Not SLOW again?!

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Jen

I saw it in the eyes. I thought that maybe while teaching online I wouldn’t see that look – the “oh no, she’s going to make me play it even slower – how can I play it s-l-o-w-e-r? I can’t remember it that slow, pleasepleaseplease don’t say to play it slower. Crap, she said it!”

I get it. We want to play more, we want to advance, we want to achieve. And now that most of us are at home, we are being sent subtle (and not so subtle) messages that we should be achieving great things with all this free time we have now (that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish – because I don’t know about you, but I seriously am working more that I was before!).

You might have heard this same thing from your teacher*. So, what does “practice it slower” really mean? Well there’s the obvious – just play everything at a lower tempo. But does that really serve you? What is it that you’re meant to learn while practicing slower?**

Here are six things you can get from practicing slower:

Get the notes. I’m not kidding – sometimes when we feel the need for speed, we are so busy going fast that we don’t realize that we don’t actually know the notes! You have to know what comes next – not just by momentum, but each and every note, and the relationship of each note to the notes that come before and after. Can you start in the middle of a phrase or shape and play? If not, perhaps you don’t know the notes as well as you think. By slowing down and focusing on the notes – and only focusing on the notes, you will be able to learn and remember them, individually and as a group.
Get the rhythm. Once you have the notes and you’re not struggling to remember what comes next each time you run through, then you can focus on the rhythm. This is actually another way the notes are related. But since you know what comes next, you can instead focus on how long, how short, how they fit together to make the rhythm. And you can focus on being accurate – get the snaps right, give the half notes a-l-l of their time, etc.
Get the harmony. Now that you know how the tune goes, and you’re able to play it fairly strongly, you can add the harmony. (If you’re reading, you might want to treat the LH part as a different sort of melody – working on each hand separately to get the notes and the rhythm. If you’ve done that, at this point you’ll be that much farther ahead). When you’re learning a tune and arranging it, it helps to first know where you’re going – what’s the chord progression you’re hoping to end with? You really can begin to develop that with just 1 finger. You’re playing the melody, the rhythm is good, you don’t want the whole thing to fall apart while you try desperately to remember what comes next in the harmony! So just use one finger – if you’re going slowly (this is one of those places people speed up – after all you know the tune right?) you’ll have time to remember what the chord progression is and get one finger there – on time. As you get the progression in your head, you can expand the harmony to bigger and more complex chords – but go there in stages. It always seems to amaze people that going from one finger to two in a fifth is hard, but it can be, so give yourself the time – by going slowly – to get there. Only later will you be able to comfortably move into more complex chords. And that’s ok. (caveat – on fast tunes, things that work here were you’re going slowly may not work as well at speed (and vice versa) so keep that in mind as you develop the accompaniment…of course practicing slowly and carefully coming up to tempo will allow you to work this out)
Get the feel. Ok, no one likes wooden music. No one. Even Pinocchio doesn’t like wooden music. But you can’t really get the feel in there until you actually know the music. So, once you’ve got it together, then you can (slowly at first) add the feel – dynamics, idiom, articulation – all those are things you have to remember, so add them in slowly and learn them.
Get the tempo. Now that you actually know the music, NOW you can begin to increase the speed. I suggest to my students that you start “stupid slow” by which I mean a tempo that will challenge you to keep it together – that is so slow you have to subdivide your subdivision (e.g. something like one-tak-ee-tak-and-tak-ah-tak) just to get through the slowness between metronome beats. There’s a reason there’s a 40 on your good old fashion Seth Thomas! Imagine how much better you’ll be able to think when you’re done with that! My rule of thumb is to play it at a stupid slow tempo and then move the metronome one tick (on an mechanical metronome) or four clicks on an electronic metronome (e.g. from 40 to 44).
Get the polish. This is the thing we all want to get to! We think it’s the prize, but really, it’s the culmination…you cannot polish what you don’t really know yet. But when you’ve worked slowly and built the tune up to tempo, you actually have something to polish. Because let’s be honest, typically when we say we’re here, we’re typically not really polishing – we’re still fixing and learning. But by going slowly, when you get here, you’ll actually be polishing.

Do yourself a favor and slow down! You will know your music better and you’ll be more comfortable playing it. You will also, whether you mean to or not, learn what gives you the most trouble so the next time, you can give it the time it needs while you’re learning…by going slow.

How Slow Can You Go? Let me know you’re great slow going experiences in the comments.

* Not everyone agrees with this approach and I am sure some may read this and clutch their pearls. And that’s ok. I like to see people succeed in learning and breaking the music down into small pieces and working on the parts systematically has worked really well. Probably because at each step you are only focusing on learning one thing. It won’t work for everyone, but isn’t it worth a try to see if it will be a good fit for you?

** I am a-l-w-a-y-s telling my students to practice slower. Heck, I am always telling myself to work slower. Even I get tired of hearing myself say it (I do still say it, because it works). In the time of Coronavirus, blog posts ideas are being shuffled and I found the notes for this post on a sticky note on my desk. I can tell by the color of the sticky that I made the note months ago. So, after I wrote the post, it occurred to me that I may be this brilliant…or I might have read something or listened to a podcast by someone else and that’s where I got the six points. It all sounds like the sort of thing I do and teach, but if I have inadvertently stolen someone’s idea, unfortunately, I didn’t write down whose. But, I do not intend to plagiarize – if if you recognize this – please let me know so I can attribute credit.

COMMENTS BELOW THE LINE

For good or bad, photos don’t “fit” into the comments – but I LOVE when you share them, so I’m going to start incorporating “Comments Below the Line” in posts so there’s a place for them to show. You will have to email me the photos, but that’s ok, I’ll get them up here asap. Thank you so much for always helping me learn more!

From Helen:

Memorize or learn?

Posted on December 2, 2019 by Jen

A few years ago, I set myself a goal of having enough music in my head so that I could play a three-hour background gig without sheet music. This was largely driven by my innate laziness – I just didn’t want to have to pack up and carry a music stand, a binder of music, a lamp, an extension cord, laundry pins, and whatever else I might have needed to read music to fill the time. And, to be honest, I also liked the clean look of just a set list, no music stand cluttering up the place. But mostly I liked not having to carry all that stuff.

Some of you have asked me how you could memorize all that music. And you’ve likely seen the questions of memorization come up repeatedly in forums. So many people believe that they must have sheet music. That they cannot possible hold music in their heads. One or two of you have indicated that it is impossible for you to memorize music, that you must read, you cannot depend on recalling anything.

You say that you can’t memorize, but clearly you can memorize some things – e.g. how to spell your name, how to spell my name!, the recipe for your favorite cookie, the names of the days of the week, the rules for bridge, etc.). It has been my observation that often what you think is a failure to memorize is often something very different.

Memorization is the ability to recall information from memory. Learning, on the other hand, focuses on the content of the music, the relationships between the notes, and the structure of the tune.

Memorization is fragile. Learning is resilient.

Memorization, because it is fragile, will desert you when you most need to be able to rely on it! this can lead to gaps in your ability to deliver a tune when you’re stressed (like on stage!). Sometimes failure to memorize is actually just a crisis in confidence. In lessons, when I turn the music over and ask you play, often you do a good job – maybe not perfect, but usually fairly accurate. That suggests that you actually do have it memorized, mostly, you just think you don’t.

Sometimes it’s a crisis in speed. When I teach tunes aurally, we always want to go faster. When I ask if you know it, I ask in two different ways. One is that, even though your fingers aren’t keeping up, you know where you mean to go (and if you’d slow down a little, you’d be fine!). This is a lack of confidence. The other is that you have no idea what comes next! So, you haven’t learned it yet – easily fixed by spending more time. This is a lack of information.

When the tune falls apart (when the music is turned or you have no idea what comes next), it’s easy to move on and continue to work – the tune is not yet learned! But we often skip the learning step. In a wild-eyed zeal to memorize the tune, we brute force our way through it. We repeat and repeat and repeat. And we bash it into our hands and our heads. But we don’t actually know it. And when you come back tomorrow, you’ll have learned a part of it, but you’ll just have to keep bashing away to get more of it in your head.

What if we spent more time learning the tune? Figuring out – for ourselves – where it goes, how it gets there, why it works? This would allow time to think about the tune as a whole (or at least large sections) rather than focusing on each individual note. We can learn the relationships between them rather than each individual note of the right hand and each note of the left hand.

Be honest with yourself – have you learned your tunes? Or have you just bashed them into your head? Have you given yourself the time to be thorough and careful, to identify the relationships and to make them meaningful to you? Have you used your time to identify how the harmonies work and what you like (and don’t like) about them? Come at them different ways and build strength in the learning so you have a cogent foundation.

Start today. Build a collection of tunes you have learned, not memorized. From that you can build your go to set list that can be as long as you need for each event. You can even go back to tunes you know you have bashed into your head and specifically work on learning them. You’ll be surprised how much easier they will be to play! Be comfortable that those tunes will be there when you need them – and you can lose your music stand too!

Starting again, again

Posted on November 18, 2019 by Jen

I’m on that high you get when you’ve had a great lesson where you’ve worked hard, learned a ton, enjoyed receiving information, knowledge and wisdom from a good teacher, had a genuinely good time, and are now exhausted!

Woohoo!!

What? you want to know why I would be taking a lesson?

That is an easy answer to give – because I needed to start again, again.

There is so much to know and to learn. We all have some of the pieces, but none of us has all the pieces. However, I keep working on the puzzle, so I gathered more pieces from another source – and I think the picture in the puzzle is starting to take shape and be visible!

I have a beautiful Wurlitzer Starke. I am so fortunate and grateful to have it. But, to be honest, it has been collecting dust in the corner. Of course I play it – occasionally. But I didn’t play it enough. And I was making no movement toward the music I got it to work on – music I insisted I needed to play!

I have a confession to make. I don’t just like Scottish music. I love music. I particularly like Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music. I’m also a picky taster at the modern table. But it was hearing Faure’s Impromptu on the radio that compelled me to venture into the pool of the pedal harp.

Yes, I heard that piece and I was smitten! Just one teeny-tiny problem – I didn’t actually know how to start. Because, while yes, a harp is a harp, I was a little bit afraid of my pedal harp.

So, I needed to start again.

In that weird way the world works, just before all of this, separately, two of you mentioned needing to start over again – in the same week! So, I’ve had this idea of starting again, again in mind as I headed out to my lesson.

Do you need to start again, again? It’s not a bad idea, and here’s why:

Beginner’s Mind. You might have heard this concept of keeping a “beginner’s mind” – holding curiosity forefront, being eager to learn, being grateful for each step forward no matter the size. And perhaps most importantly, the beginner’s mind has no expectations of performance – no disappointment on not getting something right the first try or impatience that it’s “taking too long” to learn something.
No matter where you go, there you are (but you’ve worn down your shoes!) – you might want to start again again just to get a “tune-up”. I’m always amazed how quickly small bad habits can build (and band together!) – a little slump leads to a little neck craning leads to dragging your arm on the sound board and a one way ticket to poorer playing and possible injury.
Someone out there knows something that could push you just a little farther along on your path. But if you don’t ask for the help and information, you might never get that little shove you need! And you never know who will have it or what it will look like, so you need to pay attention.
No one wants to become stale. And it’s easy to do. It’s so much easier to play the same ten tunes forever, but it’s very motivating to have new repertoire the next time you see your harp buddies. Whether you have a lesson, go to a workshop, or find new music to learn, you’ll prevent yourself from becoming musty and have an opportunity to start again.
Something worth having is worth fighting for. It is easy (as in the above) to become complacent, but you know you want to be as good as you can become, and while it might not be a “fight” per se (although that might depend on the tune!), working for something you want has it’s benefits while not working will have significant drawbacks (like being disappointed in yourself!).

Taking the perspective of starting again, again can be freeing. Of course, we’re not always in a place where we need to start again, again so if you’re not there that’s great! But if you find yourself thinking that starting over might be the best way to move forward, really step into it and begin again…again!

Have you found yourself in this place? How did you know? what did you do? Was it worth it? Let me know in the comments!

Meet me in Parsippany!

Posted on July 3, 2019 by Jen

I hope you’re planning on participating in the Somerset Folk Harp Festival July 18-21 2019 in Parsippany, NJ. I am so very much looking forward to being there!

The Somerset Folk Harp Festival is (to quote the website), “an amazing 4-day conference celebrating the diversity of music, talent and experience of the folk harp world. Whether you want to focus on one style or type of music, solidify some specific skills, or try out something new, the breadth of this year’s workshop offerings is sure to expand your musical horizon. Our Exhibit Hall is the best harp and music shopping under one roof you’ll find anywhere on the East Coast. Daily concerts will inspire you…”

That’s pretty succinct – and true. I am looking forward to seeing you there! There’s so much on – it’s hard to get to everything, but I’ll also be at the Scottish Harp Society of America booth in the Exhibit Hall. Stop by and say hello…or even better, introduce yourself!

I’ll be teaching two workshops on Friday and they should both be fun and interesting.

Donna Bennett and I will teach Creativity Tools to Improve Practice & Performance at 3:30 in Room 2. This is a hands on, any level, companions welcome workshop. We’ll be sharing skills, tools, and techniques to help bring creativity to your music or teaching. We’ll show you how to actively apply creativity tools and techniques that will improve your personal work processes and your overall approach to harping. With these tools you can prepare projects and gigs and we’ll also give you techniques to help generate better ideas to expand your arrangements and repertoire without adding to your learning load. We are planning some fun learning activities as well as packing in tons of useful content – you will leave with your head full of how to generate new ideas!

Before that, I will be teaching Sounding Scottish at 1:30 in Room 1. This any level workshop is designed to help you take your love of Scottish music and apply it to your own playing. Scotland has captivated people for hundreds of years and inspired composers, artists, and authors. I’ll share specific elements and techniques to help your tunes sound Scottish. I’ll also be sharing tunes to apply and practice those techniques and I’ll use images, video, language, sounds, geography, myths and legends of Scotland as muses to provide inspiration for your own take on the music.

But that’s not all! On Friday night, Donna and I are closing out the day by hosting the Scottish Seisean! We’ll kick off about 10pm in Room 11 and go ’til we’re done. Here’s your chance to trot out all that great music that gets you stared at blankly when you’re in an Irish session. We’ll start slowly so everyone can join in and ramp it up as the evening goes. Come out to play!

And – on Saturday, Scottish Harp Society of America is proud to present a lunchtime concert at 11:30. Members Donna Bennett, Rachel Clemente and I will be performing – so come see us. Bring a lunch!

Can’t wait!

If you haven’t already signed up, you’re too late – the Festival has sold out and you should start planning for next year. However, you can still register for the Sunday add-ons. And you can always come to the Exhibit Hall. If you’re in the market for a harp or if you need more harp kitsch (because you can never have enough of that!) this is the place to be!

Are you coming? If so, let me know in the comments so I can be sure to look for you –

OSAS 2019 – Having a blast!

Posted on June 26, 2019 by Jen

Teaching, learning, having fun and more fun! Just a little photo montage (some phots unceremoniously swiped from Ruth Pearce’s facebook page – she’s taking some great photos when I was in the middle of something and wasn’t able to capture it!). I am so fortunate to be teaching some incredible talent – Sue Richards, Rachel Hair and Rachel Clemente!

If you aren’t here – you’re missing out – start planning for 2020!

Off to Ohio

Posted on June 19, 2019 by Jen

Is not a tune title (although it could be!).

I’m so excited to be leaving for Ohio soon. I’ll be teaching at the Ohio Scottish Arts School! An entire week of tunestunestunes and funfunfun! I have some cool tunes, some new lesson items, and a crazy idea that just might work (a la McGiver).

Loads of excellent people, wonderful music, and lots of learning – can’t wait! Oh, and snacks 🙂

And before that, the US National Scottish Harp Championship^TM. It’s going to be a jam-packed week!

And a long drive – what a great time for a variety of types of practicing. There’s listening to music, rehearsing in my head, “tapping out” the melody against the steering wheel, and my favorite – listening to something completely different looking for new ideas for arranging.

How do you use your car time? Let me know in the comments.

Next week – scenes from OSAS!

Summer’s a comin’

Posted on May 1, 2019 by Jen

There are so many things to do in the summer! And so many of them occur at the same time that you probably need to do a little calendar management, just so you can get to as many events as possible.

I’m excited to be thinking about all the fun things on offer this summer – especially the ones I’ll be participating in. I hope you’ll look this over and consider joining me for at least one of them!

Harpa!

If you’re not already signed up, you don’t have much time – we start next week, 7 – 15 May. (OK, if you seriously want to go to this, please email me immediately, because, we’re already leaving!). If you can’t turn on that thin a dime (which would be almost everyone on the earth), you might want to start planning to come on the 2020 Harp the Highlands and Islands trip (more on that soon).

PS – watch my Facebook page and the Harpa FB page – I know we’ll post lots of fun photos while we’re in Scotland!

Ohio Scottish Games

Stolen directly from the Games website: OSG will be held June 22, 2019 and there will be loads to see and do…but why would you when you’ll want to get there early and be at the Harp Competition all day long!?!?!

This games was established in 1977, and is presented by members of The Ohio Scottish American Cultural Society of Ohio, an organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of their proud Scottish Heritage and ancestry. OSG highlights traditional dance, music and athletics of the ancient highland games.

And this year, Ohio is hosting the US National Scottish Harp Championship ^TM and I’m so excited to be one of the judges. If you’ve never been, it’s worth coming out – hear the train, meet new (to you) harpers. It’s a tradition! They also have all the other cool festival stuff like food, athletics, pipe bands, classic cars, and loads of vendors. But you won’t care if you miss that – because you’ll be at the Harp Competition! Go to https://www.ohioscottishgames.com/competitions for more details.

Ohio Scottish Arts School

Once you’ve been dazzled by the competition (or delighted by your performance in the competition), you can head right over to OSAS. I’m so looking forward to teaching this summer. OSAS is celebrating 41 years of educating artists in the traditional music and dance of Scotland.

Again, shamelessly stolen from the website: The Scottish Harp classes will focus on basic harp technique for beginners and intermediates. repertoire at all levels, including tunes for competition sets, and Scottish style, including ornaments, lilt, and dance types. We will study Scottish dance music, airs, and songs, focusing on ornamentation, Scottish style, accompaniment, and learning by ear. Afternoons will include lectures, practice time, and playing in sessions. Classes will be available for beginners who have played for a few months, intermediates, and advanced players. And we’ll have a delightful Tea presented by Ringgold Harp Ensemble, a highlight!

I’m so excited to be teaching with the incomparable Sue Richards as well as the stunning and delightful Rachels – Rachel Hair and Rachel Clemente (an OSAS alum!). There is probably no other place you can go to learn so much so quickly and s-t-i-l-l have a great time.

Somerset Harp Festival

Somewhere on the Somerset website it says, “Play the Harp better” – and boy oh boy, will you! I am so pleased to have been invited to teach here and will be even more thrilled to teach with Donna Bennett.

Together Donna and I will deliver the Creativity Tools to Improve Practice & Performance workshop – and we’re building on some previous work teaching skills, tools, and techniques that bring the creativity secret to your music. We’ll show you how to use creativity tools and techniques to practice and play better, arrange more, compose, perform – however you let your creativity out! More Info

And I’ll be teaching a workshop we’ve entitled Sounding Scottish in which you will learn how to make your tunes sound more Scottish. I’m going to leverage all the stuff I’ve learned to date (especially while in Scotland!) to each specific elements and techniques to ensure your tunes sound Scottish. I’ll teach a tune (or two!) to learn and practice all the good juicy stuff that will highlight the tune’s authentic self. More Info

Harp Quest

Harp Quest is a great opportunity to teach with my friend Kris Snyder in idyllic southern Pennsylvania.

We have moved from summer camp to pursuing our Harp Quest. And we are looking forward to this year’s journey! We have so much fun putting it together! As with any Quest, we each have a different journey as we seek to learn what our harp is there to teach us. Plan to join us for our 24th year and a new Journey with our harps – becoming what we’re meant to be.

This year’s Quest will be focused on Planning Ahead. As always, our Quest will remain easily accessible to harpers from anywhere and at any level. Our focus will be a short and intense experience that we will each take with us into the coming months and years – perhaps not fully appreciating what we have learned until much later. But secure in knowing that we will get there – each of us. And we’ll get there together!

The Quest will be August 16, 17, and 18, 2019 and we are looking forward to a very personalized time of sharing and learning. We will have fun, support one another, and work together to get as much from our lever harps as we can get! Because a quest is pretty intense, we will fill up fast, so be sure to get your reservation in.

So you can see that it’s going to be a busy summer – hope you’ll come spend some of it with me! Let me know what you’re planning to do this summer – in the comments below.

Planning ahead – for the Somer(set)

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Jen

I’m very excited to share that I will be teaching at this year’s Somerset Folk Harp Festival in Parsippany NJ! I’ll be presenting a workshop on my own. And even better – I’ll also be co-teaching another workshop with Donna Bennett! It just gets better and better – two workshops! Yea!! There will be more than 100 workshops and I’ll be in great company with an amazing pantheon of presenters!

In case you have missed it, the Somerset Folk Harp Festival is amazing. It is a 4-day conference that celebrates diversity in music, as well as the talent and experience of the folk harp world. It provides a great opportunity to do what you need to move forward, whether that is to focus on one type of music, or to solidify specific skills, or try out something new. There are opportunities to learn new things in every–single–session! And the Exhibit Hall – yikes! It’s jammed with harps and music and accessories and stuff and more stuff…so much harp shopping in one room!

The festival begins on Thursday and runs through to Sunday. I will be teaching Friday afternoon. First up is a workshop called Sounding Scottish from 1:30 – 3pm. This will be a hands-on workshop, for all levels of play. We’ll be working and learning by ear. And yes (don’t worry), there will be paper too! Here’s the write up so you know what you’re getting into:

Love Scottish music? Wondering how to make your tunes sound more Scottish? Scotland has captivated people for hundreds of years and inspired composers, artists, and authors. In this workshop you will learn specific elements and techniques to ensure your tunes sound Scottish. Jen will teach tunes to apply and practice those techniques and use images, video, language, sounds, geography, myths and legends of Scotland as muses to provide inspiration for your own take on the music.

And then, in the very next workshop session, Friday from 3:30-5pm, I will be working and teaching with Donna! This will be so much fun!! We’ll be teaching Creativity Tools to Improve Practice & Performance. This is also an all levels (including companions!) hands-on workshop exploring your creativity – and you know we are all creative, so bring on the companions! Here’s what you’ll find in the workshop description on the website:

In this workshop, you will learn the skills, tools, and techniques that bring the creativity secret to your work as a musician or a teacher. Find out how to actively apply creativity tools and techniques to improve your personal work processes and your overall approach to harping. These tools can prepare you for projects and gigs, regardless of your level of accomplishment or years of experience. Jen and Donna will give you techniques to help generate better ideas and expand your arrangements and repertoire without adding to your learning load.

If you haven’t looked yet, the hotel is already available and there is a lot of information already available on the Somerset website. You can also register at the early bird rate until 1 May (which is a really good approach – not only do you get a lower rate, you get your summer planned!). The registration includes all the workshops you can fit into your day, entry to the Exhibit Hall (otherwise known as Harp Shopping Nirvana), tickets to the concerts (where you will see and hear Harp players you probably always wanted to see in concert). If you can’t make it to all four days, you can register for individual days too (Kathy has thought of everything!). To register, you can go here.

I hope you’ll come along to the Festival – and come to my workshop! Will I see you there? If so, let me know in the comments below. Hope I see you there –

Just one thing

Posted on September 26, 2018 by Jen

I don’t just play the harp because it’s there. I really enjoy it. I look forward to the time I get to spend, whether it’s practicing for an event or just playing around. Of course, sometimes it’s work. And I do remember the very early days so clearly – when the certainty that you’ll never “get this” is ever so much higher than the surety that you will. But time passes and that feeling subsides.

Given that, but even so, I was taken aback when a new student asked me what would be the ONE thing that should be done within the allotted daily practice time that would take that student from a beginning beginner to intermediate harper in the short term?

It took me a bit of time to think of an answer. The easy – and inaccurate – answer came to mind immediately. I wanted to say – PRACTICE is the one thing. But that’s not only unkind and flip, it’s also wrong! Because practice – in and of itself – is not the one single thing that will make that movement from beginner to intermediate quick or even possible.

What?!? you say! That doesn’t sound like something you would say here in the blog. After all – look at all the blog posts you have written about the importance of practicing! You must have made a mistake there. But I haven’t. And I’m not contradicting myself either.

Because there is a one thing that every student can work on – starting from the first practice after the first lesson…and on and on until it’s time to stop playing (is that even a thing?). What would this magical one thing be?

FUNDAMENTALS!

Now, I’ve nattered on about fundamentals before, but…from the mouths of harp babes (as it were) we hear the true questions emerge – and the answer is the same – always the same.

So, no matter what level you find yourself – there are always fundamentals to revisit and address. If you’re just beginning, your one thing might be assuring that every finger goes back to your palm. And if you’re more than a beginner but not very advanced your one thing might be placing ahead. And if you’re very experienced, I really hope you’re not smugly thinking that this doesn’t apply to you because you can always be working on thinking ahead, and leveraging those skills you practiced as a beginner to inject more musicality into your tunes.

So take a minute to really think about what your one thing to focus on should be. Don’t be flip – really assess what you could best work on to improve yourself enough to move to the next level. Don’t forget to capture it in your journal so you can see your development. And having this in your journal will allow you to move from the first One Thing onto the second One Thing, the third, etc. Because you know there will always be a just One (more) Thing to work on.

What’s your one thing? Let me know if the comments!

Lights! Camera!! IMPROVE!!!

Posted on September 12, 2018 by Jen

I frequently suggest that you record yourself playing because it gives you an opportunity to evaluate your progress. An audio recording can be so helpful because it lets you truly hear yourself. And all it takes is a free app on your phone or tablet.

Of course, you can listen to yourself while you play, but there are so many impediments to actually hearing yourself while you’re playing – you are in the moment, you have to wrangle your harp, maintain your posture, manage your breathing, ride herd on your fingers, remember the music, and so much more! All that makes it so hard to listen and to hear while you’re producing music that it is no wonder you miss so much and it is clear that being able to listen and attend better can only help.

But recently, I’ve come to appreciate the amazing utility of video recording! It has all the benefits of audio recording that allows you to hear yourself. But video recording also allows you to see so many additional things – so clearly!

Does your teacher consistently (or repeatedly) tell you to get your thumbs higher? Even though you practiced and practiced. You did all the the work – why can’t she see that? Do you get the same thing with placing? Do you get told – a lot – to place ahead all while thinking that your teacher isn’t paying attention, because you know you place! After all, you did practice – over and over – so why doesn’t she see how high and well placed your fingers are?

The video tells all!

This picture is of one of my students – recording herself while she played. And she was astounded! She was able to see her hands – in situ. And even though she’d been looking at them – now she could see them! She watched in amazement…and horror! Because she saw what I see – and comment on – in every lesson. All the while she thought she had done all the things I suggested, thought that she had nailed it – only to be told, again, that her thumbs were dropping. Suddenly she knew! And she said at her next lesson, “when I fixed all that, it really was easier to play…just like you said!” (such words a teacher loves to hear! ♥)

The amazing part of this is learning that your teacher isn’t a broken record (nor a hateful shrew!). But it is understandable – while you’re playing you have so much to which you must pay attention that you have no spare capacity to attend to one more thing. It is a brain thing and we all have these limits. It’s not good or bad, it just is. And video can help you overcome it!

Note – these don’t have to be high quality “National Geographic” videos – prop your phone or tablet on your music stand, get some good light – and voila – you have videos that are good enough – to see what you are doing when you think you’re doing everything right!

You can use the videos to see what you’re doing so you can improve. The video also provides a record so you can (hopefully) see improvement – and see bad habits as they are developing so you can nip them in the bud before they become habits. And you can bring the video to your teacher to help you squelch untoward stuff before it hardens and to show what has transpired since you last met.

If you don’t have a teacher you can use your video to tame your inner critic while identifying what needs work. You can evaluate your video and then work kindly with yourself to improve. And if you have the opportunity to have a lesson after a workshop, you can share the video with the visiting teacher to help give a better idea of where you are and what you need help with – which will make your lesson go so much better!

So, by using equipment you already have (phone or tablet), you can significantly improve your playing, help your teacher help you, and create spare capacity to think – all of which will serve you well to improve your playing. And all it takes is – Lights! Camera! Improvement!

Made a video? Want to share? Leave me a comment – can’t wait to see it!

Jenius Creations

Find your creative jenius

Category Archives: Teaching and Learning