Well, Harp Camp had a spectacular run for its 15th Aniversary! I was so fortunate to be invited to teach with Kris Snyder again.  She also invited Marianna Nystrom to present and Lucy Stevens lead some excellent learning games.  We had wonderful students, supreme teachers (if I may say), brilliant lessons, and a whole lot of fun! We were in bucolic Glenville, Pennsylvania. And I mean bucolic – no better punctuation on your diminuendo than a rather loud mooooooooooooo from the field next door.

We had workshops on Composition and Improvisation, Sticky Wickets, and Putting on Airs. Students also enjoyed learning more about being creative and learned techniques to improve their creativity both at the harp and abroad! We participated in breathing and stretching exercises so we can expand our abilities to play. We also learned more tools to improve our daily practing to achieve more of our goals while wasting less time. In addition, starting from a poem, a piece of music or from scratch, students worked in small groups or alone to generate delightfully fresh music.

We made crafts – it’s not Camp without crafts, after all! And in between we had a lovely pot luck dinner, snacks and breaks as well as a breathtaking “kasbah” where we enjoyed wine and cheese and played for one another, generating a wonderful atmosphere in which to enjoy one another’s company.

We finished off with our traditional Harpers’ Circle, sharing the bounty of our learning and creativity with one another and then playing in ensemble all together – sharing some amazing arrangements of well known tunes, including some American classics such as Shenandoah, America the Beautiful, and the Shaker tune and some OCarolan and others.

It was sad to see everyone go, but they were so enthusiastic and ready to recommit to working hard and playing well, reconnecting with other Harp Friends and making new friends, that Kris and I were glad to see them off to their respective homes – to practice of course!

If you’d like to be part of this incredible learning experience, I hope you’ll be able to join us next year. We learn so much, have so much fun, laugh a lot, and you could be a part of it. Join us in August 2011!  We’ll be posting more information about next year’s Harp Camp on our website http://www.jeniuscreations.com/Harp_Camp.php after we’ve recovered from 2010 – so watch that space.

I am on my way to Southeastern Pennsylvania to work with some amazing people at Harp Camp 2010.  This is the 15th year for Harp Camp.  Fifteen years is a long time and I am so honored and pleased to be invited to teach again this year!  I have a soft spot in my heart for Harp Camp because it is where it all began for me – this is where I began to become a harper.  So, I am especially delighted to be there as a teacher – being given the amazing opportunity to share some of my love affair with the harp with some incredible students.

And I’m grateful to be teaching with Kris Snyder who was there at the beginning and has had been a presence in my development as a harper.   Marianna Nystrom and Lucy Stevens will be presenting as well.  We will have some incredible teaching sessions as well as the usual fun that comes from learning together.  Good students, great topics, excellent teachers – it will be fantastic!

I wish all of you could join us!  I know you would learn a lot and I would learn a great deal from you.  Maybe you’ll be with us next year?  Let me know if you’re interested and I’m happy to give you more information than you thought possible!

And next week, I’ll share the outcomes with you.  This week, learn something new, share it with someone else – and enjoy being a Harpy Camper!

Many people think that learning by ear is either very difficult or very pedestrian. Some think it is very difficult because the one or two times they have attempted it, it seemed much harder than just reading dots from a page. Some think it is pedestrian because folk music is often taught by ear and is mistakenly believed to be less complex or of lower difficulty than other types of music. People who go down either or both of these trains of thought are mistaken and they may not have an appreciation for the challenges of learning by ear.

Learning by ear can be very difficult, especially when you’re new to it. Being in your first learning by ear workshop can feel a lot like being in a coffee shop in Bratislava – you can hear the language, but it’s all a mishmash of sound – it means nothing to you, although you recognize it to be speech (trust me – I’ve been in that coffee shop – they are speaking a language, but not one that I know!).

One mistake many people make is to think that learning by ear will be easy. It seems that it should be – after all, you know how to play the harp and your know how to listen. Or do you? Do you know how to listen to the music so that you can learn it?

It is important to listen to the music carefully – and frequently. When I am learning a new tune, I will typically listen to it at least a couple of hundred times (I think it’s about 1000 times, but I usually lose count). The other people in my car only wish I was exaggerating. It is only then that I have heard it enough to have found the tune (and separated it from the harmonies and variations), found the pieces of the tune (the phrases, patterns and other elements), and begun to remember those pieces and how they are linked together. This is especially true if I’m learning a tune from a fiddle player or a piper – they play very fast – I have a hard time listening that quickly!

After all that listening, there’s still a lot of work to be done. We’ll get to that another time. But for now, be gentle with yourself, especially if you’re just learning to learn by ear. Take whatever time it requires (and if you’re paper trained, remember how long it took you to become proficient and then quick at sight reading! Be honest!). And enjoy the new vistas on the music, learning it by ear affords you.

I am very pleased to have been invited to teach at Lever Harp Camp again this year.  So, if you’re in the mid-Atlantic region (or you like to travel!) join us for our 15th year.  Harp Camp will be August 19, 20, and 21 in South Central Pennsylvania – easily accessible to harpers from anywhere and at any level.  I am excited to be teaching with Director Kris Snyder as well as presenters Marianna Nystrom and Lucy Stevens.

The award winning instructors of Harp Camp strive to provide a highly personalized, fun-filled, supportive environment where lever harp players at all levels extend their technical skills and enhance their appreciation for this historic instrument. We also work on building a healthy sense of self-esteem – encouraging our attendees to try new things and give them an understanding of the skills necessary to reach individual performance goals. In addition, MHTP Graduates have the potential to gain 6 CEUs for participation.

The format is tailored to you:
     No frustration of either information that you aren’t ready for, or waiting for people with less experience to understand what is being presented.
     We are offering three tracks: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced…each workshop you take will be geared toward your proficiency and comfort level.

These three days will be filled with creativity and fun.  Workshops this year will include:
* Putting on Airs (learning by ear): demonstrating the processes of learning-by-ear and working with an Air
* Practice Makes Me with Sticky Wickets: getting the best from the time you have and confronting common issues
* Improvisation from Composition: demonstrating a variety of improvisational techniques and methods for converting compositions into improvisations

In addition, MHTP graduates may attend optional presentations covering analyzing music for appropriateness for CMP work/how to change the selection for use; organizing binders for best flow; how to move from piece to piece and how to move from key to key.

We’ll spend time on mechanical issues that come with the harp: changing strings, adjusting levers. Games, Creative and Directed Ensemble and age appropriate activities are included!

If you have always wanted to try the harp without the commitment, we will have rentals available and a separate novice track designed to give you the optimum experience of trying the harp – with no strings attached!

Harp Camp has a capped attendance policy – this allows our class sizes to remain small- giving our attendees the personal attention for our instructors that they deserve.

For more information go to http://www.jeniuscreations.com/Harp_Camp.php (or write me a comment/question).

Are you planning to attend the 32nd Annual Ohio Scottish Arts School in Oberlin OH from 26th June – 2nd July, 2010????

I sure hope so!  This is a fantastic opportunity.  You might get to see more of the world famous Ohio Tartan:

But also, regardless of your level of experience – from beginner to master, OSAS has something to offer you!  Much of this information is directly from the OSAS website: http://www.ohioscottishartsschool.com/home_files/osas_harp.htm. Here is a little bit about what you can expect:
All Students are expected to bring their own instrument – it would be hard to study for a week without a harp!
The Scottish Harp classes will focus on:
• Basic harp technique for beginners and intermediates
• Repertoire at all levels, including tunes for competition sets
• Scottish style, including ornaments, lilt, and dance types

In addition, there are excellent students.  In addition to being great harpers of various levels of proficiency, they are very friendly and convivial.  You can look forward to not only the excitement of “pick up” evening jam sessions in which you have the chance to develop accompaniment patterns and learn more tunes but also the verve of spending that much time with other people who are as crazy about playing the harp as you are and who love the repertoire as much as you do!

You’ll study Scottish dance music, airs, and songs, focusing on ornamentation, Scottish style, accompaniment, and learning by ear. In addition there are lectures, practice time, and playing in sessions. Classes really do cover everyone from beginners who have played for a few months, intermediates, and advanced players.

If you’ve been to OSAS before and you haven’t signed up I hope you do so soon before the course fills up.  And if you’ve never been before – what are you waiting for? 
But hurry, registration closes 4th June – that’s not too far away. 

Hope to see you there.  If you have questions that can’t be answered by the website, post me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer you or put you in touch with someone who can!

See you there!

Do you feel like learning cursive as a child was a waste of your time? I know that when I was being forced to learn it, I did think it was stupid. Often now, with pen in hand, I think back on that hatred of those lessons – and see how wrong I was.

And now, when I look at my penmanship, I see more than ink. I see my development as a person. I see what I feel is important to me. I see how I have changed as I’ve grown up. I see that I’m in a hurry!

Many of us only write with a pen to make lists of things to do or to pay bills. But still, the writing we learned as children really has stayed with us. For all the angst we underwent, we have the product – something we use daily. But even then, we don’t focus on the positives that come from learning something we don’t want to do.

Just like when we’re working on our music. We have to focus, even on the things that aren’t fun. Or those things that don’t seem to relate directly to anything else that we think are important. But there’s really something to be gained by pursuing “learning the cursive” of our music.

So today, I suggest you pull out something you don’t do because it’s not fun – the “Brussels sprouts” of our practice (this is a bad analogy as I love Brussels sprouts, but many do not). Whether it is making your own exercise of a trouble spot, doing the lessons in a primer or sitting and working with Mde. Grossi, channel all that hatred of cursive but this time, with the wisdom of what you gain from that practice.

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.