Thumbs up to the end of the year
The year is winding to a close, so it’s a good time to take stock. You may be playing a lot with the events of the holidays or you may still be working on material for your family get together or to impress your cats. It is also cold and dry which is tough on your hands. Meanwhile, there is just a lot going on and everyone is busy.
All of those things certainly don’t make playing any easier. So it might be a good time to check in with the basics and see how you’re doing.
Are your thumbs up? Are your fingers and hands relaxed? Are you sitting up and breathing? Do you keep up doing all the good techniques while actually playing?
You know good technique is important – making it possible for you to play better, longer, stronger. But good technique requires awareness – and what better time than the present to give yourself the present of making sure you’re doing well?
Check in, and be sure to have your thumbs up as a strong end to the year!
Still Shopping?
There are so many things to do in the holidays season – so much shopping to do, so many presents to get. And harp players can be so hard to buy for!
What would be the perfect present? How about the Harp the Highland and Islands Tour in 2018?
Plenty of time to plan to enjoy the beauty of Scotland while learning some wonderful tunes! Easy to wrap and any harp player (or traditional musician of just about any ilk) would be delighted to receive the gift. If you, or someone you know, would love to find the Harp The Highlands and Islands Tour in their gifts, contact me for more details (before they are presented on the website).
Holiday Shopping!
There are not that many shopping days until the holidays are upon us! Have you finished your shopping?
Are you sure? Do you know someone who would like a (stress free, no strings attached) opportunity to see if they are really interested in learning to play the harp? Or, would you like to give yourself a present of lessons? Consider lesson Gift Certificates!
You can buy a single lesson or a string of them.
There are many reasons to take a lesson. You can sharpen your skills, brush up on your technique, learn a new tune, work on arrangements or develop new compositions. Or you can have an intensive lesson – no trying to cram a lot into a short lesson!
And now through 24 December, receive a 10% discount. Imagine – buy, print, wrap – and you’re done! For more information or to buy your gift, just contact me and finish up your shopping!
Happy Thanksgiving
Wishing you all the best on Thanksgiving –
enjoy the grateful feeling of playing such a beautiful instrument!
The Switch in the Seat
Have you ever noticed that when you go to see your physician you have a number of questions to ask, but as soon as you sit on the seat in the office you can’t remember any of them? There’s a switch in the seat that makes you forget everything you came in for – I’m sure of it!
Your harp lesson can also be like that, with the switch being strategically located in the bench. You will have practiced all week and struggled with some aspect of something you were working on – tricky fingering, a rocky rhythm, a set of chords that are particularly difficult to read accurately and quickly. But as soon as you come in for your lesson, you forget what specifically was the problem.
You fumble through trying to explain what you couldn’t get. Even worse, try though you might, you cannot remember what you already tried even though you spent all week on it! And you can’t remember why you think it didn’t work.
(Of course, even worse is when you did remember what didn’t work but you didn’t spend any time during the week thinking about what that might mean!)
What can you do to make sure you and your teacher work on the things that give you trouble? How can you capture your specific questions, the remedies you have already tried, and the explanations for why those haven’t worked?
A Mnemonic is helpful. A mnemonic is a device that helps to aid memory. It should be simple and easy to remember (go figure!) – and if it is related to the content to be remembered, all the better. So, here is a mnemonic for the next time something is giving you a hard time: HARPO. Work through each of the elements, note the answers and you’ll be that much more prepared for your lesson. The elements are:
- H – Headache – What isn’t going right? What are you not getting?
- A – Attempted – What did you already try? What about that didn’t get you where you meant to be?
- R – Reuse – What do you already know (from another piece of music) that you could bring to this?
- P – Practice – What specifically did you do during practice to overcome the issue?
- O – Outcome – Did that work or do you need to try something else?
Note your HARPO answers in your practice journal so you will have them when you get to your lesson. This will successfully deactivate the switch in the bench and you’ll be able to make some progress!
Happy Veterans Day
This week we celebrate Veterans Day. Originally Armistice Day celebrating the end of World War I the day eventually became a celebration of all those who had served in the US Armed Forces.
Thank you to the US Military – the largest employer of musicians in the world! And thank you to all our veterans throughout the years!
This is a great opportunity – go play at a Veterans Hospital or Nursing Home or play on the street with a sign telling people that you’re celebrating or play a benefit and donate to a Veterans charity. Snap a photo and share it with us while we show appreciation to those who pledged their lives to defend ours.
Daylight Savings Time Ends
Yea – it’s coming winter and the days are shorter and the nights are ever so long – so there should be plenty of time to practice! This weekend you will set your clocks back (OK, some of you did that last weekend) and you start the season with that extra hour of sleep unless you use the hour to practice rather than to sleep).
But those early nightfalls can actually make it more difficult to fit a practice in because it is prime time to snuggle into a blanket, drink hot chocolate, and read a good book! And nature is telling you to go to bed, so it can seem like no matter how much you know you need to practice, you just can’t fit it in. Do you have that problem? Maybe it’s just me, but if you feel it too, here are six things you can do to get through the time change relatively successfully:
- Change the batteries in your smoke detectors – you know if you don’t they’ll start that annoying chirping in the middle of your practice and disrupt you!
- Be sure to prepare your car for the winter – you don’t want to be caught without your harp cart, your space blanket, a flashlight, gloves, or shelf stable snacks! And if you live in a cold place don’t forget other useful stuff like a shovel, and jumper cables.
- Pick out your favorite practice sweater! Make sure it’s comfy and allows you play without binding!
- Keep your hands warm before you start playing your warmups – it is difficult to get through a warmup if you can’t feel your fingers!
- Make sure you have started using a good cream or lotion on your hands – your skin is not only your first line of defense but also the part of you that touches the harp – so take care of it. Split skin and strings do not mix.
- Be kind to you – some people take a little while to adjust to the changes in the day. If you are sleepy or logy or notice you’re not playing very well – give yourself some time to adjust (no, that is not permission to skip practicing!)
Enjoy the lengthening nights, the coming cold, the looming busy winter season – all starting with this beginning of autumn marked (again) with the clock falling back!
Christmas is coming
Are you ready? We know it’s coming – it happens the same time every year. It’s easy to be only sort of excited. On the one hand, it’s easy – you know all the songs and you can kind of get away with playing the same stuff every year. On the other hand, that can get sort of boring, never learning anything new and always playing the same stuff.
So, what’s a harper to do?
Well, you could take the easy way out – no one would know. You’ll entertain your audience, even if it is the curtains and the cats. You will coast through the season and all will be well. You’ll play stuff you’re comfortable playing and your stress level can stay (relatively) low. But you would know you hadn’t learned anything new.
Or you can take the difficult way and play all new music – the crazy carol written in 12/8, that jazzy arrangement of your favorite post-war song, that new, lever change filled music that was published lately. You’ll have to work really hard (actually, you should have already started), you will be stressed out nearly every time you play and you will be uncomfortable until January! But you will know that you have stretched yourself.
Maybe the best path to take is the middle road – add some new pieces while continuing to play your favorites. That way, you can have a little growth, but from a strong base. You will know you have had a little stretch and you will still be able to perform confidently.
At your various outings, play those tunes your audience will be happy to hear. And don’t forget that nothing makes Christmas music more enjoyable than mixing it with other music. Even the cats will enjoy that!
Don’t Miss! WAFHS Getaway
The 2016 Washington Area Folk Harp Society (WAFHS) Annual Harpers’ Getaway will be held November 4 – 6, 2016 – you don’t want to miss it!
As always, there are two excellent presenters coming and you won’t be able to help but to learn a lot. There’s also the concert, the fellowship, and the venue – all things to look forward to. But there isn’t much time left to register.
The presenters this year are the irrepressible Haley Hewitt from Boston and the amazing Judith Peacock Cummings from Seattle via Scotland.
The Getaway is at Shepherd’s Spring near Antietam Maryland in Sharpsburg, MD. There will be excellent learning opportunities, lovely social opportunities, and of course, the Silent Auction!
Deadline to register is October 21. Go to http://wafhs.org/getaway/ for the details and the forms. Don’t miss this opportunity!