I got to be at the Scotland Connecticut Highland Games this weekend – and I had a fantastic time!  There were loads of harpers there and we got to spend the entire day doing harp-y things.  As usual – although I promised myself that I’d take loads of pictures – at the end of the day, I fell asleep that night thinking, “oh phooey, I never took my camera out!” (again). 

One of the things I enjoyed so much about being there was the wonderful energy that everyone brought.  Some people came to compete again.  Some came to compete for the first time.  Some came to be part of the group, enjoy the time, learn a tune, and share in a beautiful event. All that good stuff got me thinking about our harps events as the celebrations they are.

Celebrations?  Yes – we really were celebrating nearly continuously – we learned, we played, we shared music – all of those are celebrations of sorts.  But we don’t normally think about it like that – and we probably should.  We make advances (large and small) each day that we get to spend time at the harp.  We need to find a way to celebrate each of those achievements! 

What kind of achievements do I mean?  Well, how about:

• Learned a new tune
• F-i-n-a-l-l-y got a technique element we were learning (or we “ironed it out”)
• Practiced one hundred days in a row
• Or, practiced five days this week
• Remembered to trim our nails – before we started practicing!
  
• Accomplished all our weekly practice goals
• Performed in public (for the first time?)
• Conquered a tune that had been resisting being played (or am I the only one that sometimes feels like that?)
• Actually remembered to use dynamics while playing
  

So, how should we celebrate? How about:

• Tell your closest “harp friend”
• Play a fanfare to your success…on your kazoo
• Post a video to Facedegram
• Make yourself a sticker chart (like when you were a kid)
• Wear a tiara or crown while practicing the next day
• Have a cookie!
• Go to a harp event (and have a great time)

It doesn’t really matter how you celebrate – as long as you DO celebrate your little wins.  It will help keep you motivated and remind you that you get to play the harp!  What could be better than that?   

I am sure you have more/better achievements!  What would you like to celebrate?  What would you choose as your reward?  Let me know in the comments!

It has to be more than a crush – It must be love.  This feeling has lasted through good and bad.  Through great lessons and broken strings.  You love your harp!  What else could explain it?!

Maybe more importantly, how do you stay in love with your harp?  Well, like any relationship, you have to nurture and care for it!  After all, you want to feel that exhilaration of being in love, but you also just want to have that connection that stems from a love that lasts.

How?  Well, the same ways you’d be sure to stay connected to any other love in your life!  Here are five things that might help:

1. Focus on it – a lot!  Make sure you spend a little time with your harp every day.  Some days you will have more time than you know what to do with – and woohoo, those are great days full of practicing and playing!  Other days, you might only have time to gaze longingly and possibly run your hand over the column.  Value both of those types of time (just try to keep the very short days infrequent!).  We all know that while absence may make the heart grow fonder, long-distance relationships are hard.
2. Make (and keep) regular “dates” …and show up!  Ok, that might seem corny, but you know that you need to spend time together. One way to fit that time into the rest of your busy life is to make a date (or a meeting if you’re not romantical (not a typo, I meant romantical)).  And when you’re on your date – be present.  If you have time to spend with your harp – be there!  And pay attention to it while you’re playing.
3. Actually listen.  It can be easy to listen without hearing. Like being present when you’re spending time with your harp, be sure to hear what your harp is telling you – whether it’s that you need to practice more or that your strings are getting old or that tuning might be in order – or whatever it wants to say to you.
4. Go away together.  It’s amazing what a weekend getaway can do for your relationship!  There are loads of events all over the world, opportunities to take part in workshops and other events.  These are really helpful, so be sure to take them!  You’ll learn something and the time away can sweeten your relationship with your harp!
5. 5. Be explicit about your needs – good relationships are built on caring for each other and meeting needs. Your harp has needs – to be maintained (and maybe occasionally dusted?) and you do too. So be clear what your needs are – whether it’s more practice time, more emphasis on a particular technique, changing up your approach to your music, better lighting, taking regular lessons, setting a goal for yourself, whatever else you need – make sure you know what you need – so your harp can help you get there.

If you’ve been feeling like your harp love is slipping away, try some of these to rekindle that romance.  Remember that all loves take some effort and work – but it’s worth it.  Do you have other ways to keep the love alive?  Share them in the comments!

(I probably should have written this last week for Valentine’s Day – but honestly, it didn’t occur to me in time!)

Cheetahs are really fast.  They are purportedly the fastest animal on the earth, running faster than 100 MPH.  They are sleek and optimized to go fast.  They are amazing to watch.

However, with great speed come great speed bumps!  Cheetahs actually catch less than half of what they hunt because they are too fast!  Since hunted things are motivated to get out of the way – they do! And worse, even if the cheetah does catch what they’re aiming for, they are often so spent that other, slower but stronger players often swoop in and steal the cheetah’s meal.  And the cheetah couldn’t do much about it even if they weren’t exhausted because, while they’re fast, they don’t have sharp claws and they’re relatively weak.  Yikes.

You might wonder why we are on this gentle (ha!) walk through the Wild Kingdom?  Because we can learn a lot from the cheetah.

To be successful hunters (and to have well fed bellies) cheetahs actually depend more on agility than they do on their speed.  Stated baldly, a successful cheetah relies on great technique NOT speed.

They use that technique – even though they could rely on their speed – because even the cheetah knows that speed doesn’t lead to success – great technique does!

Further, the cheetah – and the smart harper – knows that carefully honing one’s technique will lay the groundwork for all the speed to be used masterfully rather than letting speed run the show.

The cheetah is a rare creature, beautiful to behold.  Harpers are like that too.

Unlike the cheetah, who uses technique for hunting but doesn’t have a lot of tasks, we harpers need to develop a wide range of skills to perform all the tasks of playing our instruments and our music.  The development of these techniques requires time and attention and practice which can be time consuming (and sometimes can be a little dispiriting).

Speed, on the other hand, is seductive.  It whispers in your ear

“we could go even faster…if you’d just sacrifice a few, teensy-weensy details…like fingering, placing, tone, articulation, dynamics, posture, and planning. Whadaya say?”

And it’s very easy to fall prey to that silver tongued devil.  Here in the secret privacy of our own private practice spaces – we can succumb and go faster – faster – faster.  So what if we missed a note?  So what if we dropped part of the phrase?  Did we already play the repeat?  Is that actually how it goes?  It sounds perfect with no left hand, right?  There was no gap while I tried to remember what came next, right?   So what if it wasn’t completely smooth?

But eventually comes the time when we venture out and prepare to play – for a lesson or in front of others – and then the scales fall from our eyes as we learn that our sacrifices for speed have resulted in a haphazard, poorly played tune.  And we feel it keenly. *

So, don’t be fast like the hungry cheetah.  Rather, be precise and agile like the fed cheetah.  Focus on tamping down your speed to instead let your technique take over.  Ignore the seductive voice urging you play faster and instead heed the call to the dulcet tones of articulated, tempered, dynamic music.  Be all the best qualities of the cheetah – without the spots!

* Don’t ask me how I know this.

One of the tenets of maintaining and growing your creativity is to always be trying something completely different.  And here we go!  This week I wanted to share another way to get yourself to your bench – by getting dinner on the table quickly but satisfyingly.

By sharing…a recipe!

You may (or may not) know that I h-a-t-e to cook.  I can cook.  And I can cook well enough – with only a few minor catastrophes which I love to share (just to get out of it as much as possible). But I don’t find it enjoyable.  As a chore it ranks slightly behind cleaning the bathroom.

But you do know that what I do find enjoyable is trying new things.  Whether you’re good at it or not doesn’t matter, just giving it a go is worth all the outcomes.

So, I’m trying something new – sharing a recipe that I made up and hoping it is interesting (or at least amusing) to you.  I know you’ll let me know what you think!  Like all my projects, I sort of make it up as I go while hoping for the best.  I’d urge you to do the same thing.  Start where you are and end up where you got.  Improvise.  Try new things.  Keep what you like.  Add other stuff.  Remember to write down what you liked (and note what you didn’t like so you don’t do it again).

Of course, the main point is getting yourself fed so you can get back to playing!

I hope you’ll give it a shot and let me know what happens.  Even better, if you have a similar recipe that you have honed for yourself and are willing to share, I’d love to hear about it.

Harp players cannot live on practice alone.  There is, after all, more to life.   Like performing.  Or maintenance.  Or just plain enjoyment.  We all have those things we need to have – things that are essential to us.  Stuff that makes the difference between a good day and a less than stellar outcome.  Have you ever thought about what you just can’t live without at when it comes to playing your harp?

Well, I have.  We all have those things that we really rely on.  And since you asked (after all, where do you think I come up with these ideas for blog posts?) – here’s my things I can’t live without, my essentials* –

1. Tuner – there are loads of tuners out there. They range from fairly simple to awfully complicated.  I have four – a Snark ST-2 (the red one), a Korg CA-1 with a pickup, a free app download (G-Strings), and a tuning fork.  Clearly each one has a different application.  I like the Snark because it’s small.  The Korg is great in a group.  I love that the app is almost overly precise.  The tuning fork is just for fun – and when I feel like I need a challenge I use it to tune by ear and then double check my accuracy of the tuning with one of the other tuners. 
2. Spare strings – ok, this is a “duh”, but I am always surprised when someone tells me they don’t have a spare string. My strong recommendation is that you get a spare set of strings – an entire set.  And, if you have already broken a string, don’t forget to order an extra with the set (one to go on the harp and one to complete the set).  That can be kinda pricey, but it’s the only way to have a string on hand when one breaks.  
3. Recorder – I am always suggesting that you record yourself – so you can hear what you haven’t heard, so you can see what you can’t see, and so you can know what you would otherwise know if you weren’t too busy playing when you needed to know it. I use a(nother) free app).  It doesn’t have a lot of features, but it does have my favorite – the big red DELETE button.  We’re not recording for posterity – just to learn…and then we ditch it!
4. Notebook/journal – You didn’t think I’d leave this off the list, did you? We’re all busy and it can feel like we don’t have time to journal our playing, but that’s a missed opportunity.  Be reflective, think about your playing, practice, and performance.  Be active, not passive, and write it down.
5. Great tunes – All that stuff is really in service of great tunes. After all, it’s more fun to play really great tunes you love than to just bang through stuff you don’t like. An incredibly wise teacher once told me to play music I like and leave the rest.  Someone else will like the tunes that don’t beg you to play them – focus on the ones you love. 

There are, of course, load of other things that could be on this list – like a harp, the tuning key, the perfect bench, that light that makes everything easier, and more.  What do you find essential?  What can you not live without?  Let me know in the comments. 

*I’m not smart enough to be paid to endorse stuff, so these are my opinions – do with them what you will.  I really am interested to know what your favorites are – I’ll learn something and possibly shift my list!

This week two different people asked me pretty much the same question.  That usually tells me that something “everyone knows” is actually not something everyone knows!

The questions were about replacing strings.  Not how to replace them, but tips and tricks for replacing them more easily.  Broken strings are a fact of life for harpers.  And needing to change out dead or “thuddy” strings is also something every harper has experienced (or will) – necessitating changing strings or completely restringing the harp.

Like any activity that is essential if not fun, it helps to be prepared.  I have restrung my harp (that could be a whole other post!), but I am mostly prepared for having to replace a broken string at a performance.  I have a handy-dandy kit just for that!  I made it for my harp case pocket, but when I’m home in my studio, I have it on the shelf.  I’m pleased with my set-up and I think from the reactions I’ve gotten from other people at workshops, competitions, and schools, many others think my set-up is pretty cool.

So, this week I’m going to share it with you.  As with so many things, this is my way.  It is, by no means, the only way or even necessarily the best way.  But it has worked for me for a long time.  It also makes me smile when i see it.  Silly, yes, but so what?!  This set up not only keeps all the things I need close to hand, it also keeps everything organized, clean, and unbroken.  Is everything you might ever need for a broken string at a gig in there?  No, but there’s enough to get out of trouble.

This all started because I would toss my tuner into my harp case pocket and then worry that it would turn on and run the battery down, or get broken, or just come apart.  So I started looking for a way to protect it.  Then I realized that I also wanted to carry the pickup which is also somewhat delicate.  That’s where the box came in.  But that was a lot of room, so the other stuff slowly joined in!

Note that these are all items from my set up – this is not an endorsement of any product or brand.  Use what you have and stock your kit with what you like.

Let’s get started on our tour.

First, the outside.  I use a sandwich box.  There’s nothing special about it.  It’s just inexpensive – grocery store bought sandwich box.  I like it because it fits everything I want to have without taking up a lot of volume in the pocket. What’s really important is that the lid fits and stays closed and that it has enough room for what you want to carry.  This assures that the tuner ON button doesn’t get accidentally pushed which is really my biggest concern!

Next, let’s take a look inside!  Under the lid, you can see that it takes a little bit of finagling and tessellation to get everything in – but it works!  I do capitalize on the flexibility of some of the items to overcome the limitations of the inflexibility of the others.

So, let’s unpack so you can see what’s in there.  Remember too that this is a gig bag item, so it has to serve both tuning and string replacement.

First I have a pickup.  I know this is likely not strictly necessary, but my sound board is beautiful and responds to just about everything.  I think using a pickup helps me tune faster and better – so I use it.  I keep it in the box because it is somewhat delicate and the wires can be broken and I don’t want to have to be buying another one every time I turn around!
Next is the tuner itself.  In all honesty, I have another tuner but this is my favorite…and you can see that it’s small and flat and fits into the box really well (I keep the other tuner in a different box – mostly because although I like it but it wouldn’t fit in this box!).  Additional bonus?  Not having to fish around in the case pocket trying to find this tuner – the sandwich box is big enough to easily grab from the pocket.

Now we get to the accoutrements!  These are things I have added over time because they came in handy! They all either are essential to replacing a string, or just make it easier.  Because remember – this is in my harp case, so I’m not at home, and I may be under time pressure to get the string changed before I have to perform!  So I have:

• String ends.  String ends are used in a harp knot to give it a little more structure against pulling through the sound board.  I have two types of string ends.  The first are the traditional ones – bits of an old string cut into 1 inch pieces.  These work and if you don’t have any, you can make some from a thicker nylon (or gut) string (preferably one that has broken) or you can buy them from reputable string sellers (some string vendors will send them gratis if you buy a lot of strings).  But I also have a leather shoelace – the kind sold for boat shoes.  They can be cut to the same one inch length as the bits of old string.  The benefits of the shoelace are that they are a little easier to hold onto while tying the knot and they are soft and flexible which means that you don’t get buzzing which sometimes happens with the harder string ends.  I keep the whole lace, but it would be more space efficient to make some cuts and keep them in the box.
  
• Candle Sticky Stuff.  I got this tip a long time ago.  Putting just a little bit of candle adhesive onto the knot after you tie it makes it so much easier to seat the knot and get on with winding the string.  This small tin holds wax.  Just work up a small ball (like a pearl) – just enough to give you just enough tackiness to hold the knot together while you feed it through the soundboard (especially on the very thin strings at the top).  It does save you a great deal of frustration and swearing!  You can find this online or in hardware and craft stores and there are multiple brands available.  
• Major nail care.  I don’t know about you, but there’s something about having a gig that seems to make my fingernails grow!  They can be fine when I leave but when I get ready to play, they have magically gotten too long!  So I have this little cheap nail kit – I wouldn’t want to use it for day-to-day nail maintenance, but in a pinch, I can be sure that I feel confident that I’ve gotten my nails short enough.  Bonus – I use the nail clippers to cut the string after I’ve gotten it wound on.  I got this at a drugstore or a large square footage discount department store.
• Minor nail care.  I found this little “matchbook” set of nail files and they have been in this box ever since.  I prefer emery boards over metal nail files but have also used them to smooth chapped fingers as well. I got this at a drugstore or a large square footage discount department store.  A single emory board would also work, but I thought these were cute.

Thanks for taking a tour of the box!  I hope it helps you plan something similar for your harp case.  Do you have a similar box?  What do you have in yours?  What’s really worked for you?  Let me know in the comments!