Jenius Creations

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  • Finding help when you need it

    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

    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

    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

    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

    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!

    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!

  • Why dots are good

    I was originally classically trained.  I lived for the printed music.  It was a game to me – how could I express (fill in some adolescent angst here) given the constraints of the page?  How could I play the music “correctly” while giving it an indelible stamp of my existence?  How would my presentation of those dots be different from all the other presentations while remaining true to the thoughts of the composer?


    I worked relentlessly to master reading, phrasing, and technique to coax out of my instrument precisely my interpretation of the music.  Sometimes, in a fit of pique my interpretation would be to elect to interpret the music exactly as written – no inflection, no variance.  In those times, I strove for Swiss watch precision.

    That is the beauty of written music, it preserves the presentation. It allows you to play the same music that has been played for years, decades, centuries.  It provides you a link to your musical past, a genealogy worth preserving.  Further, the music page creates a frame within which you can work.  Nothing about putting music on the page prevents you from bringing that music to life in your own way.  Be creative – as long as you honor the composer and play the music as written – with your own twists.

  • Whisper down the shout

    Sandy Grason said, “Your inner wisdom whispers, your inner critic SHOUTS” (my emphasis).  It has been my experience that she is correct.

    Especially when it comes to our music.  We know a large number of people who play better than we do.  And if we are adults who came to the harp in adulthood, many of them are still children!

    Unfortunately, we let that shouting inner critic get in our way.  We can’t even discern the whispering wisdom – we are too caught up in swooning to the poison of the critic.  We focus on every “mistake”, every “failure”, every variance.  We note how the “real” harpers never make mistakes, have stunning repertoires, and can play any tune.
    It is too bad that we are so focused on ourselves.  We typically are so caught up in our fear that someone else will be better than us that we don’t really listen to those that we idolize.  We don’t recognize that the “real” harpers:
    1. make mistakes when playing

    2. are learning tunes

    3. are sometimes chagrined when they are not having a good day (my experience has been that this is especially highlighted when teaching!)

    4. may also be feeling this same way – and with much more at stake!
    So, if you find that you are listening to the stupid shouting rather than the wise whispering you can take action to change.  There are only a few things you must do:
    • Pretend the critic is talking about your friend, mother, spouse – wouldn’t you tell that critic to stop and start listing all the reasons they are wrong?  Of course you would!  The critic only has the power you grant – therefore if you defend yourself vigorously, the critic will recede.

    • Do not compare yourself to others – only to yourself.  I suggest that my students make a recording annually (usually at the New Year).  The idea is to record what they are doing at that point in time – playing whatever they happen to be working on.  They periodically go back and listen to the recording in its entirety so they can hear for themselves how much they have improved.  They can compare themselves to their previous performance – the only comparison that matters!

    • Listen to others – I guarantee you that only the meanest of people would seek you out to deliver a cutting critique.  When people hear you play and tell you how much they enjoyed your playing, when a respected teacher tells you what a good job you’ve done, when someone asks you to play – they are being honest!!! Believe them and enjoy knowing you’ve done well.
    Listen carefully – and the whisper will grow louder!

  • Stand up for Harping

    You might have seen in the news lately that the new rage is to work standing up.  Stand up desks are popping up in all sorts of places – even on treadmills. Working standing up has many benefits including:


    1. Expending more calories than sitting
    2. Better alignment of the spine

    3. Improved flexibility of the large muscles of the lower body

    4. Better posture

    5. Reduced perception of fatigue.

    You might think it is impossible to bring this trend to the harp, but you would be wrong.  There are a number of good reasons to play standing up –


    1. Better visibility of the harp and of the harper for the audience

    2. Better visibility of the audience to the harper

    3. Expending more calories

    4. Better alignment of the spine

    5. Postural improvements with concomitant breathing improvements

    6. It looks cool!

    You might want to try playing standing up.  It is very effective for stage presence.  It is not so appropriate for background gigs (weddings, cocktails, parties, etc.) where the point it to become “sonic wallpaper”*

    But when you are meant to stand out, standing is a good way to start. It is essential that you find a platform that is the right height (standing is not license to slouch).  The platform must be stable and you must be able to keep the harp on the platform safely while playing (and preferably while not playing).  The harp should not be wobbly, nor should you have to grip the harp while playing to keep it stable and upright.  Finally – you must practice with the harp in the standing configuration.  Many of your muscle memory cues will be slightly different.  Your sight picture will also be different so rehearsing standing will help you recalibrate.

    So, give standing a try, see if it works for you – take a stand!

    *thanks Kris Snyder for sticking this phrase in my head!

  • Be the Cheerleader!

    One of the best things about playing an instrument is that you get to spend time making music with other musicians.  But if you are a “part-time” musician (professional or hobbyist) it can sometimes get a little lonely.  The rest of your life may make it difficult to get together with others which is disappointing, but that lack of experience may also make you self-conscious about your playing, which can drive you to avoid the opportunities to play with others.  All of this might pile up and bring you down on yourself as a musician.  So, what to do?

    Become your own Cheerleader.  You know you’re capable of a great deal…and you know you have much to learn.  But only you can spur yourself on to more.  And to do that, you have to be a cheerleader for yourself.

    How will being a cheerleader help you?  Here are five ways:
     

    1. Cheerleaders cheer! Urge yourself on to greatness.  Remind yourself that there is no harsher critic than you.  And when people tell you that you are good and they enjoyed hearing you, they are not lying – if they thought you were terrible, they would just slink out and say nothing.

    2. Cheerleading has organized routines.  Build yourself an organized routine for your everyday music (practicing) and for your performing.  See previous posts about generating a structured, successful practice routine to get benefit from the time you spend behind the harp.

    3. Cheerleaders work hard – and make it look easy.  Practice! That’s the hard work.  The time you spend at your harp is an investment in yourself – make it count!  And the more you perform the better you get at making it look easy (think of performing frequently as, you guessed it, practicing performing!) .
    4. Cheerleaders are always pushing the edge – more complicated routines, bigger tricks, and lots of precision – you too need to learn new tricks!  Whether at your weekly lesson or at workshops available throughout the year, you can add more, bigger and better to you bag of tricks.  Seek to learn new things – everyone has something to teach you.  And that precision will come with steady work and progress (and will make you a better musician (and more ready to play with others!)).

    5. Cheerleaders typically look like they’re having fun – and they probably are!  Follow suit – one of the nicest things to hear is that your audience enjoyed that you appeared to be enjoying yourself!
    So, dust off your metaphorical pom-poms, grab your theoretical megaphone (or plug in your amp!), and cheer for you!  It will lift your spirits and help you to achieve more.