Jenius Creations

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  • Taking your breath away

    Breathing is essential – we all know that.  So, why is it that so many people don’t breathe when they get behind their harp?  Most people don’t even realize they aren’t breathing.  Of course, you don’t see people turning blue, but you do see people just not breathing enough.  So, how do you keep the wind in your sails?  Here are three things you can do.

    1.       Start by taking a deep breath – when you sit to your harp, take a deep breath.  Let that breath relax you.  If the simple act of taking the breath didn’t dissipate your stress, then take another. Deep, slow breath – focus on the breathing.  That breath will help you not only get oxygen in but can help you relax enough to both enjoy your time at the harp but also to get more from it!

    2.       Breathe while you’re thinking about it – whenever you have a free second in your brain (that is, if the thought “breathe” enters your head) take a breath!  No short, panting breathing, but gentle, deeper breaths.

    3.       Practice breathing.  I can already hear you, “when I’m practicing, I already have a lot of work to do and you want me to add another task!”  But, just like you have to practice the physical task of setting levers you have to practice breathing.  If you practice the breath as part of the overall physical activity of playing, when you are not practicing (you know, when you’re competing or on stage) you will breathe.  Which will be good – because you’ll need it!

    Try these three tips – it will be like a breath of fresh air in your playing!

  • Somedays, it feels like you’ll never get up!

    Some days, the time is fluid, the needful things all seem to be complete and there’s your harp, all ready to be played.  But other days are like the third day of a diet – you know, the day you start to backslide, cheat, eat M&Ms because they’re small and they don’t count.

    Those are the days on which your life gangs up on you – there’s so much to do and no matter how hard you work, you don’t get the needful things completed, the only thing that changes on your “Things to Do” list is that it keeps getting longer, and when you fall exhaustedly into bead, you jolt awake with the thought, “oh, [bother], I never practiced today!”  And, because you’re exhausted, as you slide into sleep, you feel guilty and just a little fatter (well, the harp equivalent). 

    H.G. Wells is quoted as saying, “If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”  He’s got a good point.  We all know we must practice to maintain our hard won gains (and so as not to embarrass ourselves when someone asks us to play an impromptu concert).  But we also know that we live in the world and stuff happens.

    On those days (which do sometimes stretch into weeks) be kind to yourself.  If your harp buddy was confessing that practice was a word he could no longer even spell, would you start castigating him?  If your workshop roomie let slip that she’s kind of in a hiatus from actually practicing, would you read her the riot act?  No, you wouldn’t do either of those things. You would express kind hearted support – you’d try to make them feel better – after all, things come up.

    So, don’t do that to yourself either.  Recognize that harp, like everything else in your life, is clamoring for your attention.  Recognize that because you love your harp so much you might actually favor it over other things on the good days (cleaning would be one of those things!) so you feel keenly the not good days when you don’t get to play.
    Make a promise to yourself to be gentle with you, praise your good, and accept that less good.  Know that sometimes you need a little break to return to your love affair with a light heart.
    And aren’t we lucky – the loves of our lives sit there, patiently waiting, going out of tune (this must be the harp equivalent of when your dog chews your shoes to express displeasure!).  So, when things calm down, go back, play the old, well worn, easy stuff that you don’t forget and the next day, take on a challenge! 

    Just ‘cause you fell down today doesn’t mean that tomorrow won’t be better and you can get right up…onto your harp bench!

  • What does your space look like?

    What does the space in which you practice look like?  Is it warm and inviting, beckoning you to come play?  Or does it look the bigger cousin of the kitchen junk drawer? 

    What you put around you impacts your time at the harp.  And since none of us has enough time at the harp, we need to make sure our surroundings help us maximise that time rather than gnawing on our conscious or our unconscious thought.
     
    No matter whether you have an entire wing of your house devoted to enshrining your harp or if you have your harp wedged into a corner, you should make sure that your surroundings help you play, practice, grow, and enjoy.

    So, here are four things you can do to improve your space so that you enjoy being there more and get better performance from yourself while you are there.

    1.  Make the space inviting and comfortable.  This is clearly personal and you should make the space yours.  There are number of things that can make the space better for you.  Make sure you have good lighting.  Have enough space to safely play and store your harp.  Will the dog run through and knock it over?  Do you have enough room for your bench.  If you have a small space, be sure you have enough room for good form and technique throughout the range of the harp (when you play the top strings, are your elbows brushing the walls? Then move!).  You may have to move the furniture around (but since its not a harp, I’m sure no one will notice or care!). 

    2.  Have on hand the things you will need – eventually.  You know you need a tuner and lighting and space for your harp.  But there are other things you need to store nearby as well – music? music stand?  extra strings? a string chart? whatever other bits and bobs you want to have there.  Make sure those things are easily accessible so you have them when you need them.  For instance, if a string breaks during your practice, it might not be enough to have the strings close by, you might also need string ends, candle gum, pliers, et autre accoutrement.

    3.  Of course having things near by means your must have a place to put those things.  And that you actually put them in their place when not in use!  Organizing your things will keep the space tidy so it won’t be a distraction while you’re practicing. 

    4.  Use the space you have to do the things you do.  If you don’t just play but also have people listen, you’ll need a comfortable place for them to sit. If you do a lot of arranging, you’ll need a place for your pens and pencils, manuscript paper, erasers (if you’re at all like me!).  If you do recording, you’ll need the recorder itself and a stand or table.

    Each of us uses our harps and the space in a very personal way.  Make sure you organize your space so you can accomplish all you want to without having to “fight” the room to make your accomplishments.

  • Quick, before the window closes!

    The 2012 Harp in the Highlands and Islands Tour is coming up quickly and it looks like there are only 2 seats left!

     

    If you are interested, there’s still time – our 2012 tour departs Edinburgh 16 July and returns there after a week of seeing some spectacular parts of Scotland. 

    We welcome everyone – harp players, people who love the harp and want to give it a try, people who are love to listen to the harp and traditional music, players of other small instruments, and people the would just like to explore Scotland.  We’ll see breathtaking sites, history, meet wonderful people, and learn tunes that are tied to our travels.   We will continue to bring the harp experience to our travellers and can’t wait to share it with you.

    For more information, go to www.jeniuscreations.com, email me or leave a comment here. I hope you’ll be joining us!

  • Keeping Regular

    Most of us have good, quality instruments that are well built by caring craftsmen.  Some are made by individuals.  Some are made in factories.  But they are all beautiful.  They bring joy and peace into our lives.  We look forward to the time we will get to spend with them.  To enhance that time we need to care for them in return. 

    Some harp care items don’t take very long, others are a tad arduous and may be best left to someone else. Here are three things that help care for your harp in decreasing order of frequency:

    1.       Daily: No one likes when I say this (including me, some days) – tune your harp. My students roll their eyes.  I know they don’t do it.  I think some people miss out on this because they think of tuning as a chore – something that stands between them and playing.  But if you think of it tuning as more of ritual than a chore – it is actually a little easier to get in every day.  Tuning, like everything else, gets easier (and faster) with practice.  You also get better at it the more you do it.  You will learn to hear when you are in tune.  You will learn that each string is different and how much to turn the key to achieve the pitch.  And tuning is a quiet time, just you and your harp.  It is stress free (no learning, no “wrong notes”, no broken expectations).   Enjoy the time each day…and enjoy the side benefit of having a harp that is in tune.

    2.       Weekly: Dust it.  My harp gets dusty (and not just because it’s a Dusty – my Wurlitzer gets dusty too!).  I use a commercially available disposable non-feather duster (note that there is no commercial endorsement). I don’t use the little handley-thingy it comes with – just the duster.  And I always do the harps first so the duster is clean and then go on to the rest of the room.  It may not make a difference in my playing or even in my harp’s life but it makes me feel like I’ve taken care of my investment.  And my luthier told me my harp looks good (that’s always nice to hear). 

    3.       Annually:   Now we get to keeping regular.  Harp regulation that is.  Have your harp regulated.  If you haven’t heard of this, regulation is the process of adjusting your levers (for pedal harps, it is adjusting the mechanism, repairs and changing the felts.   Your harp needs regulation if when you have open strings it is in tune but when you engage the lever on the string it is no longer in tune at the new pitch.  It may be sharp or flat.  If you have the patience of Job you can do this yourself.  I know people who do their own regulation.  I think they are sainted nut jobs….but I’m just jealous.   I take my harps to a professional.  Someone who knows what they are doing that close to my harp with pointy screwdrivers.  Someone who is obviously more patient than I am!  Find a luthier near you – someone you know, like and trust.  The advantage of this is that not only do they do a great job faster that you ever will and return to you an accurate harp that is a joy to play again, they may find something else you needed to know (mine once found and repaired a split in the back which was cosmetic but would have caused me to hyperventilate and panic if I’d found it myself).  If you don’t know a luthier, I’m happy to regale you with the heroic tales of real ones that may be near you.

    Take care of your harp – you’ll be glad you did…each and every time you sit to play it them. 

  • Spring is Sprung, the Grass is Grizz

    I wonder where the birdies is.  So goes the poem I learned as a child…everything according to plan. 

    We’re nearly through the first quarter of the year.  The trees are blooming.  The flowers are coming up.  How are you coming along with your grand plan?  I am sure you did a lot of goal setting at the new year.  You might have been goal setting along with me, or you might have generated some resolutions.  Either way, here’s your chance to check in and see how it’s going.

    1.       Do you remember you goals?  Did you write them down?  Do you remember where you put them?  Have you verified that in the cold light of day they make sense?

    2.       Do you need to clean up some of your goals?  Sometimes we set wonky goals, or goals that are a little more of a stretch than we will be able to achieve in the time we set.  Or they seemed like good goals when we set them but for some reason we just can’t fathom how we came up with them.  Goals can be modified.  I don’t advocate just changing them because they’re challenging, but sometimes, you really do generate a stinker or a really unrealistic goal and those should be changed. 

    3.       Are you moving toward those goals? It’s not enough to write down your goals – did you also document how you were going to go about achieving them?  Did you make a plan or just a goal?  If you didn’t do planning before, now is not too late to begin. Sometimes planning is daunting – it is so much easier to just set a goal. But just setting the goal isn’t really setting a goal at all – it’s more like dreaming.  And we know that the path from dream to reality is to make a plan.  Break down how you intend to reach your goal into manageable steps – and write them down – you probably have some great ideas, but if they are anything like mine, they’ll be like that movie title – “Gone in 60 Seconds”!  They’re great ideas – as long as you remember them – so be sure to write them down.

          4.     Did you set a path but then you missed a turn?  If you did make a plan but you’ve been derailed, its time to evaluate the plan.  I used to make completely unrealistic plans.  For instance, I once set the goal of finding, learning, arranging, and mastering a tune a week – which totally ignored the fact that I had set other, even more aggressive goals in other parts of my life.  It was a plan, but not a very reasonable one.  So, sometimes you have to modify the plan.  That’s ok.

    So, if you haven’t gotten moving on your goals for this year and you’ve determined that the goals were sound, and you’ve identified your path or plan, you should be good – as long as it fits you.  If it doesn’t, change it.  Goals are your tools – make them work for you!

  • Recycling

    The headline says, “Get Crafty Using Recycled Items”.  Wow!  What a great idea!  You know that I am 1) intrinsically lazy and 2) always looking to increase my repertoire without actually working too hard (see number 1.).  I will do anything (climb fences, practice for hours, eat nettles) to avoid working too hard (as you see, my definition of work too hard might need some work).

    But recycling speaks to my inner Goddess – Parsimony.  There is a real treasure trove in even the smallest repertoire.  Music that can be expanded and refashioned in such a way that the overall volume of music available is not additive but really, it’s multiplied! So much gain for so little gain.

    Building on our earlier discussion, here are three ways to recycle your music to have even more to play:

           1. Slow it down or speed it up – there are some hauntingly beautiful melodies cleverly disguised as dance tunes.  You don’t even have to change the chord pattern just blow the block chords up into schmaltzy rolled chords or lush broken chords.  Take the tempo way down.  Add ornaments and if you’re of a mind include variations.  And don’t forget to breathe – use your breath to highlight the phrasing.  Or take an air and move it into a dance form – speed it up, block up the phrasing, block the chords to help add some heft and bulk and you’ll have a new tune! 
    2.       Move into another key – it always amazes me how dissimilar different keys can feel on a tune.  Play around and move a tune from one key to another (which might be a lever change away!) and see if you like it as well or better in another key.  Another take on this is to really change it up – move the tune to a very different key and see what you get – move to the relative minor (or major) and get a whole new feel.  Or set your levers to some other key but continue to play the original shapes and strings (note – sometimes this is brilliant!  And sometimes it can’t end quickly enough – but you have to try to see what works and what you like).
    3.       Modify the chords and change the feel – you know that there’s the chord patter you’ve learned, read, or generated.  But you also know that each note appears in at least three 1-3-5 chords so there are plenty of opportunities to mix it up.  If you always come down on a D for instance, consider coming down on a G (or a B maybe…).   Noodle around and see what works – and see how it changes what you played.
    Of course, each of these takes some time, just you and your harp.  But the outcome is really rewarding (especially if you have to fill more time than you planned). Let me know how you come along!

  • Spring Cleaning

    Spring cleaning is that annual ritual in which we shake off the old detritus of the last year, clean our space, let in the light and the fresh air.  Of course, we mostly put it off so we can practice.  But maybe we should consider spring cleaning our playing.

    Technique is essential for good performance and will help you get new music down.  I know you have good technique.  You have worked hard to achieve it.  And it has served you well for all this time.

    But just like our homes, our technique could use some spring cleaning.  There are 3 things you can do to give your playing a tune up:

    1.       Work on your exercises – I know, no one likes exercises – but they are good for you.  The real reason to include exercises though is that they allow you an opportunity to evaluate your technique.  Use the time to work slowly and carefully through those basic elements of playing that are the building blocks (or technique).  If you are inclined you can enlist the aid of a friend or use a video camera to learn more – what are your hands actually doing while you’re playing?  These are always useful – I try to monitor my technique like a hawk especially when doing scales, arpeggios and building patterns which give you a good idea of areas you need to work. 

    2.       Tune up old tunes – I had the opportunity to take a lesson recently and in the course of it, learned that I had developed a very bad habit.  I never noticed it because I never do it when I’m watching myself work through exercises.   This bad habit had developed over the course of building comfort with the tune and its arrangement.  If you develop a problem, go back to old tunes that you know really well.   In effect, they become like the exercises in that you know them so well you don’t have to focus on the tune and can instead look at your technique.  Because you’re playing a real tune you can explore even greater aspects of your playing than with the exercises.

    3.       Do a real cool down – Most people don’t think they really need a cool down after practicing or playing.  After all, it’s not like you ran or anything – you certainly didn’t break a sweat!  However, each time you practice you are doing a lot of work.  And just like an athlete, you need to cool down and stretch to help build strength and allow the muscles to recover.

    Of course, this spring cleaning is something you should do throughout the year.  It will help you strengthen your technique which will improve your playing in the spring and throughout the year.

  • SoMD Celtic Festival Harp Competition is soon!

    28 April 2012 marks the 34th year of the Southern Maryland Celtic Society Festival Saturday, in beautiful Calvert County Maryland. This is the oldest Celtic celebration in Maryland!

    In just two month’s we will have a Scottish Harp Society Sanctioned Competition (rules are available at http://www.shsa.org). Our judge will be the wonderful Sue Richards (http://www.suerichards.net/). And we are fortunate to again have the Virginia Harp Center as our Prizes Sponsor this year.

    I hope you’ll come to the competition, whether you compete or not. If you want to compete you’ll find the online registration (there will be no onsite registration) on cssm.org/harp. And if competition performance is not for you, come out anyway – we always need volunteers (who get complimentary admission to the games – just leave me a comment if you are interested).

    The festival is scheduled on the last Saturday of April every year from 10 AM to 6 PM Rain or Shine.  Look for more information on www.cssm.org.  While the park will allow pets, it would be less stressful for them if you left your furry friends at home.

    Our Festival was chosen in 2000 by Congressman Steny Hoyer to represent Southern Maryland in the national “Local Legacy” project of the Library of Congress’ Bicentennial celebration.  The Southern Maryland Celtic Festival and Highland Gathering highlights the heritage of the Breton, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scots, and Welsh.

    The Festival is centrally located to the mid-Atlantic.  Our Harp competition has had competitors from as far as North Carolina to the south, Michigan to the west, and upstate New York to the north – and I hope this year will be no exception. The Festival is held at Jefferson Patterson state park with the field overlooking the Patuxent River which is stunning and delightful – a lovely location for a games.

    When final details, like the time, have been updated  for 2012, I’ll post them here.

  • Three sure ways to double your repertoire today

    We all want to have a prodigious repertoire that will allow us to play for hours with little to know effort.  But how do you get there?  You know that it will take some time to develop a deep repertoire but there are three steps to getting there quicker.

    1.       Play the classics.  While you know “Twinkle” because you learned them at your first lesson, that doesn’t mean that your audience won’t love it when you play it!  Bring out and play all those eight-bar tunes!  The tunes you know are the ones to play – they’re not trite, they’re fun…and…you know them!

    2.       Rearrange your tunes.  Whether you learn by ear or a strict page reader, you can make more of your repertoire by “letting go”.  You can use the same chord progression (which means you only have to remember the one progression) but present it in different ways – 5ths, octaves, blocked chords, broken chords, rolled chords, various collections of these).  This will allow you to play a tune through as many repeats as you need.  If you’re playing off the paper, you might want to write in the chord names – make it your own lead sheet.  And, if you can, add in some alternate chords for variety.


    3.       Timing is everything.  Music is a means of communication.  What you choose to communicate is up to you.  The tunes you know can often do double duty – especially when you have no time to prepare.  Most of the “fast tunes” you know can be slowed way down – way down!  This will instantaneously increase your store of airs.  But remember too that your store of airs can be sped up – thus increasing your cache of fast tunes (this does take some practice!).  And it’s relatively easy to do – the biggest challenge is to actually play slowly!  The chord progressions stay the say, but break the chord up which will help you stay slow.

    All these will, at a minimum, double your repertoire – as quickly as today.  Don’t forget to write out a list of your tunes – don’t want to forget any of them!