Preparing to go to Camp!

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Many of us get to spend at least part of our summer participating in Harp activities.  We have discussed some of them here.  I think we all really look forward to the excitement of seeing old friends, meeting new people, playing together and more.

But one of the biggest challenges for us is to be fully prepared. We spend our precious free time and our money to go so it is really important that we be prepared to get as much from each event as we can. Here are five ideas to help you get more from your harp activities:

 

1.       Increase your daily practice time – even a weekend workshop has a lot more playing time that your average practice session.  Summer always seems to sneak up on us – so start increasing your practice time from now so you won’t have to ramp up quickly and get hurt.

2.       Increase your stretching – as much fun and as fatiguing as these activities are they still involve a lot of sitting – at the harp, at meals, while chatting.  So start increasing the amount of time you stretch each day – that way you will have developed the habit before you need it at a workshop.

3.       Increase your listening – many of the folk harp events have an emphasis on the oral tradition and learning by ear.  Learning this way takes practice so don’t let your hard earned ability to learn languish in the winter – practice learning by ear from cds or other people playing.

4.       Take care of yourself – start now getting enough sleep, eating carefully and taking some exercise so you have the stamina to get through the long days of harp activities.

5.       Have a plan – before you even get to the venue have a good idea what you would like to learn and how you will go about acquiring that knowledge.  Do not wait until you arrive to select the workshops you’d like to attend or even to find out who’s teaching.  Know what you came for.

There’s so much to learn, with a little time and effort now by the time the summer season kicks off, you’ll be more than ready!

It will be summer sooner than we know it!

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This year is zorching past mostly in a blur.  But summer time is when the living is easy…and so is connecting to other harpers!  It is the best time to find some outlets, learn some great stuff, meet new people, and play a whole lot. 

I wanted to share some of my favorites with you. I wish I had the time to go to more but here are a few that are tried, true, that I sincerely look forward to each year:

In June there is the Ohio Scottish Arts School.  It can begin at the Ohio Scottish Games in Wellington which is a large and friendly competition and the unofficial start to the week.  As always there will be fantastic tutors at OSAS in 2013 including the amazing Corinna Hewat and the fascinating Abby Palmer as well as the brilliant Ann and Charlie Heymann and the incomparable Sue Richards.  It is an wonderful week and you will leave with your head full of tunes and your laughter ringing in the halls.

In July is the Somerset Harp Festival.  As usual, Somerset has cooked up an incredible collection of people to teach you things you  didn’t even know you needed to learn.  You will see old friends, make new friends, be tempted (and seduced) by the vendors’ hall.  You think you will be able to pick out your harp from the tasting but instead you will discover other harps you will have to figure out how to acquire (or at least try!).  You will leave exhausted and planning for the next one.

In August is Harp Camp.  This is different – it is very intimate with only ten students included each year.  We focus on very specific teaching at the harp and our time away from the harp is a cornucopia of sights, sounds, textures, and tastes all focused on improving your inner musician!  We mold the schedule from feedback of the specific needs of the participants as well as the goals and desires they share with us. 

There are many harpy things to do in the summer – these are just my three favorites.  I hope you make the time to get out and play this summer!  Where will you be going this summer?

‘Tis the Season

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Wedding season that is.  The good news is that people are still getting married!  If we’re fortunate to be booked we know that we will add immeasurably to the event.  I heard a great characterization for waffling brides (or checkbook holders), “People won’t remember what you served for dinner but everyone will remember that you had a gorgeous harp!” (if I could remember who said this brilliant pearl I would definitely credit that person here!).

 
 
 


Some of the best parts of playing a wedding include:

  • Knowing that you are making an event extraordinary
  • Playing through your repertoire (out in public!)
  • Seeing some of the best architecture in your area
  • Seeing some of the nicest gardens where you live
  • Having a solid half hour to play before the main event (typically uninterrupted)

And if you’re not playing weddings – why not?  “I don’t want to” is a perfectly good answer.  “I am afraid to” isn’t as legitimate – and may point out things you should work on (we’re talking about music, not temperament!). 

What do you like best about playing for weddings? What do you play? Do you have any standards or chestnuts? If you had to play a wedding tomorrow, do you have enough music at your fingertips?  I hope you’ll what you like and what works with me!

It has been a rough week for many

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This has been a week full of bad news in the US with people experiencing horrific events in many places.  While we typically don’t experience such awful things very often, others aren’t always so lucky.  I was reminded of a quote:
 
“This will be our reply to violence:
to make music more intensely,
 more beautifully,
more devotedly
than ever before”
– Leonard Bernstein

 
 
Keep the faith, play on, share, someone will be listening and be glad of it.

 

Finding help when you need it

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One of the great things about playing the harp is that we have a relatively small population of nice people who seem to enjoy helping one another. I find that to be a delightful part of being a part of this community.

I have a new student who has experienced the heartbreak of broken strings – a lot.  This is a shame for two reasons.  First we all know how unhappy our harps, and by extension we, are when strings break.  This reminder of frailty is so disheartening. And the joy of changing strings is one I know many of us share (not!).  Second, this student is a Skype student so we have the added distance and a digital layer which are not very conducive to teaching how to replace a string.

To that end, I’d like to highlight the good work of another – we were able to use another website to find the information needed and I’d like to share that with you too.  And I’d like to thank that person for sharing her knowledge and expertise in an approachable way. 

We went to Sylvia Woods for help – and I’d like to point you to her in case you need help too.  With a collection of videos (including videos on how to tune your harp and how to replace strings) she walks us through those tedious but essential elements.  She really has done us all a service! Find the videos at: http://www.harpcenter.com/category/harp-videos

I hope you find this information useful and that this blog acts in some small measure as a help to harpers – if it has been a help to you, please let me know.  And if there is something you’d like help with, let me know that – I’ll see what I can do!

In the absence of practice

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It sometimes happens that a long time goes by and you don’t get to sit at your harp.

At all.
No matter what you’d like to do, it doesn’t happen. 
This does not improve your playing.
Nor does it improve your disposition.
I know – I am in one of those places right now.  I am in the middle of a travel-fest.  I have not been home to practice and when I do get home I am so focused on completing everything else that I don’t even get to touch my harp.
Very disheartening.
However, this is not a time of no practice, just a time of no playing. 
I have my trusty headphones and loads of music I only wish I could play.  I am listening (over and over and over). I am thinking about what I have heard and what it will look like on the strings and how it will feel in my fingers…when I eventually get back and can play.
There are many ways to practice.  Some of them reveal better results faster, but they all have their place.  As you move into the part of the year that is busy, your schedule bursting like the new flowers, remember that you can practice without your harp, when you have to. 
It will make you that much gladder to sit when you return – and will prevent you from losing too much ground.  Of course, nothing will improve your playing more than time in the seat, so be ready to knuckle under when you get there!

Southern Maryland Celtic Festival Harp Competition

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April 27, 2013 marks the 35th year for the oldest Celtic celebration in Maryland.  The Festival is 10 am to 6 pm rain or shine on the beautiful Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum.  The field overlooks the Patuxent River – a lovely location for a games!

We have a new venue this year.  We will not be sharing with the fiddles but will have a space all our own.  Our judge this year will be the wonderful Sue Richards (www.suerichards.net).

Come out for an exciting competition. You will find the online registration (there will be no on-site registration) on www.cssm.org/harp. If it isn’t there when you look, please keep looking!

If competing isn’t your thing please come out to support our competitors. We also always need volunteers (who get complimentary admission to the games – send me an email if you are interested).

The Festival is centrally located to the mid-Atlantic. Our Harp competition draws competitors from far away including North Carolina, Michigan, upstate New York and all around the Baltimore-Washington-Richmond areas.

This comp has lovely prizes and is always a fun and friendly competition – an excellent venue for new competitors and more experienced players as well. Hope we’ll see you there – in just one month!

Put it in writing

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There are all kinds of way to mark your progress as you practice and develop.  And it is important to do that marking – you should be able to look back at your development and see your progress.  We have talked about recording yourself so you can hear your progress but you might want to consider capturing your development in other ways.

If you work from printed music you have many opportunities to make notes.  Use a pencil – you might want to come back to the tune and do something completely different in the future.  Mark all the challenges you meet – fingerings, lever (or pedal) changes, dynamics, expression and phrasing – all of these will help you work through the music and will also serve as documentation of your ability to play it when you were working on it.  Always use a pencil so you can make changes as you become more capable and experienced.   For instance you could start a practice and performance journal.

If you learn your music aurally there is still a lot to note – make yourself a list of tunes you are working.  This will help you make sure to practice everything – rather than working some tunes to perfection while forgetting about others.  Once you know a few tunes, you’ll be amazed at how fast you forget what you know or what you are learning.

No matter how you learn your music, make yourself a journal.  Write yourself notes about your practice.  Write down what is going wrong.  Note what have you tried.  Jot down what went right.  Be sure to include notes about what do you want to try as well as writing out how are you going to go about learning these new things. Also note things you still want to learn.

Document your progress, inspire yourself – be nice!  And don’t forget to read your journal.  Review your notes and your progress.  And since you know you’re going to be reading – be encouraging so you can learn from yourself.

Why dots are bad

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I came to the harp in the folk and aural tradition.  It was very difficult for me to leave the page – the safe haven of knowing precisely what was expected, how the music had been played since it was written.  Although initially I fought (hard) against learning this way, eventually I realized the freedom in learning music the old way. 

Ok, maybe I didn’t realize the freedom so much as I actually began to give myself the freedom. Maybe I gained the courage to try something new.

The bad thing about the sheet music dots is that they are a haven.  They can encourage you to pursue a false perfection, to abandon your own good judgment.  If not careful, dots form a jail not a frame.   And if the jail is reinforced with doubt you may never break out.

In addition, much of the best music has been handed down not passed out on paper.  I never had as much fun learning a tune from a sheet of paper as I have had learning it from another person.  And if I thought I was being inventive in my interpretation before, I didn’t know the half of it.
There is still room for precision – I give you playing a marchy march or a danceable reel.  There is a need for that precision – it just comes from a different place.

Just Six Months!

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The 2013 Harp the Highland and Island Tour will be leaving in just about six months.  I am so excited and really looking forward to seeing some fantastic sites and playing some amazing tunes, visiting old friends and making new ones.  You will learn so much about the heritage of the Scottish music you love and drink in the sites that help you really get the tunes into your heart.

 
If you would like more information, please go to the website: http://www.jeniuscreations.com/harp-tours-of-scotland/tour-2013/ or feel free to contact me – leave a comment below or send me an email!
 
  

Hope you’ll be joining us in Scotland in September – just six short months away!