Tag Archives: Practice

Put it on repeat

Posted on by

One of the most frustrating things when learning a new piece of music is getting it established in your head. Whether you get your music by rote or by reading (or hybrid), we often feel like we should have a tune quickly. But is that really reasonable?

In a word – No.

Learning a tune and learning to play a tune (and I’d argue those are different but related) require repeated exposure. Repeated means – repeats….and lots of them!

You might wonder why you need so much repetition – even if you’re a quick learner. Well, there are two basic reasons – first, because there’s a lot to learn and second because you probably don’t make as many repeats as you think when you practice.

There is a lot to learn, and I find that we typically underestimate how much we need to learn for each piece we take on. While we focus on our fingers, it’s our brains that have the lion’s share of the work here! We need to recognize and recall a lot of stuff. Here are just a few of the things you need to learn for each tune:

> You have to know how the tune sounds

> You have to know where the tune goes

> You have to know where your fingers go

> You have to know the order of the notes of the melody

> You have to know the chord progression of the harmony

> You have to know the notes of the harmony

> You have to know the order of the fingers

> You have to know the rhythm

> You have to know the dynamics

> You have to know the phrasing

> You have to know how this tune relates (or is contrary) to other tunes you already know

> You have to remember all that

And more. Hopefully, that gives you an appreciation for what you’re doing as you learn.

So, then the question is, how many repetitions. Often, we feel like we’re playing something over and over and over and over. And we are. But look at that list again – each of those things is impacting each repetition. So, you can begin to understand why so much repetition is needed.

Let’s start by thinking about what we’re trying to by making those repetitions. We are trying to memorize how the (entire) piece sounds. We also need to perform serial recall of two different lines – the melody and the harmony which more often than not are completely different, yet related. We have to master the motor activity of placing, playing, closing, moving, and doing it again and again. But more importantly, we have to connect all of those things, in the right sequence within the appropriate relative time, while detecting anomalies (aka mistakes) and correcting them. Whew! No wonder it’s hard!

There is no set number of repetitions required (that would be too easy!). One metric is easiness – how easy does it feel to play? Yes, it’s qualitative, but this isn’t rocket science, so it’s ok. When you’re moving along your learning curve, there will come a point when you realize that it is just easier to play – you’re not struggling as much to remember what comes next, your fingers actually feel like you are in control, your brain doesn’t feel like you’re about to combust! You may be more able to play faster or to keep both hands going.

The keys to getting there probably include not counting your reps, but instead focusing on what you’re doing, what you’re thinking about, what you’re not able to do just yet, and how you have done compared to yesterday, the day before, etc.

If it helps you to keep focused on practicing, you can use pennies, beans, or beads to keep track. These tools can be helpful to show yourself that you are actually practicing as much as you think you are. As long as you recognize that time (and number of repetitions) isn’t all that matters – what you do with that time is what matters.

The last thing to keep in mind is repetition has to happen across days and weeks, not just within individual practice sessions. You can’t really learn all that (see the list again) in a single sit down, so don’t think you will! If you feel compelled to have some detail, the next time you learn a new tune, keep track of how much time you practice, over how many days/weeks, and how many repetitions you actually perform each time – it should be fairly eye opening.

What’s your experience with repeats? Let me know … in the comments!

On Balance

Posted on by

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everyone else is getting older. Every day. Inexorably. Also, not everyone gets their jollies by carting around nearly 30 pounds of wood in a bag on their shoulder.

Oh wait.

Ok, we are all getting older, e-v-e-r-y single day and we do sort of enjoy an activity that can require us to tote around a large, unwieldy bag full of recycled tree bits. And that’s before we’ve even begun to have fun! All this moving the harp (even without the case) can require that we have good balance. Like other things we practice, with small but consistent activities we can get there.

Adding functional exercises will help you tote your harp. They will also help you carry groceries, sit and get up from the dinner table, walk across the room or on a sidewalk. They can even make sitting at your harp easier. And activities like bending to one side, grabbing a handle and shoulder strap to lift a bag of tree parts onto your shoulder, then walking some finite distance, lifting said bag into and out of a vehicle, and subsequently toting it somewhere else to bend over again to place it gently on the ground are just part of everyday life! Easy-peasy, right?

Now, before I go any farther, I must reiterate that I am not that kind of doctor, and you should speak to your physician before embarking on any exercise or fitness regimen. Everything I say is a suggestion or just an idea. Functional exercises are a physical practice and require strength, flexibility, and balance to build greater strength, flexibility, and balance. Consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new fitness programs, especially anything I suggest. If you have any injuries, health conditions, or other physical limitations, it is important that you remember that you must take care of yourself, especially before trying any new or modified exercises. The information provided on this website is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare professionals with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Reading this blog, or trying anything I suggest, involves risks and your results may vary.

Now, back to the point at hand. Working a few functional exercises into your everyday routine can help you continue to be able to carry your harp (or lift it onto the harp cart) for a long time to come by helping to ensure you have the balance needed to successfully bend over, lift, carry your harp without falling over! Here are three functional exercises that can move you toward improved balance:

  1. Stand on one foot. No, I am not kidding. Can you do it for 10 – 15 seconds? Longer? If you are at all wobbly (or if you’re just smart), do this behind a chair or at your kitchen counter to catch yourself in case you lose your balance. If you can easily do 15 seconds, can you do 30? The longer the better. When you’re feeling big and bad and hard to diaper, try it with your eyes closed (definitely have the chair for this!). It’s important to be able to stand on one foot – you spend half the time you’re walking in that position! This also strengthens your feet which do most of the work keeping you balanced.
  2. Undecideds (sit to stand). You might think it’s easy to sit down or to stand up from a chair (or you might not). You know how to do this. Use a straight chair (like a dining room chair or your harp bench). Stand in front of it and sit down, now stand up. And again, nine more times (like you can’t decide to sit or to stand!). While you’re doing these, try to remain upright (don’t bend over and hurl yourself onto the seat and similarly, don’t push off the table or make loud groaning noises!). If you’re not used to doing these, do them in a chair with arms because while one might be easy, ten will sneak up on you! (you can also use your legs to push off if you don’t have a chair with arms). Strengthening your legs helps in nearly everything you do. (PS if this isn’t enough, move to squats – same idea just no chair to fall into).
  3. Teapots (side bending). I haven’t ever seen anyone pick up their harp case from the floor who didn’t add a sideways bend (like “I’m a Little Tea Pot”) and worse, many of us not only bend sideways, we also bend forward at the same time – which is just begging to topple – head over tea kettle as they say. For this, sit upright in that chair we just finished not flopping onto with your arms hanging along your sides. Bend to reach to the floor on one side, come back to the middle and reach for the other side. Keep yourself upright, no slouching or slumping. If you can’t reach the floor no worries, you know it’s there and it gives you something to strive for. Don’t forget to breathe.

Do each of these exercises about ten times each then repeat the sequence two more times. Like all our practice, it’s about slow, careful progress not speed or overdoing it. Take it easy, build up, and enjoy the process. And, like harp technique books, there are loads of additional activities you can add to help you improve your balance. These are just a few that are easy enough to bring in to any practice session to make moving your recycled trees a bit easier over time.

What do you do to improve your balance? Do you have a different functional exercise to share? I’m always looking for some and you know I love to hear from you – leave me a comment!

Wrapping up?

Posted on by

Wrapping up?

The end of the year is rapidly approaching. You’re probably busy with social engagements, family time, practicing, decorating, work commitments, school holiday pageants, gift buy/wrap/giving (and maybe gift making?), and all the other stuff that makes up the end of year holiday swirl (miasma?).So, it is reasonable that you might not have gotten to a point where you can spend a few minutes sorting through the detritus of the last twelve months. I know it can be scary – at first blush you might think you haven’t gotten anywhere – I often feel like that about this time of year.

But there is plenty of irrefutable proof all around if you think to look for it. Let’s take stock, shall we? Here are some questions that bear consideration (they are multi-part questions):

What did you learn this year?

I know you learned something! First, what did you want to learn? Whether it was a new tune, to read better, to adapt music to your instrument, or whatever you wanted to learn – were you able to learn it? Were you able to learn more than one thing?

Now – what did you want to learn that you didn’t get to? Why was that? Are you disappointed or do you feel like you did well getting where you did? In addition, what did you learn (in everyday life) that you can apply to your playing, and what did you learn from playing that you can apply to your everyday life?

What did you practice this year?

First, what did you intend to practice? Did that align with what you wanted to learn? Did your practice serve you?

Second, were you able to meet your practice goal? Did you practice as much as you meant to? How did it work for you? How did it not? What could you have done differently? When should you have made changes? Practice isn’t a purgatorial punishment (really!). And you only have limited time, so it needs to be useful and efficient. Otherwise, you aren’t going to get anywhere.

What did you achieve this year?

First, what did you want to achieve? Was that realistic? How’d you do (maybe as a percentage, not just a yes/no)?

Second, how well stated was your achievement? Did you set yourself up for success or for failure? How could you frame it so that you could see (and assess) your progress throughout the year?

What did you overestimate this year?

First, it’s easy to make big sweeping goals but actually achieving them can be a bit of a bugaboo – it’s likely you overestimated something in your playing goals for the year. Were you able to correct along the way? Do you feel ok about your progress where you might have been too optimistic?

Second, how do you feel about the gap between where you are and where you thought you’d be? How does that make you feel about yourself? (BTW it should only help you understand about overestimating not undermine you!) Anything you underestimated? What is the difference between the things you over- and underestimated on (e.g., you overestimated reading but underestimated total number of tunes learned)?

What next?

Once you review yourself, you can ask yourself what’s left to do and how you might go about doing it. Remember that there’s nothing magic about mid-December – it’s an artificial boundary, but it is useful for taking stock of our progress and our direction.

No matter how you went about the process of practicing and playing throughout the year, you can reflect on it. But now it might be very clear why I’m always suggesting you write it down. Because if you had, now you could be looking at your notes throughout the year, your thoughts and feelings about not only the music you were playing but also about the music you would like to be able to play, the technical things still kicking your metaphorical butt, and the little joys that happen at your harp (but which recede from memory so quickly, and often before confronting the next challenge).

So, if you’re willing, please share how it went. I’m particularly curious about your gaps and the things that got in the way! And what questions we should add to this list. As always, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

How to practice more

Posted on by

How to practice more-

I’ve talked before about spending your practice time wisely so that you get something from every minute you’re on the bench (here and here – or just type “practice” into the search box above this blog post!). And I stand by that, but…the “right” answer is always more complicated. Today, let’s talk about the actual time practicing.

The busy workshop/festival/camp season will begin soon. Days on days of back-to-back opportunities to learn and interact. And hours on the bench – playing, listening, reading, waiting.

You want to be ready for it!

Sometimes your practice needs to include time to accommodate yourself to sitting behind your harp, playing for way longer than your normally do. As an example, say you’re going to a week-long workshop and each day you’ll spend 2 hours in each of 3 workshops. That’s 6 hours right there. And then there’s practicing what you’ve learned, getting together with friends, and sharing tunes, having sessions (or just session-ettes) and you’ll have easily spent 8 – 10 hours behind the harp.

How much time do you spend behind the harp each day now? 30 minutes? An hour? That’s kind of a big difference – an order of magnitude! Yikes, it’s tiring just thinking about it.

So, it’s not too early to begin building your stamina so you can not only endure but enjoy every minute of your summer experiences! What would be some good ways to do that? I’m so glad you asked!

First, you can simply increase the amount of time you devote to practice. I use 10% as a guide – I try to add 10% more to ease into more time. If you practice for 30 minutes a day, you might add 3 – 5 minutes a day every 3 or 4 days. If you’re practicing for an hour, you might add 5 – 10. You get the idea – add a little so that it’s manageable. You don’t need to work yourself into a frenzy or an overuse injury!

Or you can add another practice session. If you practice in the evening already, you might add a morning session. If you’re practicing 30 minutes in the evening, you might add a 10-minute session in the morning. You can divide up your work too – in the morning you might only do technical book work and in the evening, you could work on your tunes.

Building on this, once you have the two sessions fixed in your day, you can increase the time of each of them (again using the 10% rule). In our 10-minute/30-minute example, you’d add a minute or 2 in the morning and 3 – 5 in the evening. This has to fit into your life, so plan ahead. Because the morning session will be 30 minutes before you know it. You have to be willing to wake up that much earlier – which might be easier when it’s 10 minutes than when it’s 45!

If you have the luxury of working from home, coming home for lunch, or having a harp in your office, you could add additional short practice breaks. Adding two (or more) 10-minute sessions will get you there, especially when added to your regular practice time.

Building up slowly gives you the best chance to increase your playing time. Doing so consistently gives you the most opportunity to be really ready for the summer. This approach is appropriate for all players, from children to seasoned adults – just be sure to start where you are (and not where you “wish” you were or where you think you “should” be).

Another aspect of this strategy to be raring to go by summer is to use one of those sessions to focus on technical work. Fundamentals like you learn from the “torture books” (who comes up with these nicknames?) will stand you in good stead by honing your form and ingraining those basic elements of playing. Spending that time now ensure that you won’t have to work so hard when you get there because things will “fall” into your hands easier!

 How would you go about building your strength and stamina for the summer? Let me know in the comments!

Sneaking up on you?

Posted on by

Sneaking up on you?

When you are practicing (or performing) do you ever get the sensation that something’s not quite right? Like something is sneaking up on you?

I work with a lot of people as a teacher, a workshop presenter, a performer, and as an ergonomist. From my perch I can see it – and you’re probably right. Something is sneaking up on you.

Your shoulders.

Yup, those pesky pendents upon which we are so de-pendent. Literally – our arms hang from our shoulders. Our wrists are (still) at the ends of those arms. And dangling at the end of that chain – our fingers. Yes, our shoulders are pretty important.

But we get busy. There’s all that playing to do. Remembering the notes, forgetting our fingering, finding the right measure we need to be reading, possibly playing faster than we’re ready to. We are focused on a number of (granted, very important) things. And what we don’t have is brain space to focus on is often…our shoulders.

So, they creep up. They’re trying to help, but in their zeal to be supportive, they increase our tension, pull our arms out of their natural (relaxed) posture and requiring more energy to hold our arms, wrists, and fingers in the appropriate place to play the music the way we are wont to. And all of that makes it harder to play, which is distracting – and stressful. You can see how this can easily become a vicious (and possibly viscous) circle.

Stop it. How? you might ask. Well, I’m delighted to share that I have just the thing! Try this:

  1. Record your playing (you knew this would come up). Why? So you can see where and when your shoulders start to travel. This can be as simple as poor posture which you can improve by setting yourself in a good neutral posture from the minute you touch the bench. But what if you’re a stress shrugger? Do your shoulders keep company with your ears when the going gets tough? Well, a video will help you find your triggers.
  2. Once you know what it is that sets your shoulders off, then you can focus on correcting it. Your triggers might be playing faster than you’re ready, coming to a “tricky” part that you’re not really comfortable with yet, or that you’re not breathing, or just not relaxing into your playing. The video will help you find out what is happening – and when – so you can work on it.
  3. Once you know what triggers your shoulders’ to travel, then set a random timer (here’s a free one on the internet and here’s another one) to give you a signal at various times. When it dings, freeze, and check your shoulders. Are they where you’d expect and want them to be? Or did you run out of focus doing other things? Since this is random, it gives you time to stop thinking about your shoulders and the ding serves as a reminder to make sure they are down. If the ding happens and your shoulders are at your ears – don’t stop playing, just drop and relax them and keep going. You want to learn to detect that you’re shrugged and relax.
  4. Breathe! (Do I need to say more than that? I didn’t think so, but I will) Breathe like you mean it since it will not only relax you but also help keep your mind clear and present.
  5. Take breaks throughout your practice. Think about practicing in 20-minute segments (with a timer, because it helps). At the end of each segment, breathe, stretch, move around, get up off the bench, and let your whole system rest for a sec. Then you can come back to the next segment ready to go.
  6. Be kind to yourself. This might take a while. After all, you unknowingly developed the habit of tensing your shoulders and now you will consciously go about undeveloping that habit and learning to be more relaxed. Unlearning (to shrug) and relearning (to relax) takes longer than the initial learning, so be gentle on you – reward yourself for your continued growth. And don’t lose momentum, this is something that will come with time and practice.

It is important to get your shoulders dropped when you’re practicing – if you work in that tension, you will train yourself to play with that tension. You will actually ingrain that stress in your shoulders which, as mentioned above, impacts your playing.

If you’re still Team “I’m not comfortable on video” you can use a full-length mirror – but also, get over yourself, you’re not making a Hollywood extravaganza or even a social media video. You are using a valuable tool to help you grow. Just do it (it’s also faster than using the mirror because you can practice, and then review the video when you’re finished – none of that pesky trying to “catch yourself” while you’re also practicing!

Are your shoulders sneaking up on you? Let me know what you do (or what you’re going to try) – in the comments!

Keep breathing

Posted on by

Keep breathing 

I think we could easily agree that playing requires concentration. A lot of concentration. Of course, some things make us concentrate harder than others.  For instance, we have to really focus when we’re learning. Maybe when a tune is really well learned we don’t have to focus so much (or at least we feel like we have more brain capacity available).  When we perform we probably focus carefully as well (at least we hope we will!).

One of the challenges of concentrating really hard is that when we do, many of us actually stop breathing (I can’t make this up). While you’re focused, you may hold your breath. When your brain is working hard, it gets busy and has a harder time of keeping all its plates spinning. Things like breathing can be one of those plates that gets dropped. (Don’t worry, the rest of your body will demand a breath when you really have to have one!). Of course, not breathing doesn’t make you think very well and all in all, it’s best if you can keep breathing.

The good news is that you can overcome this not breathing. You just need to practice doing it. Yes, even though you mostly don’t even think about breathing – you DO need to think about it if you’re not breathing consistently when you’re practicing (or performing).

When should you be breathing? Well, it’s best to breathe normally but if you notice you’re not (or your teacher points it out to you), you can add it to each tune or exercise! Here are a few ways to incorporate it so you can keep breathing:

Phrasing. If you’re learning by ear, you’re getting the tune in phrases. Phrasing might be easiest to understand in the context of singing because you must breathe (other blowing instruments are the same – no breathing, no playing). Phrasing is how the tune breathes, Watch (good) singers and you’ll notice that they never leave off in the middle of a word to take a breath – they breathe in “obvious” places…between the words. Just like they do, when your music calls for a breath (the end of a phrase) – take a breath. If you’re reading, you can still breathe at the end of a phrase – just remember to mark it!*  When you’re practicing be certain that you breathe there and make it part of how you play the tune.

Mechanical. I’m not keen on this one, but it could work. In this approach you specifically incorporate breathing as a “movement” just like placing, closing, changing levers, and all the other movements of playing. I don’t like this because it’s not natural (which might interrupt your breathing rather than improving it) and because breathing is a very different type of movement. More importantly, this approach doesn’t support the music either. It doesn’t tie your breath to the phrasing (above) which could knock your musicality out of whack (and who doesn’t need more musicality).

Relax. You might hold your breath when you are stressed – so relax. You’ll get the tune, you’ll learn the melody, you’ll get the fingering! And your brain will be glad of the oxygen!

Pay attention. This is related to Mechanical, and it might seem silly – because we are paying attention….to something else! Like Mechanical, set yourself the additional task of paying attention to your breathing while you are concentrating on learning the music. Post a sign on your music stand or make some other reminder to keep it front of mind!

Breathing is fairly important when you’re learning and when you’re playing. Do you notice specific places you aren’t breathing? How do you remember to breathe? Let me know in the comments how you are going to keep breathing!

*If you’re not familiar with the marking, use an apostrophe above the treble staff to indicate where to take a breath (ok, it’s your music, use anything you’d like but the apostrophe is the standard marking).

I’ll be Bach

Posted on by

I recently started reading daily posts from Arnold Schwarzenegger – known for his movie line,

“I’ll be Bach” 

What do you mean that’s not what he said?

I’m impressed with him because he demonstrates a single-minded focus on achieving things he thinks are important.  Now, whether you agree with him on his choices or not, it’s difficult to argue with his successes.  I admire that he works hard, doesn’t pretend that the work isn’t work, faces challenges head on, thinks before acting, owns his successes, moves onto other goals once he has achieved the current goals, and is relentlessly upbeat (sound familiar?)*.  I’m pretty sure that if he had an interest in playing an instrument, he’d be quite good at it – for all the same reasons.

But the one thread to which he frequently returns is the importance of consistency.  He champions the reality that, no matter what your focus (weightlifting, acting, authoring, playing an instrument) you have to put in not just hard work but consistent hard work.  He highlights that it is the small gains that accrue day after day that are behind success.  And that these daily small achievements build on each other to become what we often think of as “real success” – achieving big goals. 

He doesn’t discount that these small daily increments are sometimes challenging to detect. What does he suggest? Capturing them (dare I say, in some sort of journal?). Why didn’t I say that (except maybe here, here, here, and here)?!

Consistency doesn’t have to be huge, BTW.  Consistency is exactly what it sounds like – do small things with extreme regularity.  It means practicing every day.  Making some routine for your time at the harp so that you can complete the consistent behavior.  Acknowledging that you have been consistent (whether that’s giving yourself stars on a wall chart or giving yourself a cookie – well, that’s up to you!).  And don’t forget being grateful for the outcome of consistent small progress.

You can become consistent by making the commitment to yourself.  You can help yourself along with a calendar reminder, a schedule, a process, a cookie (if needed. I’m sure I’m not the only one that is big on external rewards!). Keep in mind that consistent is not the same as perfect.  If you mess up or get sidetracked, don’t beat yourself up, just get back on it – consistently.  You don’t need excuses, just get back to it.  If it helps, at the end of each practice session, tell your harp, “I’ll be Bach”.Could you benefit from increased consistency?  What do you do to keep consistent?  What might help you to be more consistent?  Let me know in the comments!

* if you want a daily dose of relentless optimism that’s nearly as relentless and almost as optimistic as this blog, you can get it from Arnold here in his latest thing of bringing positivity to the internet.  Not an affiliate, just a fan.

What’re you doing?

Posted on by

What’re you doing?

Do you ever feel like your practicing has fallen into the trap under the sink. It can be really easy to get caught in the comfortable swish of the U joint.  Just be and don’t move.  Don’t practice, or barely practice, or practice but don’t actually change or learn anything.  Loll here in the dark and wait.

Maybe you don’t fall into that trap, but I sure can – especially in “between times” like now – too early for the holidays but after the buzz of the summer.  It could be so easy to stay in the trap because there is so much stuff that needs to be practiced that it can be daunting.  Stuff to be dwelled upon.  To think through.  To work out.  To review.  So much stuff! 

Or maybe we’ll just stay here in the dark (so little motivation). 

Fortunately, playing is more like a diamond ring.  When it’s caught in the trap, it isn’t as enjoyable!  It is totally worth the work of disassembling the drain to rescue it so it can glitter and sparkle. 

No, staying here in the dark isn’t ideal, but sometimes we just need a push to get moving out of the trap. How do we get moving? Well you could start by asking – what’re you doing?  If there’s no succinct answer to that question, the right answer is focus!  On what? Well, how about:

Start small.  Settle on one thing to work on.  Maybe it’s sight reading? Or counting? Or refreshing stuff you were playing but set aside?  The point is to focus on one thing rather than trying to work on everything all at once.

Count the things.  Figure out what needs to be done.  Maybe this should be the first thing – how can you focus on just one thing if you haven’t figured out what the pool of all things is, prioritized them, and then selected one?

Set an end.  After all, you’re breaking out of a trap so while you’re going to focus, it’s not an unending focus!  Figure out how long you want to work on the thing you selected to be first.  Will it be a timeline of a week or a month? Or will it instead be an accomplishment like playing at tempo or steadily or accurately? When you define the end, you will know when you are going on to the next thing.

Keep track.  You knew I’d get around to this.  You won’t know you’ve gotten to the end if you’re not tracking your progress.  This doesn’t have to be elaborate, just note what you did and how you did it.

Compare.  This one can be tricky.  Because you’re not going to compare your progress to anyone else, only to YOURSELF.  You will never know how someone else got to what you’re looking at, but you can know where you were yesterday (or the day before or the last time) and compare yourself to the you before, not someone else ever.

Be consistent.  Pick your timing.  Help yourself by not only doing the thing as you decided (every day, every other day, whatever you determined) but also by sticking to the same time of day every day.  Or tie your time to another event (for example, always practice right after you walk your iguana (or some other event of your day)).

Be nice. You’re not striving for perfection.  In fact, if you do it perfectly, you won’t learn anything.  By the same token, by remembering that mistakes help you learn, you can be your own biggest cheerleader!  (bonus tip – I find that sometimes I need to let the mistakes I make simmer before I can really figure out what I’m learning there, so I write them down so I don’t forget what happened)

Focus!  Don’t “task share”, don’t pick up your phone (unless you’re adjusting your metronome app!), don’t pet your fish, don’t drink your tea.  Just focus on what you’re doing while you practice.  You can do all those other things when you’re done.

What’re you doing?  Do you ever get caught in that sink trap?  If so, how do you get yourself out?  If not, how do you maintain your equilibrium?  Let us know in the comments!

 

 

 

Keeping Track

Posted on by

I know you’ve all had “that week”. The one where a  seemingly small thing throws a gorilla wrench into the works.  I’d say monkey wrench,  but the outcome is outsized and puts a crimp in your plans.

So this week, although I had planned a lovely and informative discussion about thinking, my laptop died on me. And frankly, while I’m grateful you’re reading, I’m not inclined to write that many words from my phone. So, we’ll table that discussion for now and instead, I’ll pass along something I can easily do with my (opposable) thumbs!🫱🫲

It is now summer, officially.  We’ve passed meteorological summer, Memorial Day and here’s the Solstice.

I know summer is busy and fun and it’s easy to forget, “Did I practice today?” And in fact sometimes it becomes, “Did I touch my harp this week?”

So, my thumbs and I are pleased to present you with a fun Practice Tracker for the summer.  Just click on the picture below and print it. 

Each day you play or practice,  color in a leaf.  It’s that easy!

I hope this makes you smile, and leads you to intend to practice.  At the end of the summer, I hope you’ll have leafed through it and found success (get it?).

I’m planning to start at the bottom and as I get closer to autumn, I’ll let the leaves start to turn color.  Hope you’ll join me! Let me know in the comments.

Prepping your practice

Posted on by

Prepping your practice 

If you’ve spent even a little time in the socials you have probably not been able to escape seeing loads about Meal Prepping. 

If you haven’t, Meal Prep is an approach to helping you get dinner on the table so that mealtime is not a zoo.  All the cool kids are doing it, apparently.

There’s no magic to meal prep.  It’s a fairly easy process to follow.  And it’s smart because it saves time, money, angst, and the “hangries”.

While seeing that stuff again, it got me thinking* – could we “prep” our practice so that practice time isn’t a zoo?  Why not! 

So, if we were going to Practice Prep, what would we need to do?

We need to understand that practice prep isn’t a “hack” (remember, we talked about that before!).

We need to understand that, no matter how many well-meaning people make cute memes on the socials telling us what to do, our practice prep needs to be our own and that every suggestion is just that, a suggestion.  We can look at, evaluate (maybe even test drive) and decide to keep or toss each one as needed to fit ourselves.

We need to understand that it can be as simple or as complex as we need it to be. Meal prep can be simple (make extra to have leftovers later) or complex (make an entire week’s worth of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners).  Likewise, our practice prep can be as simple or complex as we need (and it can vary from week to week).

So, like meal prep, Practice Prep is based on identifying some important things like – what do we want to get done over the week? What are the steps to get there?  What is missing that we need to build to make progress?

How do we identify these things? There are a few places to start depending on where you are in your harp life. 

The easiest way is to read your lesson notes to find what you have learned and what your teacher is expecting you to accomplish between lessons so that you can continue to progress. You may get very good direction on exactly what you should do.  But frankly, that’s likely only if you are a child or have just started lessons (while your teacher helps you learn how to practice).  You are told what do to and how “on track” is defined.  That’s fairly easy (as long as you do it).

If you are more advanced or if you are self-directed, you have the same information available, you just have to dig a little to find it.  What is your overall goal?  What are the precise steps to get there?  Have you further identified the substeps (iterated to the smallest steps) so that you can work on specific things to move you forward? (NB these will likely change frequently as the steps at the beginning of a tune will look different than the steps when you’re polishing).  Have you noted those steps so that you can 1. remember them and 2. verify that you have completed them (successfully)?  Have you defined your criteria for “good enough” or “done”?  Have you marked your progress (good and not as good) so you know where to start next and what needs more focus?

Now you can organize your time.  That includes doing any prep work needed (pencils sharpened? music ready? distractions put away?) so that you are ready to practice and make the most of it.

Finally, you need to be consistent – doing this one week will be helpful but won’t significantly move you forward unless you continue to build week on week.  No matter how much we try to pretend otherwise, the tortoise always wins the race!

What do you think?  Is my meal prep analagy too much of a stretch? Or am I on the money here?  Let me know in the comments!

 

* you caught me surfing rather than practicing!