Fear Factor

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We all want to grow (I don’t mean taller or around the middle). We are typically not satisfied to simply maintain what we have achieved – we want to become better. We don’t like to stand still.

It is said that the only way to grow and develop is to be challenged. Another way to say challenged is to say “scared”. We can use our fear to help us grow and develop. We have to cultivate our Fear Factor.

One way to experience the fear of challenge to achieve that growth is to make ourselves uncomfortable. Try something new. Do something different. How different, new, or uncomfortable? We’ll that’s up to you. What is new, different or uncomfortable? It could be a new piece of music. It could be a new style of music. It could be a new instrument. It could be practicing at a different time of day. It could be learning to foxtrot. It could be deciding to run a marathon. It’s your fear and your desire to grow – you decide the size and shape of the challenge.

Any challenge that is within your ability to take on will make you feel alive (whether its scaling Mt. Humongous or speaking to someone you do not know). And of course, the more often you challenge yourself (in large and small ways), the easier it becomes to surmount the fear and take on the challenge. (See, even taking on your fear takes practice!).

It’s up to you – you have to know yourself and then decide the best way for you to add a challenge to your life. Are you going to let fear keep you from achieving your best performance? To keep you from playing that arrangement? To keep you from composing that tune? Why would you? Leverage that fear and take on the challenge – and watch yourself grow! And let me know – I’d love to hear from you.

Fortune Cookie II

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Last week I posted about a Fortune Cookie I had gotten about being a friend to have friends.  That really spoke to me about sharing our music with everyone.

And then I got to thinking more about the fortune cookie itself – it had absolutely NOTHING to do with playing the harp.  In fact, if you read that post you might have thought that I was daft.

But the reality is, that everything has to do with playing the harp.  And playing the harp has to do with everything else in our worlds. For some of us playing the harp takes over our worlds and we reorient our days and our lives to incorporate the harp ever more into our lives.  Of course for some of us, playing the harp has changed our lives by increasing the number of knick-knacks we have to dust.  (But, lest you scoff – even that dusting means that the harp has had some impact on your life!)

As musicians and artists, we have to be open to the possibilities in everything around us.  Whether it is something you read, see on TV, a billboard, a song coming from the next car over, the color of a dress – there are inspiration launch points everywhere. 

If something points itself out to you – whatever it is, from whence it might arise – pay attention!  Figure out what’s in there for you to take away and make into something else.  This is creativity at play – let it have its head – see where it leads you.  You might be inspired to generate a new arrangement, or compose a new tune, or just let yourself stop being afraid of what you might do next!

Fortune Cookie

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I’m not a huge fan of Chinese take away – that I am certain has nothing to do with anything actually Chinese.  But on occasion I can’t avoid it.  The best part is always the fortune cookie. 

I skip eating the cookie – I can’t wait to break into it to get my fortune (as well as those lottery numbers and a new vocabulary word that I’ll never be able to pronounce correctly).  The fortune is full of possibilities.  One of the great things about fortune cookies – they only hold truths.  We can laugh about it, make jokes about it, but does anyone ever read their fortune and remain completely unaffected?

My last fortune cookie said, “to have a friend, be a friend”.  To assure that you have friends, you have to be a friend to others.  Holding on to your gifts rather than giving them away diminishes those gifts.  It also doesn’t allow you to be as open to the gifts that others share. 

It got me thinking about how sometimes we hoard our music.  We are so self critical and many people allow that self criticism to censor their performance – they won’t play for others.  They are focused on their lack of perfection rather than on their depth of accomplishment. 

Don’t get me wrong, it does take an effort to put yourself out there and share with others.  It does require that you prepare – yourself, your music.  You do have to swallow down the flipflops in your stomach. 

But it is so worth it – you get that high from getting out there, they get the beauty of the music, you both enjoy participating in being together – what’s not to like.

So when you are sitting at your harp telling yourself that you’re not good enough – ask the question – good enough for what?  Of course you’re good enough – you’re good enough to share your gifts with your friends.  And in return, they’ll share their gifts – of joy, laughter, good times – with you!

Do I really need a teacher?

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People often ask me if they really need a teacher when they begin playing the harp.  Actually they usually say something more like, “Do I REALLY need a teacher ?”

And I know that they would prefer that I say no. I don’t know why that is.

I can understand if money is tight and paying for lessons is just not in the cards right now. This suggests that there are too many pressures to take on a new hobby at this time. Learning to play the harp should be shelved until a more propitious time in one’s life if that’s the case.

Or perhaps they are swayed by the “teach yourself to play” books that are available. These books are all quite good and well put together. In fact, when I was learning to play the harp, one of these stalwart books was selected by my teacher to help me along. Not for the poor graphics on hand placement but perhaps more for the well thought out exercises and tunes arranged in a slowing increasing difficulty.
And it could be those potential harpers don’t realize that those “teach yourself to play” books were written at a time when there were very few harp players to be found to teach, especially in the traditional music arena, making it challenging to find someone with whom to study.

I know there are those who are self taught. I know this because they have told me so. And where have I met these people? At workshops, lead by some of the most brilliant teachers available today. So while they may be initially self taught, they have reached the end of their self teaching and reached out to be brought a little further by spending a small wee while with a luminary.

Learning from a teacher provides so many benefits that I almost don’t know where to start! A teacher will help you establish, lay-down, and reinforce a strong foundation from which you can do many things. A teacher will assure you start by knowing how to hold your harp and how to place your fingers – and why!

A teacher will facilitate your growth:

• mastering technique
• engraining musicality
• learning a broad repertoire
• having the skills to perform whichever repertoire you select – with ease and confidence
A teacher will help you grow strong as a musician. A strong foundation means that you have the strength (mental, emotional, musical) and endurance to explore, do, make whatever you seek.
It is that growth we all seek – that strength. The best musicians still learn, grow, study – to improve on the strong foundation they established with their teachers when they began.

Memories….

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Memory is essential to our craft. We all know that we want to memorize music – it makes it easier to play – and it is far more impressive to sit down to play for a long while with no paper!

In order to present long stretches of music without the dot crutch, you have to master the memory of the music and its presentation.

Let’s start with Memory – What is memory? Now, we’re not going to have an in depth technical discussion of memory and the brain, but you do need to understand what memory is.

Memory is how you hang onto what you heard and what you have played. It is likely that there are multiple areas of the brain that are important for the musical experience. We know this because imaging studies have shown significant activity all over the brain with music (which is different from other similar tasks where activity is more subdued).

Anecdotally, we know what memory is. We know it is affected by experience, practice, fatigue, hunger, and stress, as well as other impacts. But are you aware of the different “kinds” of memory? Each of them is important and impacts your ability to play.

There are a number of types of memory that need to be developed to improve your practice and performance. They are:
• Visual
• Auditory
• Muscle
• Kinesthetic
• Conceptual

Visual memory refers to recalling what you have seen. Auditory memory is recalling what you’ve heard. Muscle memory is the recall of what your positions and motions. Kinesthetic memory helps you remember what something feels like. And Conceptual memory assimilates all the parts.
We’ll discuss each of these types of memory in greater detail in the future. For now, remember that you have a lot to remember when you’re playing – so give yourself a break if you’re having trouble memorizing new music or recalling music you’ve already learned. It’s in there; you just have to get it out!

April is right around the corner! Tour Info

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Scotland is calling! April slots are still available. If you are looking at the approaching spring and knowing that you’d like to have the experience of seeing Scotland “wake up” from the winter, this is a great opportunity!

We’ll see the Highlands and the Isle of Skye, we’ll learn some tunes that’ll help your hibernating fingers want to jam. And a small harp is just waiting for you to pick it up and play a newly learned tune. If you’re interested and ready to go – find all the information on www.jeniuscreations.com/harptour

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

Harp Care

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Thanks to Kris Snyder for pointing out the need to remind people about the potential danger to your harp lurking in your home…dryness.

She has some great hints including checking the humidity inside your house…it might feel really good to you, your hair might look great, but even if you’re not getting shocked every time you touch something that doesn’t mean your house has a high enough humidity to keep your harp happy.

You don’t want your sound board to dry out and look like this!

And by happy I mean that it will stay more in tune and more importantly you’re not stressing the wood to the point that it might break.

Very early in my harp career (before it was even a harp career at all!) Kris gave me the sage advice to treat my harp like a baby (like the middle school project of carrying an egg around all the time – but heavier). Never leave it in the car, or in the sun, or in cold or the heat, make sure it has an appropriate humidity level, keep it tuned, and never just stand it up and walk away (or it will fall – mine have proven that more than once).

If you’re concerned about the dryness in the winter – put the lid of a 2 part travel soap keeper upside down on the bottom of your harp (inside the sound box) and place a dampened sponge inside the lid. Check it daily to assure the sponge is damp. This will provide enough local moisture to keep your harp happy – and you won’t be broken up at finding a cracked sound board.

Practice Makes Practice

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No one is born with so much talent that they don’t have to practice. We ALL have to practice. And the real difference between those people we admire so much and the rest of us is usually the amount of time spent practicing. I once heard someone tell a group that playing the harp came so easily to (another person) and that she just sat down and started playing.  That was a very hurtful comment – No one who plays well does so without practice (they just make it seem that way!).

We spend a lot of time practicing. And those people we admire practice even more.  If you get consistent practice you might spend between 5 – 20 hours a week practicing (I know, 20 hours might sound like an impossible dream for most, but it is not unreasonable – really – if you seek to gain mastery). There is a popular statistic going around that it takes about 10000 hours of practice to gain mastery of anything. If your calculator is handy that is 417 days of practice – 24 hour days…if we make it “work days” instead – it’s a much more reasonable 1250 days ( or 3 ½ years – no days off of course) and if you think of it as work years (including vacations and weekends, and holidays) its just about 5 ½ work years….ouch!

So, it is essential that you use your practice time well (since it will add up – but only slowly). And to acknowledge that true mastery will take a while (remember that 10000 is a hand-wave – not a minimum). And work slowly and steadily toward mastery through practice.

In a later post we talk about specific techniques to improve your practice.

The Creativity Habit

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Do you think of yourself as creative? Or do you think that’s something other people are – and you just enjoy the outputs of their creativity?

I know someone who has an amazing capacity to think up interesting meals. All my life, I have been in awe of her ability to look into the pantry and visualize a tasty, appealing and filling meal. When I look in there – crickets. Seriously!

We are all creative in some way. And the best way to tap into that creativity is to get into the habit of being creative. Are you in the habit of being creative? Do you thrive on your own creativity or do you stew on what you’re not good at?

To be more creative – to write new compositions, to develop new arrangements for tunes, to paint, to write, or to plan interesting meals, it is essential that you get into a creativity habit. Set aside time to be creative- free from distractions and surrounded by the things that help you create. Make certain to schedule this time with yourself – put it on your planner. Stick to your schedule. Make sure to “attend” the meeting you have scheduled with yourself and pursue your goals.

In a later post, we’ll talk about techniques for being productively creative and ways to channel your creativity into completing projects.

Thinking about injuries

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In my other life, I work in ergonomics and that makes me prone to thinking about injuries, injury prevention and the development and practice of good technique. I am keenly aware of challenges to playing that may result in injury. Using good technique is about more than getting good tone – it also helps to keep you focused on playing without injury or pain.

While I’ll rail on some other day on technique at the harp, let’s focus on something far more insidious today. One thing that many people do not think about when considering their technique is the time spent away from the harp. Spending hours a day slumped over a poorly placed computer screen and keyboard, or sloped into a couch watching television can impact the time spent at the harp.

In addition, our technique must include many things beyond playing the harp. Do you spend hours a day working on your computer? Playing games? On the phone? Walking around?

All of these things have an impact on your technique. Consider this: if you work on a computer all day and practice for an hour every day, your technique at the computer has 8 times more practice (in terms of time) than your technique at the harp. Eight times! This is akin to a recent blurb I saw that reminded that, even if you spend 15 minutes a day working your abs (to get your washboard tummy back), that is a drop in the bucket compared to the 23.75 hours you spend not working your abs!

All these “mundane” activities can also cause injury – either at the harp or away from it. So be mindful of your posture and technique throughout the day and in all your activities. When speaking on the phone, keep your head up and your neck aligned. Breathe. Keep your shoulders down and relaxed. Stretch your body more often than you think it needs it. Use good technique when typing, or slaying monsters or slacking on the couch. Every day all the time…this will improve your technique at the harp.

Like everything you learn while playing the harp, having good general technique requires practice – so be sure to check yourself out throughout the day and use good technique for all those mundane activities. Then you’ll have that strong foundation when you sit to your harp.