Putting the Ah in Ostinato

Posted on February 24, 2020 by Jen

Ostinato as meditation – you know, like in Ahhhh-stinato!

One thing I love about ostinato is its origin – it is from the Italian…for obstinate! Which is exactly what you need to be to get this very useful element locked into your head and your fingers. An ostinato is a pattern that repeats and can be a repetition of pitch or of rhythm. And while some people find them terrifying, there’s another way to look at them.

The fabulous Maeve Gilchrist is a wizard of ostinato (check out her book Rhythm and Hand Separation Exercises and Etudes Book 1). She has worked hard to master all sorts of patterns and she is rock solid. One of the things I love about her playing is the unexpected things she can weave over that bass pattern – and you the listener can just sit back and enjoy, buoyed and comforted by that underlying rock of sound.

Because ostinato is difficult time consuming to get solid, many people avoid it. But it totally worth the time. A real challenge though, is to first focus on the ostinato itself. It is very easy to think you’ve got it when it’s not quite there. And it does take a little grit and determination – because it’s like other foundational elements – it has a hard slog in the middle where you feel stuck. But you will get there if you keep at it.

Nope, I’m not going to tell you it’s worth the time because it’s useful or builds strong finger or hones your rhythm (although it does).

Ostinato is a great tool, once nailed down, to check out.

What?!?!?

Yup, think of it as a meditative thing. Once you have got the basic idea inculcated, you don’t really need to watch the pot (so to speak). And that frees up space capacity in your brain so you can do one of a couple of other things:

Just rock the ostinato and let your mind wander around. Make it a meditation. Really.
What might be cool if you put that pattern with it? Where would you go? How might you get there? This could lead to noodling and eventually to a great improv, some really useful vamp or an entirely new composition (which you could also do by looking at great art, a la last week’s post).
Once you have the pattern down, you can mess around with the pattern itself – see where that leads. You might find more cool stuff down that rabbit hole.

Start with an easy pattern – maybe an Alberti bass or find a pattern from an technique book), jut to get the idea. Keep working it. Maybe think about it as you noodle on the 4 week challenge we set last week. How might you noodle over that pattern? Give it some time and you’ll see how it can become hypnotic – go with it. Let it ride, find the ahhhhh and see where you end up.

And let me know where you end up in the comments below!

Why should Mary Poppins have all the fun?

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Jen

Do you remember that scene in Mary Poppins where they join hands and jump into a sidewalk painting? They become part of a new world that was wondrous and fantastic. It was great and they were totally immersed in their art – LoL.

There is a frequently suggested exercise for composing that is the same idea.

Composition seems to come so easily to some. Not to me. But I do know people who seem to compose a new tune with each breath they take. I’d hate those people if I wasn’t so enamored with them!

This disparity in apparent ease can quickly and easily become an insurmountable wall. The barrier between us and them. But it doesn’t have to be. Because composition, like anything else, improves…with practice.

Even if you don’t want to be a composer, you might want to give composition a try. It’s certainly not the same as playing and simply by dabbling, you might learn a lot.

But let’s say you do want to give it a try – to make some small thing that is truly yours. Here’s a way to go about it –

Try this exercise. Find a piece of art that captivates you. Any piece of art. Could be a work by the Old Masters. Could be a photograph or a sculpture or interpretive dance. Or an ad on a bus stop. The form is irrelevant – that it piques you is essential!

Now, sit at your harp. Turn on a recorder. Look at (or think about) the artwork and just noodle. NOODLE – DO NOT COMPOSE! Noodle only. Keep your recorder going. Keep thinking about the artwork and what about it captured you. Just keep noodling.

Any time an “I can’t” surfaces in your mind reply with, “Thank you for your input. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Then take a deep breath and jump right back in and keep noodling.

If you’re having a hard time, set your harp to C and play only the white strings. Think about the art. Keep going.

Will this result in a composition? Probably not…the first time. But keep at it. Make it a part of your practice time. Set 10 minutes aside each day. You will find that it becomes easier to do it the more you stick to it. When the art isn’t speaking to you any longer, choose a new work.

Will this turn you into Williams or Telemann or Bach or Schumann? Maybe not. But it might just set you free from constraints you didn’t know you had. For example, I did an impressive impression of Cage one day! (Cage is credited with copyrighting silence as a musical composition entitled 4′33″)

So, a challenge. Let’s give this a try. Choose a piece of art that inspires you. Then for the next four weeks, follow that plan above. At the end of four weeks (that’s 14 March) send me a picture of the art and an audio file of what you’ve come up with. This isn’t a contest, so your work doesn’t have to be complicated or polished – or even finished. We’re just encouraging each other to be bold and experimental and creative and open to sharing. We will all win by trying!

Are you in? Shall we jump in with both feet and see what happens? Let me know in the comments below –

Watching your nails grow – Two steps for progress

Posted on February 3, 2020 by Jen

We’re already into February! That magical time when reality has set in and all our lofty plans for betterment have been shelved.

Typically.

Because, even though lots of people don’t set New Year’s Resolutions, with all the hype around the start of winter and the new year, it’s easy to think about whether one might find areas worthy of tinkering.

Not you, of course. You’re just right as you are. But others, certainly.

One of the reasons people feel that way (not you, of course, but others) is because they cannot perceive any changes in their ability to play. And that is frustrating. For them, of course, not for you.

Because these changes typically come about very slowly. You might call them “micro-changes” (nano-changes?). The farther you are from your first experience playing, the smaller the changes are in absolute terms. And this might make those changes difficult to detect.

When you first start playing, every day brings new discoveries! Closing your fingers is an amazing activity. Placing ahead is a magical mystery which actually does make getting the music out of the harp a little easier. What you tried to learn yesterday is actually recognizable today! All great victories.

But after a while, days of work may not result in a change you can observe. You don’t remember when you started learning that tune, but you’re sure it was weeks ago (or was it yesterday?). When did your technique take a nosedive?!? Why is your repertoire not growing by leaps and bounds?

It’s like watching your nails grow. You know they are growing. But you can’t feel it. And they sure look the same today as they did yesterday.

If you measured that growth and marked it on a chart, you would find that your nails grow about 2 hairsbreadths a day. And yet, while you can see two hairs (in the brush, in the sink, on your sweater, whatever) you don’t see your nails growing. But they make slow steady progress…and soon you need to cut them!

The growth is there. Every day. You just can’t see it. But there is a way to get a better view and it has two steps.

Step 1. Decide what you’re looking for. Too often we decide we’re going to watch e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. We’re going to perfect our technique while learning ten tunes all at once, sight read another 7 arrangements and work on our posture, finesse gesturing, while practicing 2 hours more every day. And we’ll know – and remember – everything from today when we next sit to practice tomorrow (or the next day) so we know where to pick up again.

I get it, there’s so much work to be done! But focusing on everything is actually focusing on nothing. Focus, by definition, is paying attention to a narrow swath. You are already multitasking by the nature of playing since you need to place both hands, remember the tune, keep ahead of what comes next, stay upright on the bench, breathe, etc.

If you have a lot of things to work on – write each of them down. Then prioritize them. Be smart – prioritize so that the fundamentals (technique) will be ironed out first, since everything else will grow from there. After you have finished prioritizing, for each item, write down what “done” will look like. DO NOT WRITE “always in work”! If your technique is terrible (!), break it down into the components that need attention and decide when you will declare victory so you can move on. [BTW – “I’m bored” is not victory! Being able to perform some element accurately might be your victory.] Decide if your focus needs an action finish or a time end.

Step 2. Mark that! Do what works for you – you could write in your practice journal. You could make a progression video recording. You could make a chart with colored stars. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as it works for you – and you do it.

So, the important parts of watching your nails grow? Focus and document.

What are you going to focus on? How will you capture it? Share your ideas in the comments!

PS – yes, I know the nails in the photo are horrifyingly long, but you try to paint harps on shorter nails! And I was trying to make a point!

Clear vision for 2020

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Jen

It is now 2020 – Welcome to the new year and the new decade!

Just like every new year, we are encouraged from many sides to develop resolutions – to define those things we need to “fix” to improve ourselves.

How about this – in 2020, the year of clear vision – just give it a rest. Resolve to make no resolutions. Don’t set any goals.

After all, if the goals were important, you’d have set them right when they became clear. If you need to work on specific things, you would have started right then – if you wanted that to become a goal!

There’s nothing special about short cold days for achieving anything. Up to 91% of people who set resolutions drop them, most before the middle of January! So, setting resolutions is really not a useful thing to do, unless you like to set yourself up for failure and to give yourself a specific thing to beat yourself up about not accomplishing.

Then what should you do? How about you take on just these four things:

Just Stop. New Year’s resolutions really seem to be about false notions of self-improvement and possibly about self-aggrandizing virtue signaling. And really, unless you made a significant wager with someone, no one else really cares if you make it, so stop pillorying yourself about having resolutions, goals, visions, whatever. Use that energy to – just play!
Be Nice. Be kind to yourself – if you’re not where you want to be, you probably not only know it, but you likely also know how to get across that gap. You might just not be ready to spend that energy. And if you are not sure how to get there, work with your teacher (or me!) and keep reading (because you know that here, we’ll talk about ways to improve!).
Take a smarter path. The path forward that begins by recognizing the reality of your life will be a smarter path. And possibly there’s more to your life than playing the harp – like family, friends, day jobs, other hobbies, other instruments, and myriad other things you prioritize ahead of the harp (otherwise, you’d have more time to practice). By examining your real life – and using that as the foundation of your thinking about your playing – you will be more likely to be able to find the time to practice and to better fit your harp playing into your reality! Your life is a system and it needs to be kept in balance so that you can accomplish the requirements of each of its parts. That balance starts by understanding where all the pieces lie.
Practice! You know it will all come down to this – but you need a wider definition – you have to practice:

- Practice the instrument – probably that old saw of spending at least 30 – 90 minutes a day (depending, again, on where you’re trying to get, your level of performance and development, and your real life)
- Practice fitting everything else in too (you know, like dinner, exercise, sleep, work, chores, etc.) (after all, 3 above will not happen by magic, it will take a little work to analyze what will fit, where it will fit and how you might have to adjust things to get it all into the day).
- Practice having balance
- Practice being kind to yourself
- Practice stretching
- Practice learning
- Practice spending time away from your harp productively
- Practice being present
- Practice practicing – you can’t just sit on the bench and have magic pour out your fingers – you know you need to warm up, work on fundamentals, analyze music, think about your approach and strategy for new music, work on learning, learn new things, develop musicality, hammer out new burbles, etc.
  - Practice the tunes you love
  - Practice the tunes you don’t love
  - Practice the way you play and developing your technique
  - Practice becoming more accomplished
  - Practice sharing your music
  - Practice being better
  - Practice enjoying the process
  - Practice capturing your progress so you can see your improvement
  - and practice identifying where you need to improve and practice

It’s going to be a busy year, and you’ll do exactly as much work as you fit in (and no more). Setting improbable or impossible goals will not help and could actually get in the way (by making you feel like you’re failing or not making progress when you actually are).

What will you do with all the energy you have from not developing resolutions or goals that won’t work for you? Let me know in the comments!

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!

When injury strikes – plow on! (but carefully and smartly)

Posted on November 4, 2019 by Jen

One of my students recently broke her arm*. Really broke, with surgery and plates and screws, and other barbaric medical necessities. It was not pretty. She needed time to heal, and I encouraged her to take the time to recover so healing would go faster and more successfully.

And with good care and physical therapy (and more patience that I would have shown), she’s been on the mend. I’m delighted to have her back at the harp (with clearance from the physician and the physical therapist).

But, she’s a trooper and while she was recovering, she didn’t lay on the couch and moan! Nope – she plowed on!

Now, let me explain what I mean by “plowed on”. What she did not do is ignore the physical therapist or the physicians. She did not just sit around. So, what did she do? She did the work she could do – carefully and smartly.

She listened to music – because she knows this is a good way to perform mental practice. You may have heard the old saw, “if you can sing it, you can play it”. Listening to the tune helps you get the melody in your head, learning the patterns of the notes, the relationships of the phrases, so that you can anticipate what comes next – in your mind! So when she was healed up, she had a lot of the brain part of learning already done and she was ready to go on to the finger part.
She did her physical therapy – She told the PT that she’s a musician so the therapy could be tailored to her needs. And she actually did the exercises her PT taught her – both during their sessions and as prescribed between those sessions. She knew that although the exercises were no fun, they were fun-damental to her recovering and being able to get back to playing sooner.
She continued to play with the other hand. My students know that we will work to play the melody in both the right – and the left – hands. Sometimes we also ask the right hand to play the harmony. We do this both to exercise the left hand to make it more limber but also to make our brains more limber by switching the roles of the two hands. She was able to keep that up throughout her injury.
She rearranged some tunes – when you can only play with one hand, you rethink your harmonization. This is an interesting exercise in inversions and it’s a good opportunity to think about the shape and structure of the tune. Earlier work on hand shapes also meant that she was comfortable building harmonies in one hand…and she knew these would help transition to two hands when the time was right.
She thought before she played – asking so much from your hands really does mean that thinking first makes sense to save unnecessary movement and work. She analyzed the tune before playing to figure out how to accompany with harmony in just one hand.
She thought after she played – gaining a new perspective from playing with one hand results in new possibilities to analyze your playing, the structure of your practice, and the outcomes.
She rested – after all, your body needs time to recover so resting is certainly necessary for recovery. And practicing in a new way meant becoming more tired sooner.
She was patient – she understood that this was a serious injury and that, not being a child, it would require time to heal and to knit back together.

Being injured is never fun and injuring yourself may impact your playing. But once it has happened, it is what it is – so take care of yourself while you heal – but don’t abandon your harp! At a minimum it might soothe your hurt to play what you can!

* like any good article, this is based on a fiction derived as a composite of students. But if you break an arm – I’d suggest you be smart – just like my composite student!

Harp Room Bling

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Jen

Sometimes you just need a little, visible nudge to remind you of what is important to you. So this week – a downloadable poster. Print it out (up to 18 in x 24 in) and hang it up near your harp so you remember each time you sit. Yes it’s goofy – but if it makes you focus or makes you laugh, at least you’ll already be at your harp – so you might as well play a little.To get your copy – just let me know you would like to have it – leave me a comment and I’ll get it to you!

If it was easy, it would be easy!

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Jen

I have told you before that I find many parts of making music are relatively easy. I would say that it’s easier to play the harp than to calculate cubic roots in my head or to determine the easiest way to teach unified field theory to toddlers.

But not everyone agrees – especially less experienced musicians who often express frustration and dismay over how hard it can be to play the harp.

To less experienced harp players, ease seems to be either a sadistic ploy to make them feel badly about their level of experience (it isn’t, I assure you – we’ve all been there at some point) or a cruel twist of fate that leaves some people finding it easy, with others finding it impossible. I will not take up the nature/nurture question vis a vis musicianship, but I will tell you something that will (upon reflection) not surprise you –

That apparent ease that you see in experienced players – especially in professionals – is a result of (you know what I’m about to say…)…PRACTICE!

The more you practice something – the more often you perform that skill – the easier it becomes. Continued, focused practice can result in the task itself becoming automatic. You can do that thing without even thinking about it. In fact, if you think about it, you may not be able to do it! The more you practice something, the less you have to consciously think about it to make it happen. And that comes about through practice.

If you practice anything accurately you will become better at it (of course if you practice inaccurately, you will become better at doing something incorrectly!). If you practice counting, you will get more proficient at counting. If you practice reading you will become better at reading. If you practice making hand shapes and blocking, this will become second nature – it will become just the way you do it.

Even beginners have developed some skills. If you’re more experienced, you have already mastered many activities and made them automatic. Complex tasks can like walking, jumping, writing, etc. all once required a great deal of concentration and effort but are now automatic. If you think this is not the case, I recommend you spend more time with very young children – you can watch them find behaviors and practice them. When walking is new, you don’t just wish to walk better – you walk and walk and walk, and fall down, and get up and walk some more – until you can do it all by yourself!

So, if you are working hard to play – whether it is counting, or blocking, having consistent fingering, sitting up straight, or reading – you now know that you just need more practice with those basic behaviors. Strong practice of these basic skills – making them automatic – frees up your brain to do other hard work, like learning new pieces, adding appropriate dynamics, or writing your own!

There are no short cuts. If it was easy, it would be easy. Now, go practice!

Are there things you find easy? Things you find difficult? What are they? Leave a comment below!

Better get moving – 10 steps to get ready for the holidays!

Posted on September 23, 2019 by Jen

It’s nearly October (yikes!), the summer is over, the kids are back to school, the days are palpably shorter. And you know what that means – the holidays are nearly here!

There are only 12 weeks to go – but you know that festivities will start in about six to eight week so there will be plenty of time to fit in all the parties, pageants, festivals, parades, celebrations, get-togethers, gift exchanges, as well as gatherings. And each of those will be an opportunity to share one of your greatest gifts – your music!

Better get ready – but how? Here are ten (relatively easy) steps:

First, manage your expectations. Be realistic. You might want to capture all the things you will be doing during the run up to the season as well as the season itself. You know you will have work and practice, and family traditions, and social events that you anticipate you will be part of. You can make a list or pencil them into your calendar or make a spreadsheet. What you really need to know is how much time you actually have. How much time do you really have to practice? How much time do you have to prepare? How much time do you have to share?

Second, manage other people’s expectations. If you want to be playing for others, let it be known so you might be asked. Not interested in playing for an event? Just say no. It is, however, the season for music and people will try to be persuasive (or maybe they will gently bully you into trying to get you agree). Worried about saying no? Ask someone you know who does want to be playing. Be prepared with their name and contact information. It will be a win-win-win: you don’t have to give a flat no because you have a referral ready (you win). The referred harper gets a gig they might not have been positioned for otherwise (harper wins). And the audience gets a willing performer (so they win too).

Third, make a list of the tunes you have played in the past. These will likely come back quickly and can be the backbone of your playing.

Fourth, make a “learn these” list of the tunes you want to play but haven’t learned yet. These will be work, but they will be worth it! Be reasonable given the amount of time you have to practice.

Fifth, if you will be playing for others, estimate how much music you will need. I usually guestimate about 6 – 8 tunes to 15 minutes. This might be conservative, but it assures that I don’t run out of music before I run out of time. I also suggest you build two set lists – because I like to be overprepared and having too much music means I can pick and choose once I get there depending on how the audience is responding. It also means that I won’t have to play something that feels shaky or just hasn’t come together enough yet. Remember that you can insert other music into the list – include the winter themed tunes or favorites to make an enjoyable performance. Especially later in the season, people will begin to fatigue of holiday music so some other tunes will wake them up and keep them engaged.

Sixth, now that you have a list and know about how many tunes you’re looking for, play through your old tunes and critically (but not harshly) determine what work is needed to get them up to scratch. Revise your list as needed (move anything that feels like it might be a train wreck to the “learn these” list).

Seventh, make a schedule to get the new music learned and ready to go and to make the old stuff polished and shone. This will be a plan to structure your practice between now and the holidays. Be realistic!

Eighth, schedule your practice time. Write it in your calendar. Make a date with your harp every day. Keep practicing your “regular” music too – although they come quick, the holidays are here and gone – so you might as well stay up to date for January!

Ninth, keep an eye on your plan and revise as necessary! Update your lists, adjust as needed, keep the end in mind. Remember the goal is to play well and feel comfortable when it’s time to play.

Finally, have fun! You’re going to make so many people happy when you share your gift – make sure one of those is you! The holidays are a time for joy – share yours!

Follow these ten steps and you will be well on your way to sharing your gift! How do you prepare for the holidays? Share your tips in the comments.

Expand your musical reach – another stretch (or 7!)

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Jen

We have talked about stretching through making art and stretching our bodies. There’s another place we need to stretch and that is in our music. And it’s the perfect time to think about it – it will be the winter holidays and all the lovely opportunities to play will be coming. I mention the holidays because they are the perfect foil for stretching our music.

The holidays are great from a repertoire perspective. There is a relatively small set of tunes to work from and each year, those that have been on our set lists for a while seem to become easier to prepare and to play. It’s also easier to knuckle under and practice – we know it’s coming; we know we’ll be playing; and we know the bulk of what we’ll bring to each performance.

That doesn’t exactly sound like stretching.

And that’s why it’s so great! There are loads of holiday tunes – so you probably don’t know them all. But you know some and so each year you can add another one or two to fill in your set list. But we have to fight the urge to be lazy and just play all the same stuff.

I don’t know about you, but I really like hearing new (to me) stuff at the holidays. From countries whose music I don’t know well, from new sources, and from the set of those songs that hardly anyone records but are just so good.

So, the holidays are an opportunity to stretch ourselves – musically.

What does stretching musically mean? Trying new things! It can be adding techniques we don’t usually use, playing music we don’t usually play, finding stuff we didn’t know existed and fitting it into our lives, arranging music we like (from other instruments) and playing it on the harp, or more.

How is stretching musically good for us? Here are seven unsurprising ways (some of these might sound familiar since they are as with making art)

Stretching is (still) the opposite of static! Static is not moving or changing. Static introduces b-o-r-i-n-g into your playing. It also means that you’re not growing as a musician. So, learn how to do some effect you think is cool…and actually use it in your playing! Do the work of technique practice. And after learning some new technique, actually add it to your playing!
Stretching makes you more flexible. By adding new music, new sources, new techniques, new practice approaches, just new stuff to your playing, you will begin to explore yourself more and bring that into your playing and performance. And you will be free to do more than you thought you could when you were less flexible.
Stretching helps defeat stress. The more you stretch your music, the more comfortable you become with playing it – because you’ll become more accustomed to being stretched. In your practice, in performance, in ensemble, in sessions – no matter where you’re playing you will be more relaxed, able to enjoy the process and product of making music. That comfort is an indication of your reduced stress.
Stretching helps overcome pain and discomfort. You might decide to stretch your music when you feel the discomfort be becoming bored. Of course, once you decide to stretch your music, you might feel self-conscious, uneducated, or ignorant. The music activities that stretch you might make you feel uncomfortable in and of themselves. But keeping at it – a little bit each day – will help you be more comfortable and soon, you’ll be interested in the flexibility of trying new music. I’d suggest adding time for creativity in your practice each day so you will be able to stretch musically with less (perceived) “stiffness”.
Stretching helps you focus. You can be mindful when you are stretching your music. Mindful of what it is about the music that attracts (or repels) you, what technique elements you need to work on, what your harp really shines with. In addition, a broader repertoire may help you to feel more accomplished and allow you to comfortably book gigs previously out of reach. Be sure to pay attention as you’re stretching your music to identify what to keep on doing.
Stretching improves your range. As you add music to your toolbox, and include the listening, reading, technique and effects the new music might require of you, you will become more able to do more things with greater musicality – and add new things more quickly.
Stretching stretches you. There’s nothing like playing something you never thought you’d be able to (or possibly even that you never thought about adding) to boost your confidence and encourage you to try even more new things!

Stretching – the gentle kind that broadens your abilities, and leaves you relaxed and enjoying making music, is just what you need. With these seven stretches you might become a better musician! What kind of music might you add to stretch yourself? What else might you do to stretch yourself musically? Tell me in the comments – I can’t wait to hear!

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