As the year comes to an end

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As the year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect and ask questions.  I have been writing to you since 2009 (!) and I hope some of those topics have been interesting and informative.  And I hope you know that I genuinely appreciate your taking the time to spend here.

So this week, I’d like to ask you to tell me what you’d like to know more about.  What gives you trouble?  What would you find interesting?  What do you need to learn (or want to learn)?  Anything you don’t want to know?  Please (pretty please!) let me know your thoughts so we can talk about important stuff in the new year!

Just fill in the blanks with your brilliant thoughts and I will be ever so grateful.  And, of course, you’re always welcome to use the comments!

 

Gift Guide – Part B

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Gift Guide – Part B

Last week we listed some gift ideas you could share with the people in your life who might ask what you would like to receive this holiday season. Now let’s flip the script. What gifts could you give from there on your bench?

Like any gift guide, this means matching the giving intention to the recipient and there are so many possibilities!

  • You can play for your family. You might think that your family listens to you play every day so this wouldn’t be a good gift. But the reality is that they probably don’t listen to you practice. They might hear you, but they’re probably not listening. They will enjoy having a specific time to sit and actually listen to the fruits of your labors. They are, after all, your biggest supporters.
  • Jane Austen is calling! There was a time when it was expected that each person would take their turn being entertaining for guests. Invite your supportive friends over and, as part of the time together, play for them. You’d be amazed how many of your friends don’t even know you play the harp, and how many of those who do know have never heard you play.
  • Play for someone special. This can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make it. You have all the tools – just get out of your own way. Play the music you hear in your head.  Don’t have a lot of noise going on up there? Stumped on where to start? Set your harp to C major and play only the white strings (thank you Marianna!) and diddle around. Run your recorder. Go back and listen, find what you like and put that stuff together. Practice that, toss in a left hand (hint – start with G) and boom! a handmade present!
  • Give a concert. Why not! You need a venue (your living room?), an audience (friends, family, neighbors), and you need 3 to 20 tunes (depending on how long you want to perform). Add some “patter” (it is a show, you are the MC) and wine or tea and cookies and you’re in business. It doesn’t have to be Carnegie Hall, just play.
  • Volunteer. Go to a nursing home or a rehab facility and play for them (or for the staff). You can do this anytime of year but the holidays seem like a good time to start (this does require a bit coordination, but so worth it).

It’s also amazing how good you’ll feel after sharing your gift of music.  What else could you do with your harp to give someone a lovely gift? I’ve given you several ideas here, but I bet you have better ones – let me know in the comments.

Updated Gift Guide

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Updated Gift Guide

It is holiday time and someone might ask you what you’d like to receive.  A couple of years ago, I posted a Gift Guide and it’s that time again, so I thought I’d add to the list. 

Don’t just go out and buy these things for yourself – leave them as gift opportunities!  You can be very specific so you do receive what you want.  It’s easy when you send a link and include the size, color, number with it!  And your givers will be delighted to have gotten you something you are sure to enjoy.

Some things (including your suggestions):

  • A nice, comfortable, packable performance dress. Preferably washable and flattering.  And pockets! (gotta put your key somewhere while on stage!).
  • A nice, comfortable pair of performance shoes to go with that dress.
  • Memberships/Subscriptions to your favorite Harp Journals – Folk Harp Journal, American Harp Society, Harp Column, Scottish Harp Society of America
  • Accessories bags. Corral your stuff in your harp case pocket or gig bag!  A bag for your spare strings or your electronic tuner or your key.  You need a place for your stand lamp, your cough drops, Kleenex, etc.  Believe me, it’s easier to find stuff when you need it if it’s organized!
  • Music sounds – cds, downloads, membership to some horrible-rip-off-streaming-service – we all learn better by listening.  It’s also good to hear new-to-you music.
  • Music paper – sheet music you’ve been drooling over but haven’t been able to justify buying? Here are some excellent choices!*
  • Workshop or lessons – there are loads of workshops, summer schools, and getaways offered all over the country (actually the world). And lessons or coaching are always a good idea!
  • Travel – What could be more fun than going on a cool trip – with me to a places known for harp?!  Check out the 2024 itinerary here.*
  • Tickets – few things are as exhilarating – or motivating – as attending a live performance!
  • Cleaning supplies – whether you prefer a Swiffer or a soft bristle brush, put it on your list. You could get two, one for home and one to keep in your case.
  • Harp jewelry – can you ever have too many harp necklaces or earrings?  And you can support a small business while you’re at it.  I’ve really enjoyed the things I’ve gotten from harpjewelry**

So, while you’re making your list and checking it twice, what else would make wonderful holiday gifts that you’d love to get?  Let me know in the comments!

* Shameless plug!  ** Unaffiliated, but if you’ve ever met me in person, you know I love my harp necklace!

Favorites

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It’s not too late

One of my favorite Christmas carols is one that I don’t think I ever sang.  I still don’t sing it.  I don’t know the words.  But it’s still my favorite.

Why?  Don’t know.  It’s just another one of those tunes that wakes me up in the middle of the night, running through my head.

I learned this tune (I know, i just said I never sang it – but I do know the tune!) listening to Christmas records as a kid.  We had an album with it.  It was sung by a Boys’ Choir (could have been Vienna, St. Martin’s, Ersatz, not sure).  I imagine that I remember the cover but I think it have concocted an amalgamation of the covers of the ones I remember best.  I don’t remember ever hearing it on the radio or in the Christmas specials on TV.  But it has not left me.

I also never remembered the name of it. I never got any of the words (no liner notes – the ONLY way I ever get lyrics right!).  And so, into my adulthood, it remained this tune that ran through my head, unaccompanied by a desire to play it, to seek it out (after all, it comes up unbidden!).  Until, one day a dear friend started to tell the story of a defining moment in his life.  I won’t tell his story here (he tells it brilliantly and it is his story) but it centered on the Christmas carol, Once in Royal David’s City.  I hadn’t ever heard that one, so I asked him and he graced me by singing it (in his lovely voice).

And then I knew…it was that tune I love that I didn’t know the name of!

And that sparked a (new) desire to actually play this tune that has been on intermittent repeat (to be fair, it didn’t play in my head for years there in the middle). It is from a hymn tune originally entitled Irby written by the English composer Henry Gauntlett (1805 – 1876).  He was an interesting guy – he was a champion for Beethoven, Bach.  And apparently a brilliant organist – Mendelssohn selected him to play a premiere. Of course, I think he’s fab – he invented a new kind of organ because the ones available weren’t serving the music well enough! (OBTW, if you’re interested, the lyrics were written by Irish poet Cecil Frances Alexander, herself wonderfully accomplished as well.)

So, after all that, I really enjoy playing this carol (still don’t know the words!). But since I enjoy it so much, I wanted to share it with you!  It’s a fairly simple tune so for a little work, you could have it ready for Christmas if you like.  It’s not one everyone plays, so it’ll be a nice addition to your set.  I, of course, have written an arrangement and I’d be delighted if you play it.  But remember two important things.  First, the melody is the thing (so play at your level).  Second, be you!  This is how I might play it but feel free to start here and do you!  You’ll find it here.

I hope you enjoy it – let me know how it goes in the comments!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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It’s that time of the year when we pause to be thankful.  It is always good to give thanks for the bounties in our lives – family, friends, community.  I hope that you know how much I appreciate you being a part of my community, all of you.  Thank you for spending time with me each week and for sharing your thoughts, questions, and insights.  I am grateful for you and your time.  Happy Thanksgiving!

How to Host a Harp Circle

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How to Host a Harp Circle –

Harp Circles are one of those lovely pleasures of playing the harp.  They are the ultimate all-in-one thing because they include socializing, performing, collaborating, sharing, laughter, and snacks.  What is not to love about that?

Harp Circles come in a variety of forms – they can be recitals dressed up as a social event, they can be “additional lessons” driven by your teacher, or they can be a harp party.  In my mind the harp party is the best form because they are just fun – low stress, low anxiety, low prep, and high fun. 

Organizing a harp circle can be pretty simple.  The first two types are the easiest because they are completely organized by the teacher so as an attendee your only real job is to show up and be tuned when everyone’s ready to start.

But not everyone has a teacher.  Not every teacher wants to host these events.  In either of those cases, you might want to host the Harp Circle yourself!  After all, some people just like to host parties.  And some people just want to have an opportunity to share music.  So, what would you need to do? Here are some suggestions:

  • Like any (casual) party, select a date.  The date should be far enough in the future so that people can plan for it, but not so far that they can equally easily forget about it.  The date should be convenient for your group – weekend afternoons are often popular.  But as the host, be certain the date works for you and that you have enough time to plan and prepare before inviting everyone!
  • Figure out how many people (with harps) can fit in your space.  You probably want to stick relatively closely to the circle arrangement so there’s no “leader” or any kind of implied hierarchy.  If you have a small house (like mine) you might only be able to fit a few (I’ve calculated that if I move furniture and people play my harps (rather than bringing their own), I could get about six to eight people but I have a friend that has a room that is only slightly smaller than a football stadium and she can get a lot more people in!  Safety first – ensure that with those people and harps in the room there is enough space to move around without knocking over anyone’s harp!  Also important – make sure there is an easy way out in case of emergency.
  • Identify who you’re going to invite.  You could invite all the harp players in your area (or that you know).  You could include a “bring a friend” element to encourage the harp players you do know to bring along someone you don’t know.  If you have a small space, you might include an RSVP so you can manage the throngs that attend.
  • Decide what you’ll do at the party.  As I said above this can range from a recital to a rave – it’s up to you.  I really enjoy it when there is a little structure.  An example agenda might be:
    • Gather, chat, set up, chat, tune, chat.  Did I mention that this is meant to be social?
    • Pick someone to start. You can draw lots, select playing cards, roll dice, flick a spinner, ask for a volunteer, it’s up to you.  From that person, go around the circle with each person starting a tune that all can join in.  These tunes are for fun.  You want to hold “party pieces” in reserve for later!  This is a good time to ensure everyone is included – if you have less experienced people, play fun tunes slowly so they can join in.  You can increase speed with each repetition, but you don’t people to feel excluded or abandoned by playing everything too fast! 
    • Ensemble (either by sight reading or playing something that everyone has already worked on).
    • Party pieces – those “show off” tunes that everyone has worked on.  This can also be the time to play things in various states of repair – someone might be just learning a tune while someone else might be in the polishing phase (and everything in between!). The point is to share the music and to encourage one another to play and enjoy.  ENCOURAGEMENT ONLY!
    • Snacks and Chats – the social part of the party!
    • Return to play some more!
  • Plan your menu.  One of the best parts of a Harp Circle is the social time!  That’s because we are a community of harpers.  Community is important and requires care and feeding and snacks and beverages are an excellent way to do so!  Do you want to cater it yourself?  Do you want to invite people to do a desert potluck?  A meal potluck?  An ice cream social?  I’d suggest you only serve food that isn’t too messy (because you don’t want to have a line to wash hands when it’s time to return to the harp…and you don’t want to have to steam clean your house when it’s over!).  I also suggest that you provide the beverages – then you’ll know how many cups, glasses, spoons you’ll need to have on hand.  Fun and/or seasonable drinks typically go over well.
  • Prep.  On the day, clear out the furniture you need to move, set up your snacks area, and make sure there’s enough light in your playing space.
  • Bring in your circle and enjoy!
  • When the party’s over – of course, you’ll need to clean up but first, make some notes to capture what you enjoyed and how much fun you had!  You can also write down what you might want to change or what didn’t work (e.g., serving chocolate lava cake might have been a masterful culinary stroke but then everyone had “lava” on their fingers and there was a line for the kitchen sink).
  • Start planning the next one (or start helping someone else plan the next one – there’s no need for you to host every party).

Have you hosted a Harp Circle before?  Did I leave anything out? If not, are you motivated to schedule one (maybe after the holidays)?  Was this list comprehensive enough to start your own planning?  Let me know in the comments!

The Hand Trap

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The Hand Trap –

Aren’t we fortunate to play with two hands?  When you look at them dispassionately, they are pretty cool – mechanical artwork that also bring joy (by which I mean they bring cookies to your mouth…oh, and they help you play too!).  But for good or bad, there is also a hand trap.

That trap exists in the roles we assign to each hand as we play.  You know the thinking – the right hand takes the melody while the left hand provides the “color commentary” of harmony.  But that thinking can be really limiting.  And it creates a box (read: trap) that can be hard to get out of. 

The box is complicated and has at least three faces (it’s a metaphorical box!) which are interrelated – musical, physical, and mental.  If the hands get trapped in one (or more) that will curb the potential to do amazing things. 

What are the sides of the trap?  Musical, Physical, and Mental.  What are those limits?  How about:

Musical – using only one hand for melody may artificially bound what you play.  And the same could be true for the harmony you generate as well.  In addition, each hand has its strengths and weaknesses and keeping each role confined to each hand closes off options for the other.  The other impact of sticking to specific roles is that you may not make use of the whole harp.

Physical – We can start by going back to those individual strengths and weaknesses.  These will impact your control, power, and balance of each hand as well as your speed accuracy, and confidence.  As above, keeping the hands assigned to roles makes it more difficult to use the entire range of the instrument.

Mental – holding the music separately in your hands will impact how you think about it and potentially change how you might think about it.  This self-limitation may prevent you from identifying and using elements of your creativity.

It would be a shame to allow a rigid adherence to “handedness” limit your musicality and trap you into playing everything pretty much the same way.  Changing things up can help you expand musically, physically, and mentally by helping you develop more strengths and become more flexible.  It’s worth a try!

Like every change, if you decide to try to make a move, give yourself time to work through the kinks.  The first time you try something new it might go well – or it might run off the tracks so fast it makes your head spin!  So go slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, and gently.  An easy way to start is to play a simple tune you already know with your left hand.  Don’t worry about harmonies or tempo – or anything really.  You just want to muddle through the tune until it becomes easier (aka practice!).  Once you’re comfortable, then you can try playing the melody in both hands together.  After the melody is solid, you could then transition to putting the harmony in the right hand (after all, the left hand’s got this).   And just like that, you’ll have pulled a switcheroo!  All the while, you’ll probably learn more about the tune, how you think about it, and how you present it (which might change how you approach it…and you can see a whole iteration starting just by switching hands!). 

Make it easy on yourself.  You could start with something like Frere Jacques or Katie Bairdie.  Once you’ve done it once, each subsequent trial will be easier. 

What do you think – are you willing to give it a try?  I’d love to hear what you get up to – what tune did you try?  How’d it go at first? Are you going to keep at it?  Let me know in the comments!

Silly Warmups and Stretches

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Silly Warmups and Stretches

When it’s time to sit down and practice, do you plop down on the bench and start flailing away at something you’ve been working on?  Or do you ease gently into the hard work of playing your instrument?  Do you start by banging away or with silly warmups and stretches?

I hope you do start with warmups and stretches, but if you don’t, I hope to change your mind (and your approach).  And if you have typically started right in with the hard work, I hope you’ll consider these suggestions.

There are plenty of good reasons to begin each practice by performing warmups and stretches.  Leon Fleischer, the concert pianist who overcame a potentially career ending overuse injury was quoted as saying,

“Musicians are athletes

of the small muscles.”

And he was completely correct! While traditional athletes are best known for their use of their largest muscles in the body to play football, basketball, baseball, curling, hurling, fencing or other sport, we musicians leverage our numerous smaller muscles in the hands and arms.  Don’t be fooled – we also use our large muscles, but differently than sport players do.  Just as there are pregame warmups for sports, we need to get ourselves warmed up and ready to go before we work hard to.

First let’s also distinguish between physical warmups and technical warmups.  Today we’re talking about physical warmups.  Physical warmups are gentle movements to increase blood flow to the muscles and stretches to limber up.  They help your body prepare to work and also help you avoid injury and overuse.  Technical warmups are active playing to strengthen a particular technical skill (e.g., scales, arpeggios, exercises).*

There are loads of warmups and stretches you can do but I wanted to share a few of my favorites for hands and wrists here.  I call these silly because when I use them with kids, they giggle.  Adults aren’t as inclined to giggle – but they should!  I also made a brief video (5 min) for you.  Remember that, like all athletes, we start small and work our way into greater gains.  Don’t overdo your warmups.  Do each of these only as long as you need to feel the muscles warming and getting more pliable before (or after) you play.  Take care of you!

The first is the simplest – wiggle your fingers.  Yup, just wiggle your fingers.  Start small but as you go on, make sure your wiggles are getting bigger and that each finger (including thumbs) is getting in on the action.  After you begin to feel warmer, straighten your arms out to the side and continue to wiggle your fingers.

Next throw and catch water – this will make more sense when you watch the video, but the point is to contract your hands quickly (gather into fists) and extend just as quickly (like you’re flicking water at someone).  Then go about catching the water being flung at you.

Now, make baby waves!  This is the motion of closing that I learned when I started to play the harp.  If you didn’t learn this, it’s a great way to help new people understand the movement we strive to make while playing.

Let’s move onto wrists – close your hands and make circles with your wrists.  After a bit, try extending your arms to your sides to deepen the stretch.

Now clasp your hands together and make figure 8s. Go slowly enough that you can make it through your entire range of motion.  If you’re hands and wrists are tight this will be difficult but will get easier with practice.

Finally, we’re going to be superheroes!  Watch the video to learn how to do these.  These may be difficult at first but they will definitely help you loosen up with practice.   And they’re fun and may make you giggle!

As I said, there are loads of silly warmups and stretches.  These are just the tip of the iceberg.  Consider adding them to your daily practice routine as a way to get started.  Start small and grow as you gain flexibility and strength.  And always take care of you – discomfort as you learn and grow are teaching you about your body but pain is a message to stop.

Which of these do you like?  Which ones were hard?  If you did them every day, which seemed to maybe start to feel like they were getting easier?  Do you have any stretches or warmups to share?  Let me know in the comments!

 

 

*  If you’d like to talk about technical warmups another time – let me know!