Harp Camp is 16 this year!  Old enough to drive – and believe me, it has been a driver in my life since my first Harp Camp experience! 

Director Kris Snyder has invited me to teach with her again in the lovely Glen in Southeastern PA and I am very excited to be returning!  In addition, Lucy Stevens, the wonderful arranger and performer, will also be teaching with us. I am so excited – we have gotten together to do all the preliminary planning – and boy do we have a great workshop planned for you!
I cannot express what an honor it is to be invited back to teach.  Harp Camp is a fantastic learning environment – warm, supportive, fun, creative – and has launched the careers of more than one harp player in the region!  And if you know of harpwishers (people who wish they played the harp but don’t know how to get started) this is an great opportunity for them.  People who have never touched a harp have the chance to begin to play at Harp Camp!

Harp Camp will be in its 16th year, is conducted in a beautiful setting, and allows you to learn with and from some amazing harp players of all levels and ages.  One of my favorite parts of Harp Camp has always been watching students teach each other and learn from one another – it is always humbling to realize the gifts each student brings – both to learn and to teach.

We have a variety of learning experiences, exploring basics of music, technique, performance, as well as creativity, ensemble play, arranging and writing, improvisation, and other aspects of being a solid musician.  We also play games, enjoy good company, and play a lot of great music together.  It’s a busy workshop – jam packed with harpy goodness!

We’re updating the website so all the particulars are not out there yet, but they will be soon and I’ll post here when the information is avaiable. 

In the interim, I highly encourage you to save the date and join us for Harp Camp 2011 28, 29, and 30 July! 

I assume you play the harp because you have a passion for it.  And if it is a passsion, then you should give it all you got…so, beyond the “work” that we’ve talked about previously, you have to bring some passion to it too.

To really flame that passion you need to start with beliving in you and concentrating on your vision of you in your passion.  This will help you really get there!  And of course, once you have that vision, you will be able to set your goals (where you’re going) that help you achieve your passion.  Throughout all this, you will have to be realistic…ensure you can do something toward your goal everyday (practicing is a good start).   In additional you’ll have to realize that you can not give up – its your passion, it’ll keep you going…Do what you love!

It’s been a few weeks since the excitement and invigoration of the New Year.  We’ve cleaned up after the parties, put away the decorations, written the thank you notes for all our lovely gifts received, and set our goals for the coming year.

And by this point in time, most of us have already forgotten the goals (or resolutions) we set for ourselves.  I challenged you to set yourself some music and musicianship goals for 2011…did you think of some?  Did you write them down? 

From William Jackson’s wonderful Land of Light lyrics I find these particularly captivating, “Now dawns the age, now comes the call”. Now is the time!  Take out your goals, review them, remind yourself of the excitement you came into the year with.  Evaluate your promises to yourself – are they realistic in the cold light of February?  Will you be able to make progress on those goals?  Have you set enough goals to keep you focused and few enough that you’ll be able to progress?

And remember to make a plan for those goals – you have to have a workable plan – workable for you!  Keep on it, and don’t worry, I’ll check back on you!

I’ve beaten the “work hard” drum a couple of weeks in a row, so a slightly different bent today…It is important to motivate yourself and to work hard.  But Tony Schwartz suggests that there is another key to building toward greatness.  And this one requires a little help.

He points out the importance of seeking feedback from experts periodically.  Heavy emphasis on periodically.  This is not the same as a weekly lesson…

This input requires that you identify an expert and cultivate a relationship with that person.  They must be free to give you the benefit of their experience and you must be ready and willing to accept what they offer you. 

Ask for directed and specific feedback – this will highlight the areas to which you should devote more time and energy in the short term future.  You must craft the questions you will ask before you meet to work with your identified expert to assure that you get the feedback you want.  Going in unprepared will waste their time and thereby reduce the utility of the feedback you receive – help that person focus on the areas you’d like to explore.  Of course, building a relationship will also allow you to identify the areas in which you’d like to focus before meeting.  It is also important to explore the topic areas in which you would like help. 

No one person will be able to help you fine tune every aspect of your playing.  Therefore you must both tailor your request for help and the questions you ask to the specific areas that person can help you grow in and identify other people with whom you should work. 

Recognize some important aspects of asking an expert for help – this person is recognized by you and others as an expert which is why you seek their feedback – respect the inputs you receive, even if they are tough to swallow at first.  Do not mistake the feedback of your peers as being equivalent – experts are identified as such specifically because they are not peers (this is slightly different in very high levels of performance – but for most of us, it is accurate).  Note the feedback you received.  And be prepared to meet again. 

And between those meetings – grow, grow, grow!

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.