New Year’s Goals or Wishes?

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It’s the beginning of a new year. Time to build on last year’s successes and set goals for the coming year. Call them goals or resolutions, they represent what you think is important for you to try to accomplish in the coming days, weeks or years.

Things you think are important to accomplish.

So, if these things are so important to you, how will you get there? Are you going to set goals or are you going to wish for something? Are you going to make it so or just hope something fortuitous occurs? In 354 days will you, upon looking back at this year, be proud and feel accomplished? Or will you be sad and dejected that what you thought was important has slipped by you, undone?

goal-or-wish

To help you be in that first group, take just one little step – Write -it- down!

Write down what you think is so important – the goals you want to set for this year. Write them all down – the ridiculous, the sublime, the ones you’re embarrassed to admit to – write them all down!

Then, sort through them. Pick out the few that really REALLY matter to you. Not the “should do” ones (you know, “practice every single day” or “lose 10 pounds) but the ones you really want to see yourself complete (you know, “host a harp circle” “learn that piece you have always admired”).

Then – here’ the crucial step – write those select items in your journal. Make sure they are with your daily work so you can remind yourself why you are working so hard. For those days when you forget where you mean to be going. For those days when you wonder why you ever started playing. For those days when you don’t particularly like your harp (you know we all have those days!). You have already started your 2017 harp journal, haven’t you?

Write it down, make it real. Because while wishes are nice – goals are real!

Auld Lang Syne – Seven Ways to Reflect on 2016

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It’s that time of year when we wrap up our celebrations and prepare for the year ahead. 2017 is already started and we have the opportunity to make it a great harp year. We know it’s the time for goals and resolutions — we might even have already made some. If you haven’t, you’re probably feeling the pressure to get a move on and make at least one resolution for the coming year!

There’s a small problem with this though. As the saying goes, how can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? Where have you been? Reflection, even if brief, will allow you to glean from your past year how to best prepare (and conduct) the coming year.  Here are seven ways to reflect on the previous year and your harp playing. 2016-in-review

  1. Interview yourself. Ask specific questions about how 2016 went for achieving your goals and how you wanted the year to go. Questions could include:
    • what did you do really well? of what are you most proud?
    • what “do over” do you wish you were going to get?
    • what’s the best thing you learned?
    • what did you play that you wish you could have skipped?
    • what did you just not get around to doing?
  1. Review your notes to see how your year went?
  2. Review your calendar to see if your goals happened or if were they unrealistic, unmet, and driven by life or other events?
  3. Review your lesson book or journal – there might be some real nuggets in there! It’s blank? Really?!? Consider actually writing to yourself this year.
  4. Review your “what went well” answer, and refine it – what went well in a sustainable way that you’ll be able to keep doing into the new year?
  5. Map out what worked and what didn’t work for you.
  6. Note what you’re grateful for. Gratitude is all the rage just now and it likely should be.  What lagniappe or serendipity happened in your harp playing this year? This will give you something to smile about.

This review does not need to be a long drawn out exercise. Pour a cup of tea, pull up your journal (or a post it note!), think and reflect, and jot it down. It’s a great way to prepare for what’s coming!

Thumbs up to the end of the year

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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.

thumbs-up

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?

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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?

harp-tour-presentPlenty 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!

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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!

christmas-giftYou 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!

The Switch in the Seat

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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.

harpoYou 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

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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!

harping-on-veterans-day

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.