I’m just not great at having an influencer presence, it’s true. But that’s ok, because I’d rather be playing anyway.

The best things about Random Acts of Harping are that they encourage us to get out of our way, get out of our own heads, and get out into the real world. They also give us something to look forward to and an opportunity to share, even those of us who don’t have many of those come up that often.

If you’ve not done this before (or even if you have), while you’re playing be sure to look at the faces of the people that hear you. You might be surprised and delighted to see the surprise and delight on their faces and the happiness in their eyes. And, even if you typically only play for the cat and the curtains, it is truly wonderful to share music to receive that response. That alone will help you to see that it’s not about you – and how appreciative people are of the gift you make for them.

I’d like to encourage you to take part in Random Acts of Harping this year. You have the entire month remaining. It really is freestyle – the only rules are that you’re not meant to announce that will happen, just make it happen. Joanna’s facetwigram post exhorts you to “take your harp out into the world and delight the general public with its magical music!”

If you would like to be included in the Folk Harp Journal article she’ll write, snap a pic and send it with a paragraph about your random harp adventure by July 30 through her website www.joannamell.com. Remember: this is RANDOM acts of harping! And if you want to do it but don’t want to go through that rigmarole, I’d love to hear about your adventure (with or without photos!). Just send me a comment!

* It occurred to me upon editing that you might take me seriously, so https://www.facebook.com/CreativeJeniusHarp or https://www.instagram.com/jentheharper/

Finger Independence

Posted on by

My brain likes to think that it’s in charge. If often issues imperious edicts like, “put that cookie down” or “we’re going for a run now”. Typically, the rest of me falls in line and meekly does as it’s told (I’m looking at you arms and legs!).

But we’re musicians, athletes of the small muscles. When my brain seeks to order those little muscles around, they can be insolent. You know how it goes – the melody needs rapid direction changes and there you are with no more fingers in the direction we need to go! In these situations, the “usual” straightforward fingerings just won’t work. And in response, those small muscles don’t just balk, they rebel!

One can hardly blame them – they’re scared because the brain is asking them to do something they’ve never (or rarely) attempted (and typically with very little time to get there). It can get nasty with the brain becoming more strident while the fingers cower like sheep becoming paralyzed with fear. Poor fingers need to move in weird combinations or odd order of play.

Those fingers would be less afraid if they were strong, independent fingers! So, how do we help them gain that independence? Nothing a little exercise can’t fix to build strength, confidence, and most importantly, independence!

If you’re tired of reading (or think this doesn’t apply to you) go crack open Grossi, Richards, or Salzedo and prepare to sweat! But this is a little different, so hang in there with me!

Still here? Cool! We’re going to do two sets of exercises, but first you need this chart and two dice:

I know it’s intimidating – but hold on! Roll the dice to find the part of the chart you’re going to use – one for the row and the other for the column (if you roll two 6’s you can pick any column!).

Put your hand on a table, fingers curved – like you’re going to drum them on the table or like you’re typing. Now, tap your fingers in the order listed in the cell you have identified – lift each finger off the table in turn and put it back down. Go slowly, gently, in control, relaxed. Fingers follow our usual harp playing (1 = thumb, 2 = index, etc. and 5 is your pinky (even though we don’t play with it, it still needs to be included). Keep your wrist off the table in a neutral position. Relax. No, really – relax all of you, your fingers (obviously), your hands, arms, shoulders. Breathe.

Start by setting a time for about 15 seconds and work your way up to the entire table. Build slowly and focus on keeping your hand relaxed with your fingers moving (and changing) smoothly. When it becomes effortless – then you can add more rows or go faster. Start with each hand, then progress to both hands doing the same order.

I cannot stress enough – stay relaxed and in control. This is not about speed but about focus and on building that finger independence. You want each finger to move on its own without the others moving at all (this might be more challenging for some fingers than others).

When it becomes easy, move on to the next step – chose one order for right hand and another order for left hand.

Relax – it’s not Rocket Surgery – it’s more challenging!

Now, the next level, which is actually easier! Don’t move to this until you can do the previous exercise easily. Move to the harp. Same idea but we need a new table (since we don’t play with the pinky).

 Finger Order on the Harp
 1234
11,2,3,42,1,3,43,1,2,44,1,2,3
21,2,4,32,1,4,33,1,4,24,1,3,2
31,3,2,42,3,1,43,2,1,44,2,1,3
41,3,4,22,3,4,13,2,4,14,2,3,1
51,4,2,32,4,1,33,4,1,24,3,1,2
61,4,3,22,4,3,13,4,2,14,3,2,1

At first, simply place and move your fingers to tap the strings. This is a new task (even though it feels the same). Relax, go slowly, build up. Only when you can do that easily, then you’ll play.

This is all about independence and control which we can build and develop by staying relaxed and focused. As Marcus Aurelius might have said (had he been lucky enough to play the harp) “I don’t have to like it, I just have to do it.”

Being able to control your fingers independently will stand you in good stead in all types of tunes and all manner of arrangements with sticky wickets. Give this a go and let me know how you get on. If you’re more advanced and think you have this licked, try it, and let me know how it goes! I am also interested in how frustrating (or not) you find it so please share your thoughts – let me know in the comments!

Memorial Day 2025

Posted on by

Each year we receive this opportunity to reflect on those who have made our freedoms possible and to be grateful to those who paid the ultimate price to protect us and those freedoms. They made it possible for us to have a day off, a cookout, to enjoy the unofficial start to summer, and to play our music, free from arduous circumstances. Remember and honor them.

Grow

Posted on by

We musicians are always learning, developing, growing. That may be the best part of being a musician. Our constant growth is good for us – keeping our minds working! And that keeping active still leaves us with room to grow!

And yet, we often hem ourselves in. We want everything to be easy and quick. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that. We need room to grow, and we have to take it. We need to acknowledge that need – and take that space.

We’re good (typically) about having the physical space for playing. Square footage for our creative growth and our musical life is a given. We also need to accept that we also need another type of space – time.

It can take a long time to thoroughly learn our music. There is so much to get under our belts – all those notes, fingerings, rhythms, harmonies, rests. The right order, repair points, and just plain ol’ remembering. Yikes!

The answer, of course, lies in giving ourselves enough room (time) to know the music. Because it’s much more than simply getting the notes into your head. How do you do that? Practice time of course, but also by using a strategy called distributed practice.

Distributed practice requires that you have a multilayer view of your practice time. Distributed practice is a more macro level of thinking about your practice time while daily practice is a finer view. Daily practice will be part of building each tune but it’s the summation of all those days over weeks and months that really solidifies the music in you. The other prize in distributed practice is repetition (and lots of it!).

Now, as a champion procrastinator, I’d be the first to tell you that allowing practice to be distributed over time is hard. It’s easy to tell ourselves some variation of: I learn really quickly! Look, I can play it! Christmas is forever away! Been there. Done that. Designed the T-shirt!

But is it really learned? Or are you fumbling along on momentum and luck?. Are you really playing it? Or are you jerking through the sore spots and hoping the left hand is faking it good enough?. Christmas gets earlier every year (at least it doesn’t start until after Halloween!).

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you’re good and that you have fully learned your music. How do we assess our progress if it’s happening over time? That’s not as easy as watching our daily progress because we have to take the long view – but you can do it. How do you know?

I have a new (to me) metric for growth and progress that I use and figured you might be able to use it too. I look for “ease.” Yes, that’s vague and yet, you know it when you feel it. When you start learning a tune, there is so much to learn (as we mentioned above) that you struggle to keep it all in mind while you work on it. It’s like herding cats – everything is moving, you can’t keep track of where you are, and who knows which one to pick up next!

As you spend more time practicing, you know each of the elements a little better, and (if you’re patient) you’ll realize that your brain isn’t working as hard. It does start to feel easier. Later, it’s easy enough to comfortably play the melody and accompaniment at the same time – with ease. Eventually, it becomes easier to play the tune accurately under pressure (like in a lesson or when performing).

Eventually is the essential word there – because it is the most challenging part of establishing the room to grow. You can’t get there without it eventually coming together in the time space you created. And with time and space, the tunes really do solidify and become easy to play, no matter what else is going on.

Do you notice tunes getting easier as you continue to play? Do you think you could use ease as a metric for progress? Is there something that would be better? You know I want to know what you think – let me know in the comments!

Thought

Posted on by

I know many people find Spring to be full of possibilities but it’s my least favorite season of the entire year. It’s the time that my focus wanes which is only bad because there’s stuff to get done. It’s that time that, you know, you need a little motivation! If, like me, you need a little motivation, click on the graphic to download this motivational poster. Hang it where you’ll see it to remind yourself what you’re up to. Let me know if you actually like it and if we need more or fewer (you know, in the comments!). Enjoy!

Poster download

Let me know if you actually like it and if we need more or fewer (you know, in the comments!). Enjoy!

Answers

Posted on by

Last week we talked about asking questions to encourage our creativity. I hope that you spent the week asking questions of yourself – I know I did! As we said there, asking questions is a great method. The good thing about questions is that they beget one of two things – more questions and/or answers!

Who knew that asking the questions would be the easiest part of being creative?!?

Answers are good to have. Answers describe action. Answers are hard. Answers require us to be brave enough to act.

So, Answers can make you be stuck. Moving forward can be scary. What if we’re wrong? What if our creative idea is a dud? What if we fail?

Well, I can’t assure you that all your creative ideas will be brilliant. But I can help you be brave enough to give your creativity free rein to try! Although there are loads of them, let’s start with five ways to be brave enough for your creativity to shine through:

1. Remind yourself that you are creative. Having doubts? Think about this – every sentence you utter has to be generated from scratch. Each time you say something, you illustrate your innate ability to create (even if you say nonsensical stuff!). You are creative!

2. Size up the risk. It’s not like I asked you to go on TV and perform cold as the entire world watches! What’s the worst that can happen as you sit at your harp at home by yourself? Your rhythm is wonky? You hit some unintended tones? You forgot about reverb and what seemed like a good idea in your head turned out to be the sonic equivalent of baby s**t brown? No one is going to take away your birthday. No one is going to point and laugh. No one is even going to hear you unless you ask them to! The risk of exploring is so minimal as to defy definition!

3. Practice laughing. Here’s a harsh reality – not all your ideas are going to soar. So, when you have a serious creative misstep – laugh about it! (see 2 above – who heard your misstep? That’s right – no one) If a misstep happens alone in a forest, did it happen at all? Only in your laughter!

4. Laugh with yourself, not at yourself. Don’t be your meanest critic. Be nice to you!

5. Being creative doesn’t mean you can’t learn something. Every time you try something and it works – celebrate!! And every time you try something that doesn’t work, you can learn from it. What is causing you to have a gap? Do you need to master another technique? Have you become an idea one-trick pony? Learn what your gap is and then create a way to fill it!

I’m going to be brave enough to stop there – I am sure you have other, better ways to help yourself find the courage to be creative – what are they? Let me know and we can share our epic tales!

Questions?

Posted on by

We are all different. We know that. One could argue, given our proclivity for an instrument very few people every attempt, much less become proficient, we are quite different. Yay us!

One of the major ways we differ from one another is in our fearlessness. Full disclosure – I’m a chicken most of the time. How about you? I am fortunate to be able to hang out with some incredibly fearless people though.

Ok, fearless can mean a lot of things but right now I’m thinking about being brave while being creative with our playing. And on that, we all run the gamut!

We all know of people who somehow rub two notes together and suddenly an amazing, lush, brilliant blanket of sound bursts forward, enveloping us and taking us places we never even dreamed of!

And we all know people who take something beautiful and amplify it, generating landscapes of abundance that leave us breathless!

And then there are those who are tentatively bold, making little nips and tucks but sticking fairly close to the well known – never straying too far from the shore.

And there are those who are small and timid, sticking strictly with the program, using what was given and becoming comfortable, never straying off the beach.

As I read this, it feels judge-y. Its not meant to be – I can’t seem to leave sight of the shore myself. What I do know is that we are all in awe of the first two and may wonder how we get into their lofty ranks! How do we move in that direction (even if we don’t get to the pinnacle)?* Here’s how:

“To create, one must first question everything. Never adopt someone else’s conclusion without putting it to the test of your own reasoning and imagination.”

Eileen Gray (architect & furniture designer)**

And right there is the crux of the differences between our boldness and creativity – it’s in the questions we ask. In the questions we think to ask and in those we’re willing to ask.

Here’s the secret – it never hurts to ask a question. And it nearly always opens door to another dimension of thinking about the original question. But if we’re not in the habit of asking questions of ourselves and our music – how do we do it? How do we ask ourselves musical questions and create our own music?

1. Be quiet. Asking questions (even of yourself) will go better if you have a moment to think. Because really, that’s what your question starts as – a moment to think. We often don’t give ourselves this luxury – even when we think we do. Breathe, quiet your mind, focus, and ask.

2. Is this good? isn’t a starting question. When you’re in questioning mode to get your creative juices flowing you don’t need to critique right out of the gate. Just ask – there really are no stupid questions.

3. Ask questions that lead to more questions. What will clarify your thinking and build your creative flow? You don’t want to know if it’s good, you want to know what it’s missing, where might this lead, or how it might fly higher. Don’t stop with the first question you think of, keep going, there’s gold in there.

4. Focus on your thoughts, not the tune. Eventually you’ll need to polish up your ideas, but when you’re asking questions, your focus is on discovery not performance. You can worry about how to make your ideas come out of your harp later. For now, the questions are focused on what might be, could be.

5. Challenge everything. Sometimes the best, most creative ideas get cut because implementation is intimidating (“I won’t ever be able to do 3-on-2”, “My four note arpeggios aren’t good enough”, “I can’t play that fast”, blahblahblah). Just because you don’t think you can do something right now doesn’t mean that you should abandon the questions. Questions lead to creative ideas. Implementation is improved through practice – totally different animals. Grab your ideas – worry about pushing your limits later!

6. What-if is your best friend. What-if has a million possible answers. What-if opens doors, windows, dog flaps, and other entrances! What-if leads to other questions, other opportunities, other ideas, other chances to be brave.

You might have noticed that being brave is a central element here – and you’re right. But let’s leave this here with creativity this week. We can talk about being brave later. As for now – what other questions would you want to ask you as you continue to create your music? If you’re more timid, what questions would you ask yourself this week to push your creativity just a little farther from the shore? Let me know in the comments!

* This is also a continuum – we’re all over the map, there’s no defined categories.

**Source: Eileen Gray: Her Work and Her World

News you can use

Posted on by

Did you know that there is now a harp emoji?! If ever there was a must-have addition to your phone, this has got to be it!

It wouldn’t be surprising if you hadn’t heard – this just happened recently. The Harp emoji was approved as part of the latest update by the standards organization. It was published in Unicode16.0 and Emoji 16.0 in September 2024 and was introduced on iPhones last week.

This might be the most exciting tech news of 2025!

It will be challenging to use the harp emoji to mean anything except harp-y stuff (no weird fruit or veg connotations here) so you should feel free to use it everywhere you would normally emoji-ate.

I’m not a phone tech genius, but if you’d like to add this brilliant emoji to your device, you can wait for your phone update – rollouts will be going on throughout the year. But if you just can’t wait, I found directions (no assuring they are the best, just info I found) here for Android or here for iOS.

Usually I talk about things I actually know. This isn’t really in my knowledge space, and I encourage you to read up on it if you’re interested. Here are some of the references I used:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/harp-emoji-1.7328612

https://emojipedia.org/harp#emoji

https://emojiterra.com/harp

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/here-are-the-8-new-emoji-apple-brought-to-your-iphone-with-ios-184/ar-AA1AaGEa

I’m going to wait until it gets pushed to my phone but if you’re an early adopter, I’d love to hear about how you go with adding the harp emoji to your phone. Let me know in the comments!

The Answer Is Not On YouTube

Posted on by

I get it. YouTube is an attractive nuisance. After all, where else can you go to learn all you ever needed to know right now about how to change a tire, make a martini…or play the harp?

I’m not denigrating or disparaging people who are trying to earn a buck/rise to prominence/achieve world domination (by teaching harp?) – it’s a living.

But…

There are limits to what you can learn by watching someone else do something four dimensional in a 2D space. Especially if you get caught up and watch video after video after video… Made worse if the time you spend watching other people play uses up all the time you have for the harp. Then you are not coming out ahead. Because no matter how much you can learn by watching, the real learning is in the doing – you know, the actually touching your harp, p-r-a-c-t-i-c-i-n-g!

I’m not talking here about content for which you have paid, online courses by legitimate professionals, or online lessons. I’m also not talking about short stints of poking around all the offerings – good, bad, and ugly – to get a feel for the wider world. No, I’m talking about all the schlock that’s out there – the stuff by any yahoo with a harp, a phone, and connectivity. Those people embody “you do you”. You, on the other hand? Is watching their videos really the best way to spend the precious little time you have for harp each day?

No. Turn that off and practice the things you are working on. On your real harp, in your real life, at your current real level. You don’t need to play at some weird angle, or hold the harp like it’s falling, or any of the other crazy stuff you see. Because like all the other unfluencers online (in every genre), you’re only seeing the stuff that made the edit – the false glam, the fake ease, and the counterfeit first-take. You know what you don’t see? The hundreds of lessons and the hours of practice behind every second of the video. They have already done the work so that it looks flawless, easy, and common. Online, everything is easy and you can be just like them. And you don’t even need to practice.

Right….

But this the real world. Yes, of course a little inspiration can go a long way. You should definitely have harp heroes that you aspire to be just like – in your own way. And just like every other worthwhile endeavor, then you should turn YouTube off. The answer is not on YouTube, just in you.

Now go practice! 😊