Daylight Savings Ends – Five Ways to Stay Motivated!

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Daylight Savings Time ends in the US on Sunday morning – don’t forget to set your clocks back and enjoy another hour of well deserved sleep.

And get prepared because that early darkness at the end of the day can be extremely unmotivating – it will feel like you should be in bed when it is only 5pm! Yikes. In addition, it’s also the beginning of the “Curl up on the Couch with some Tea and a Cozy Throw” days which makes it so easy to flop down and watch TV or read a book. But you know that you need to practice and that every day you do not practice means it will be that much longer until you get where you want to be.

Picture2So, here are five ways for you to stay motivated during the dark time –

  • Don’t wait until the end of the day to practice. It will be just as dark in the morning but changing it up might be just what you need to stay engaged and practicing!
  • Fool yourself. Add more lighting to your practice area to fool yourself into feeling like it’s not the middle of the night.
  • Plan your time. If you know what you’re going to do when you’re practicing, it won’t feel so much like it will never end!
  • If you can’t think of anything to work on, make something up (stretch yourself, prepare to play for a new audience, push yourself to grow).
  • Start with easy stuff you love…and then doing the hard work (exercises). Make it enticing to sit down, start with the fun (and then knuckle down!).

If you can “fake it ‘til you make it” through the first few weeks, you’ll get through the tough end of daylight saving and you might even be well on your way to an even better holiday repertoire.

On the road to Nationals!

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I am so honored to have judged the Scottish Harp Society of America‘s 2015 US National Scottish Harp Championship!  In addition, it was exciting to have the opportunity to work with Seumas Gagne (the Distinguished Judge, friend, fab performer!) as well as the organizing coordinators of the Harp Competition at the Stone Mountain Highland Games.  And, of course, a special thank you to the Title Sponsor – Clan Currie Society whose generosity has significantly contributed to the success of the comp.

So this week’s post is short while I continue to bask in the glow of having gotten to see some amazing talent, meet some new people, see old friends, play and share and laugh, and get hand cramps from my pathetic penmanship (or pencilmanship really!).  Concerts, fun, and of course, an EXCELLENT competition with a large field of competitors.

What could be more fun?

Happy Boss’ Day!

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It’s Boss’ Day – certainly a holiday worth celebrating!

“Why?”  you might ask – because at your harp – You are the boss of you!

You make all the decisions at your harp.  What will you play? How will you play it?  How long will you practice? When will you take lessons?  From whom will you learn?  What new tunes will you tackle?

Picture1You are the decision maker…and you have all the responsibility!  You should do all those things good bosses do:

  • Be appreciative of hard work
  • Acknowledge a good effort and reward good performance
  • Point out areas for improvement in a constructive way
  • Deliver useful and appropriate feedback
  • Encourage growth and development
  • Encourage creativity
  • Expect good work

After all, you need to be a good boss – you can’t fire you!

Planning for everything

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Recently, a harp friend died. This was a tragedy as she was a lovely person and a very good harp player. I had known her almost all of my harp life.

Not long after that, her family wanted to move on and part of that was to assure that her harps went to good homes. And so I was fortunate to be able to help the family in finding each harp a new loving home. But it got me to thinking.

Picture1It was very difficult for the family – it’s a difficult time as it is, but having to figure out how to move these harps along was just another burden for them. Because we love our harps and our harp friends/family so much, we may forget that to our “real” family isn’t as plugged in to our harp world. They don’t know how we communicate, how to “shift” a harp, where to go for help, how to move on.

In addition, while our families might try to meet all our wishes, we may not have shared what we would like to happen to our harps (and their assorted detritus!). You may want to be sure that your harps go to a chosen friend or you might want them embedded in a local organization’s harp rental program, or you might want your local (or favorite) school to receive your bounty. But if you don’t tell anyone, no one will know. Be specific – remember that it is likely a loving, non-harper will have to attempt to do what you want, so guidance from you would be a big help!

Therefore it is important to document and share your harp wishes with your family. Think about (and plan for) where you’d like all your harps to find a new place when you will no longer need it. If you will donate to an organization – be sure that the organization knows it will eventually receive your bounty. Be as lovely and generous as you always have been and others will appreciate your kindness.

Holidays are coming up!

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Those people who are planners will note that it’s about time to start getting ready for the Holiday season. Since the retailers have decided that Labor Day is when Christmas stuff comes out, we should probably take a hint. The holiday season is a time that you can expect to be asked to play. If people know you play the harp, you’re going to be asked (If you haven’t told your immediate family that you’ve taken up the harp, you need to come clean!).

Whether you will play for your dog, your family, or parties and other gigs, you need a plan that will allow you to get through the season of holidays with minimal stress – and still leave time for your shopping.

Here are a six things you can do to be prepared:

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  1. Make a list – what tunes are you going to play? What have you played in previous years (these will come back quickly)? What did you have requests for last year that you need to learn?
  2. Get out your calendar 1 – when are you available? When do you have other obligations?
  3. Decorate – what will you wear for your gigs (even if its your dog, think of it as a gig)? Can you actually play in that outfit? If you’re pulling out your annual holiday outfit, a year is plenty of time to shed, find or redistribute weight – does it still work for you? .
  4. Get out your calendar 2 – when are you going to practice? When will you be too busy to fit in time? Where does that fall relative to your obligations to play?
  5. Get it together – do you have any music or notes you need pulled together? Are they attractive or do you still have a collection of stickies and scraps of paper?
  6. Breathe – do you have enough time to do all the other things you might do for the holidays (such as baking, visiting friends, wrapping gifts, etc.)?

Get started now so you can have a relaxed enjoyable holiday season – you’ll be glad you did!

Double Digits Day

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Today is double digits day – there are only 99 days remaining in 2015 – so we are losing that feeling like the year will never end and entering into the part where the year seems to be flying by faster than we can see! So the question is – have you done all the harp things you set out to do this year?

If you have, good on you! But more likely than not, there might be a couple of things as yet unfinished. The good news is you have plenty of time to get going on them and likely finish before the end of the year!

Picture1Apparently most people don’t meet their goals (a desired outcome) because they didn’t have enough time. Of course, we all get the same 24 hours each day – it’s how we use them that we need to look at. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of things we think we will accomplish in a day (with work, school, chores, tasks and other stuff) – and in that overwhelm we don’t always get to our harps.

Which is a shame since the simple act of playing would probably significantly reduce that feeling of unending overwhelm.

There’s no challenge implied here. But imagine what kind of progress you could make if you mindfully moved yourself forward, just a little bit, every one of the remaining days in 2015. It’s a great opportunity to start journaling your practice or actually practicing each day (even if only for 30 minutes!). It’s a chance to do something for yourself, that isn’t bad for you and just might do you some good! At a minimum, it will help you count down the days (and will help highlight how close the holidays are – yikes!).

There’s nothing magic about having 99 days remaining in the year – it’s just a milestone, a time to stop and reflect, to determine if we’re doing the things we want to be doing with our time. Are you in?

2015 US National Scottish Harp Championship at Stone Mountain Highland Games

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Come to Atlanta, Saturday and Sunday, October 18 – 19, 2015 for the 2015 US National Scottish Harp ChampionshipTM SHSA logo

The Scottish Harp Society of America’s US National Scottish Harp Championship will be hosted at the Stone Mountain Highland Games outside Atlanta, GA and is open to all SHSA members.

This year’s judges are the amazing Seumas Gagne (Distinguished Judge) and me (!).

Rules and categories are available on www.shsa.org.

For more information on the 2015 Championship, visit:  http://www.smhg.org/details-Harping.html

Saturday’s Schedule – 9 am Registration, 10 am Competition

Sunday – Harp Tasting at 10:30 am and 3:30 pm with workshops at 1 pm

Special thanks to the Title Sponsor of the National Scottish Harp Championship of America – Clan Currie Society. The Clan has generously agreed to sponsor the National competition through 2019. It is especially rewarding to be supported by a clan with such an ancient and distinguished history of Gaelic poets and musicians.

Clan Currie continues to sharpen its focus on the arts and not only sponsors our competition, but also has established an annual harp scholarship at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, Scotland. To learn more about Clan Currie, go to: http://www.clancurrie.com/

Hope to see you there!

Glide through the Gliss

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One of the things that defines the music of the harp has got to be the glissando. Glisses are central to any showoff repertoire, and while they are easy to do, they are very difficult to do correctly! The only way to get good at glissandos is to do them, practicing them until they are perfect – but you already knew that.

First – what is a Gliss? Glissando comes from the French word Gliser – to slide* and when doing a gliss, you do, in fact slide up the strings.

Glissandos are tricky beasts – yes, they are dead easy to whip out but devilishly difficult to get right!

Glisses have a beginning, an end, and should have some specific characteristics including being even in tempo, include dynamics, beginning and ending on time and on the right notes, should be in the key denoted and should be effortless. No cheating with “stop fingers”!

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Glisses can go up or down. They are not used so much in traditional music but are present more in classical music. Glisses are also variable and may take many forms. But most of us more trad players who just want our listeners to be happy.  We are just looking to rip off a four octave drag up the strings and back down again in that crowd pleasing glissfest that seems to keep them coming back for more (and lets admit it – they are kind of fun!).

Going up, use your 2 or 3 finger with a gentle curve and draw up the harp – keep your elbow lifted like you’re drawing a bow. To go down, use your thumb and push your hand away from you. Not hard.

Except of course, the details are where the work lies. Breathe and count – don’t play longer or shorter than the gliss gets – you don’t want to shy the values or make an expansive ritardando where you didn’t really mean to. Follow any dynamic that might be needed to assure the gliss suits the tune and isn’t just a splash of noise! Start on the right first note and end on the correct last note. Practice smoothly moving along the strings,  not “stuttering” through the notes (especially that last one when you try to end in the right place!).

So, practice doing them correctly, so they are crisp and correct – playing the notes you meant to and no more and you’ll begin to enjoy playing glisses for fun

* http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/glissando?s=t

Deadline is coming up – Don’t miss it!

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You know that I’m excited about the upcoming 2016 Harp the Highlands and Islands Tour – we are planning this trip in July to enjoy the Scottish summer! Dates for 2016 are 30 July – 6 August 2016.  This timing will allow you the easy option to stay a little longer if you chose to go to the Tattoo, the Festival and the Fringe as well – you’ll already be there!

The tour will include the breathtaking Highlands and the Isle of Skye as well as learning and playing and having a great time.  We cater to harp players at all levels and we also welcome other traditional musicians as well as “harp appreciators”! Each day we’ll take on a tune, learn more harp lore, and learn how the music is intertwined with the history and culture.

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We will depart from Edinburgh and then spend eight days seeing the Highlands and Skye.  Our tour group will be small – no more than six travelers – which allows enough flexibility each day to see the very best Scotland has to offer and still include those special things that can’t be planned. And each day, there is a tune that matches our travels, experiences, and mood.

The early booking discount date is rapidly approaching! Book by 15 September and pay only $3000, saving nearly 15%. Prices go up after that – book by the end of the year and pay just $3200. From 1 January, $3499*. Got a crowd? Call for options.

I hope you’ll join us. For more details go to this year’s website (click on the button above for Tours of Scotland).

* Of course, there is small print:  Prices per person, double occupancy and include eight day/seven night dinner, bed and breakfast accommodations, tour and professional driver guide, entrance to all attractions, morning and afternoon coffee or tea, as well as other special treats along the way.

Reading Challenge wrap up

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Did you set a reading goal for yourself? Did you make good progress to that goal? The original idea was to set a short term goal to read at least one tune each day.

I didn’t do as well as I would have liked. I didn’t get to read every day. And I fell well short of my goal. That happened for a number of reasons – the sort of reasons that often trip us upPicture1

  • I didn’t have a real plan for what I was going to read
  • I didn’t make sure I had the “bandwidth” to insert reading into my daily practice – some days I don’t have a lot of time to practice and I chose to spend the time I had on work that has a shorter horizon.
  • I didn’t prioritize reading.

Now, to be fair, part of the reason I didn’t has as much time included that I worked to prepare to teach a workshop (ironically – on sight reading!). I also need to prepare for some upcoming events that required I spend time writing which meant I didn’t have the time to read.

And, of course, reading isn’t really a contest so I could slag it off – I only needed to read some ensemble arrangements. But I have to admit, I’m a tad disappointed. Not only because I didn’t make my goal but also because I set the goal but then didn’t do enough to make it happen. That’s how it goes when you make a wish rather than a goal.

How did you do?