Category Archives: Teaching and Learning

Summer weekends are not all for the beach

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There aren’t very many weekends in the summer and most of us do our best to have fun on every one of them.  But you can only spend so much time at the beach.  If you have already wisely chosen to spend one of those weekends at Harp Camp with me and Kris and another at OSAS, you will want to spend another one at Somerset Folk Harp Festival!
Somerset has only been going on for a few years but it definitely has a place on the well rounded harper’s calendar.  There are loads of interesting workshops taught by amazing harpers many of whom you might never even dreamed of getting to spend time learning from.   
There are so many workshops that it is often difficult to decide which one to participate in in each available session.  And then there are the concerts, the vendor hall and the opportunities to see old friends and make new ones.   And Scottish Harp Society of America will have a table!   
What more could you possibly ask?! See you there?

Listen, listen, listen

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If you’re reading this, it is likely that you are primarily playing traditional folk music.  One of the beautiful things about trad is that is has always had a significant aural component.  There was a time, according to the historians, that all harpers learned their music by ear.  In fact, they learned everything by ear – the tunes, the words to songs, the epic poetry, the histories – all in the aural (and oral) tradition.

This makes excellent sense – after all, music is aural – we all, musician and appreciator, participate in music by listening.  We know that how it sounds is essential.  In fact, when we make a mistake, we know it because it sounded wrong.  Not very many people will tell you they knew they made a mistake because it felt wrong!
But how are you to know how it should sound?  How does someone new to the music learn how to give it the lift, lilt, or jaggedness to make it sound right?  If you grew up in one culture, how do you know how to make a tune from another culture sound like it should? How do you make your Irish tunes sound Irish and your Scottish tunes sound Scottish and ensure that only your Welsh tunes sound like they came from Wales?  How do you know where they came from???
The best way is to listen!  Listen to the music.  And of course, really listen – find the nuances.  How does an Irish tune sound relative to one from Cape Breton?  What lets you know when the tune is from Scotland?  Can you tell your favorite harp players apart when listening? (Being able to identify my friends by their playing on their cds was a turning point for me – when I finally “got” how important listening is!).
And, of course, you have to do a little homework – it will help when you start causing yourself to listen to have some information handy (to know where the tune is from).  Once you get comfortable with actively listening to music then you can move on to listening while not knowing, guessing where the tune (or the player) is from and then looking it up to check your work.  Just be wary of tunes that are played everywhere (they’ll be tricky – these are typically very old or very popular!).  
And don’t forget to enjoy the listening while you learn how to bring those sounds into your own tunes.

Teaching helps make you a better learner.

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When you are in a workshop, the instructor seems to have the easiest bit of the day – that person already knows the tune – it’s the participants that are trying desperately to learn the music being shared.  But is it actually easier to teach than to learn?  And what could be more fun than sharing a tune so you’ll have more people to play it with?  To get to that point, you’ll have to teach it!
Still, many of us have experienced the very real challenges that teaching to someone else poses.  Trying to share a tune with someone else highlights just how well we know it ourselves.  To teach a tune, you have to have a complete understanding of the tune. Well, at least it helps.
And so, sharing a tune with someone else will help you make sure you have that tune down rock solid.  If you want to teach it well you will also have to think through all the patterns, the fingerings, and the intervals.  You will have had to think about the phrases, how they related to one another, how many there are, how similar or different they are to one another, and whether those phrases are reminiscent of other tunes (thus, of course, increasing the confusability quotient!).
Wouldn’t be easier if you started out that way?  What if you took approach learning the tune as though you will turn around and teach it?  To get to that, you’ll have to be sure to really look and really listen.  Find the patterns or repeats, note how many phrases there are, look at their structure.  And think from early on how you’re going to teach it on to someone else – soon!

Choosing new music

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There is so much great music in the world and many of us want to play it all!  However, at some point you must select the music that you are going to choose to learn and acknowledge that it is not possible to learn it all.  When you select a tune, whether it’s for competition, performance, weddings, healing or simply to amuse yourself, you should think about a few things to assure that you select the right music for you.
  1. Do you like it?   Early in my harp career I got excellent advice – don’t play music you don’t like!  Just don’t.  Life is short, enjoy the music!  (If you are booking weddings, this does have the unintended consequence of requiring you to know more music so you have something to suggest to counter a request you don’t like.)
  2. Does the arrangement work for you?  We all have strengths and weaknesses.  We have “tricks” we like, while there are others that just don’t fit our hands.  Make sure you select arrangements that are a good match to you…or arrange the tunes to make that match.
  3. Does it match your comfort zone? This goes both ways – if you are seeking to add to your repertoire, staying in your comfort zone will make learning the tunes easier and faster.  However, if your goal is to learn new things while learning new tunes, work outside your comfort zone and stretch!
  4. How are you going to play it? What’s it story to you? There is more to playing than getting the notes in the right order – what do you want to do with the tune?  You can be forming those ideas while learning the notes but coming to the tune with the story in mind might make it easier to learn.
  5. Is it over-played?   If everyone is playing a particular tune (especially if you’re choosing a “party piece”) do you want to be playing the same music?  Select the tunes to catch your attention.  [Note – this does not include session tunes, in which case the entire point is to learn tunes everyone is playing!]
  6. When you play the song for the first time, does it seem easy?  One of my favorite  indicators that a tune is a good fit is that it comes “falls into my hands”.  Don’t beat yourself up learning a tune that will not come together in your hands.  There are so many to choose from.  And if you really, really love the tune – come back to it later – it might just surprise you.
And don’t forget to have fun while selecting new tunes.  Enjoy the process!

There is no substitute for having a teacher

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This may be sacrilegious in some quarters, but I’m going to say it anyway.  There really is no substitute for having a teacher.  Now, before you write this week’s content as self-serving drivel from someone who makes money teaching, hear me out.  There are so many things about playing the harp that are challenging, why not learn someone who can save you the difficulty of learning those things the hard way?

Here are ten things teachers will do that will help improve your harp playing:
  1. Give you wisdom, gained at the knees of their teachers.
  2. Give you the benefit of their experiences.
  3. Provide you timely feedback that will help you spend less time learning (and then unlearning) things that are not productive.
  4. Provide you positive feedback that will allow you to focus on growing rather than have you smarting from falling backward.
  5. Although there are some very good books available, nothing is the same as having someone who’s walked the road before you to show you the ropes.
  6. Inspire you to grow to your full potential rather than letting you fester where you happen to be.
  7. Encourage you to stretch and grow, to achieve your potential and reach your goals.
  8. Coddle you when you hit the inevitable plateaus that are so disheartening.
  9. Give you their knowledge – they’ve been in your seat and left it behind…wouldn’t you like to move along too?
  10. Work with you, to help you develop yourself.

You need to find the teacher that fits you and there are plenty of really good ones around.  I highly encourage you to work with a teacher – you don’t have to commit to unending lessons and in the end, the progress you make will be a function of your hard work.  But a teacher can coach you through that progress so you can make good time on it!

Hang out with people who play better than you do.

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Every once in a while it is gratifying to be the most accomplished person in the room.  But the good news that it doesn’t last!  There is a lot of pressure on you when that happens.  So, the remedy is to hang out with people who are more accomplished than you are – or as we say colloquially, people who are better than we are!

Why? Because research shows that hanging out and playing with people who are better than you are will raise your game and help you develop.  Playing with them makes you be better because you have to work hard to try to keep up.

 

Those better players may be other harpers but it is also possible that they will be playing some other instrument.  Either way, you always have a lot to learn, so get in there!

It can be daunting (trust me, I know!) but it can also be exhilarating and just plain fun!  It is intimidating but if offered the opportunity, take it!  Don’t let your insecurity get in your way. Don’t second guess yourself or fill yourself with fear.  Take it as it comes, enjoy the time (it will be fleeting), and learn as much as you can from the experience.  Use what you learn to make yourself better. 
And when the day comes that you are the most accomplished person in the room, share with the same grace others have shown you – and make someone’s day!

Teaching is the best way to learn

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Learning tunes is one of those never-ending challenges. The matter how many you learn not only are there thousands more, but great composers keep generating new ones! Although we know we will never get to the end and learn every tune ever, we keep trying.

But what do we mean when we say learn a tune? Do we mean that we have gotten it down enough that we can (barely) keep up at a session? Do we mean we have a down well enough to play to an audience? Do we mean we have it down well enough to never forget it (by the way – no such thing!)?

We sometimes fool ourselves by thinking we know a tune cold. But, how cold is cold? If you want to know if you actually know a tune, try teaching it to someone else.
 
You may make the mistake of starting to teach the tune off the top your head. This will quickly fail you. To be able to teach the tune, you have to know it – really know it. You have to learn not just the notes, but also the structure, the phrases, how the parts fit together. You will be well served to know which pieces are in the A part and appear again in the B part. Or what motif underlies every phrase? What is the underlying theme? Where will you be going? From where?

These types of analyses of the tune will impact how you choose to teach it. Really doing this work will allow you to teach the tune more easily. And all of this is exactly what you need to do… to learn it in the first place!

This is harder than it looks

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I just got a fancy new software package. It’s perfect for me – now instead of typing on my keyboard, I just talk to my computer.  It really isn’t hard.   Except now it is.  I’m having to learn to do things completely differently. My little machine listens to me and dutifully writes down everything I say.

This is a problem. You see, I’m not used to saying aloud what I’m trying to write. And actually, it’s quite challenging to write while you’re talking – this is very different.  When I’m typing it just comes out.  I can correct it on the fly (of course when I’m typing the computer isn’t trying to guess what I said or how to spell it either!).  So, I am going to learn how to do something new. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.

How many times do we think this when we’re learning a tune? We think it should be easy. It’s an easy tune. Everybody else learned it really quickly. It’s not that complicated! I should be able play this. 🙁

 

And yet sometimes we run into tunes that make us do things differently. Sometimes what is easy, isn’t. It might look easy on paper. It might have been easy for the person next to us in the workshop.  But it’s just not coming together for us. We’ve all been there – we don’t like being there, but we’ve been there. And so what are we supposed to do?
 
Here are three things we can do to make it easier (whether it’s learning a tune, or how to type by talking):
 
1. Take it slowly. Whether the tune is simple or if the software says you can use it right out of the box, we need to give ourselves the time to absorb what it is were trying to learn. Zorching off as fast as we possibly can, because “it’s easy,” just makes us frustrated. Take your time. (Yes, I am always exhorting you to slow down…because, usually, this is the solution!)
 
2. Think –  what about the tune is challenging. It’s not likely the entire thing is hard for you. It is more likely that there is just one thing that you’re struggling with. Take the time to examine what’s giving you a hard time and see if you can parse that into smaller elements that you can work on independently. Once you have those down, fit it into the rest of the music – slowly.
 
3. Quit worrying about whatever everyone else is doing. I saw recently a really good quote that said something about never forgetting that you only see other people’s “highlight reels” while you focus on your own “bloopers”.  Mostly people won’t own up the having a hard time…they’re too worried about what everyone else will think…but really – no one else cares. So forget the litany in your own head about how you’re never going to get it and realize nobody else will admit that. Get over it and get back to work.

Off to OSAS

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It is Ohio Scottish Arts School week!  Always a great week –  playing tunes we have learned before, learning new ones, staying up too late, practice, jamming, and a lot of laughter! 

Each year we look forward to a week of learning from amazing tutors – this year is no exception with Corrina Hewat and Abby Palmer, Sue Richards Ann Heymann and Charlie Heymann bringing their unique perspectives and experiences…and wonderful tunes!  It’s difficult to not be effusive! 

And there is the broader view, sharing and hanging out with other harpers as well as fiddlers, dancers, pipers, and drummers.  What looks like a fun jam session will also be a full rich opportunity to learn skills all musicians need, to practice musicality, adaptability, and flexibility.

Start of last year – photo unceremoniously pinched from Steve Schack, a fellow OSAS alum
(http://stevetheharper.blogspot.com/2012/06/ohio-scottish-arts-school-day-1.html)

If you’ve been to OSAS before but weren’t able to come this year, be there in spirit by playing through the tunes from your summer and brush them up and remember the great times you had. 

And if you’ve never been before, I sure hope you figure out a way to work it into your schedule next year.  It is not just a learning experience but also just  FUN!

I’ll trying to remember to take photos to share with you – but sometimes I get too caught up in the fun so no promises!  Thanks for understanding!  See you soon.

Put it in writing

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There are all kinds of way to mark your progress as you practice and develop.  And it is important to do that marking – you should be able to look back at your development and see your progress.  We have talked about recording yourself so you can hear your progress but you might want to consider capturing your development in other ways.

If you work from printed music you have many opportunities to make notes.  Use a pencil – you might want to come back to the tune and do something completely different in the future.  Mark all the challenges you meet – fingerings, lever (or pedal) changes, dynamics, expression and phrasing – all of these will help you work through the music and will also serve as documentation of your ability to play it when you were working on it.  Always use a pencil so you can make changes as you become more capable and experienced.   For instance you could start a practice and performance journal.

If you learn your music aurally there is still a lot to note – make yourself a list of tunes you are working.  This will help you make sure to practice everything – rather than working some tunes to perfection while forgetting about others.  Once you know a few tunes, you’ll be amazed at how fast you forget what you know or what you are learning.

No matter how you learn your music, make yourself a journal.  Write yourself notes about your practice.  Write down what is going wrong.  Note what have you tried.  Jot down what went right.  Be sure to include notes about what do you want to try as well as writing out how are you going to go about learning these new things. Also note things you still want to learn.

Document your progress, inspire yourself – be nice!  And don’t forget to read your journal.  Review your notes and your progress.  And since you know you’re going to be reading – be encouraging so you can learn from yourself.