Half the way there!

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Jen

It’s mid-July and you know what that means? Yup, we are just a little more than half the way through this year.

And, yes, it has been an epic year so far…I won’t enumerate – you’re living it with me, so you already know. And I mean epic in the classical sense – a (typically long and possibly unending) story of the deeds and adventures of heroic people!

And yes, we’re only half the way through it. Ugh.

But being halfway through is a good time to stop, pick our collective heads up, take a deep breath, and look around. How are we doing?

But think back…in January, we didn’t know any of this was coming and we knew the year was full of promise. And we talked about the 2020 vision we’d have this year. You might remember that we talked about this here.I suggested you take a smarter path that started with examining your life (your whole life!) and finding the balance for your harp within that.

And of course, I exhorted you to practice. And then I gave you a long list of things to practice. I also pointed out that you would do exactly as much work as you fit in and encouraged you to form goals that would be do-able.

So, half the year has gone by. Do you remember your goals (because I am confident you wrote them down as I suggested)? How are you coming?

Did you, at any time throughout the current upheaval we are all experiencing, modify those goals? Did you look at your world and how the world outside you is impacting your world, and modify what you expected to accomplish as a harper this year?

Gosh, I sure hope so! Because this has been a doozy of a year! We certainly didn’t see it coming. And all of us have been impacted in one way or another (or by a number of ways, in quick succession, in a seemingly coordinated attack!). And we have all had varying levels of success with coping, adapting, and overcoming everything.

I’d like to encourage you to revisit the things you set out to do for yourself. Then do the following:

Bring out a big marker (or eraser) and (at least mentally) cross off those things that just are not going to serve you in the six months or so we have remaining in 2020.
Sift through your goals and keep the ones that still make sense…and are do-able.
Capture, but hold for later, those that are still important to you but are not currently realistic – especially since we don’t know when things will revert to what we were expecting. And
Boldly, ceremoniously and with a great deal of fanfare, toss the ones that just are not serving you! (yes, you can do that!).

There’s one more thing you need to do and that is to note all the things you have done so far this year. Especially the ones you never even imaged! Things that come to mind:

Learning to play to your computer
Learning to not play for other people (!)
Learning where to look so you look like you’re looking at the other person (and dealing with not being able to see them so that you look like you can).
Figuring out new software to have lessons or harp circles or play dates
Learning that you really do have to wait for the other person to finish – and wait your turn.
Learning to deal with the fatigue which seems to be unique to spending all day on your computer, even if previously you thought you spent all day on your computer!
Coping in the face of unending uncertainty (and helping others do the same)

So, on balance, you’re probably having a good and productive year. Let’s make sure your goals match and that you’re taking credit for what you have accomplished so far. I’m sure there are even more things you have learned – both related and unrelated to playing the harp – share them in the comments.

Spruce up your practice space – 8 ways

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Jen

We’ve been inside a lot already with winter, the spring that tried hard to not come and then the virus running roughshod over the earth. And now it’s the height of summer and many of us are doing our best to stay in the air conditioning!

All that being inside may lead to ennui. And that ennui may lead to your practice space needing a little sprucing. Do you find that you’re not drawn to your practice space? Are you just not sitting down to practice as much as you’d like?

You might need to spruce up your practice space! Why might you want to do this? Well, here are four reasons – I’m sure there are more, but ones that come to mind are:

It’s your space so it should reflect you!
You’re a creative and being creative in various ways boosts all your creativity.
You want to want to spend time your space so it should be attractive!
You want your space to meet your needs so you can actually use it.

How might you go about this sprucing? Well, you can go all out and paint, get new flooring, and completely redecorate. But that’s a big project! You might need a little less than that – how about contenting yourself with a little reorganizing? What might that include? Here are eight things you might try:

Rearrange the furniture. You might be surprised how much simply moving your harp (even just turning it around) could change how you use your space. Yes, it could be that simple!
Does your sheet music storage make it easy to use? I have come up with a way to organize individual tunes – I have them in dividers, alphabetical by the title I think of the tune by. And yes, that means that some tunes are filed by their title in English and others are sorted by their Gaelic title…but it doesn’t matter….as long as I can find what I’m looking for. There is no “optimal” organization – only a system that will work for you. My books are a hopeless mess – I haven’t figured that one out yet!
Do you have enough lighting? I added a lamp which surprisingly made a huge difference in my already-brightly-lit room.
Is your space neat enough? That is, neat enough for you – it only has to work for you. But make sure it actually is neat enough for you…or develop a way to keep it to the level that allows you to be comfortable (or you’ll avoid the space and not play as much as you’d like). If you have to, re-home tchotchkes, get organizational stuff (boxes? files? bins? baskets? Whatever you will use), add (or remove) furniture) so that you have a level of neat you can live with.
Are your tools close to hand? You know there are things you need frequently – tuning wrench, tuner, pencils, etc. – are they were you can easily reach them, or do you need a place to put them?
Does your space serve your learning process? Do you have a place to put things you’re going to learn, are learning, have learned, are polishing, are refreshing? One that helps you keep those sorted and in work? I’ve suggested a couple of options – from file folders to recipe cards – just something that helps you “move” tunes through their development and into your repertoire.
You want to spend time there so make sure you like it – do you have art you like to look at? A comfy chair if you have room? (hey, you need to listen to music too!). Do you have a plant? Make sure you are enjoying the aesthetic you set!
Does your space serve more than one function? Do you have the luxury of a harp room or do you have a harp corner? Either way, make sure you organize in a way that not only assures you have a place to play but also protects the harp when you’re not playing. For instance, if your guest bedroom is also your harp room, what do you do with your harp when you have company?

Remember, your space has to work for you – in your life and your practice. There is no “right” answer – only the answer that allows you to practice and to enjoy your harp. And don’t shy away from making changes if you find that you “just don’t feel like being there” or you find that you go into your space, but you don’t stay long. That just lets you know you might need make some changes!

Spruce up your practice space so you actually practice! What will you do for your space?

How will I know (what to practice)?

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Jen

There’s SO much stuff to practice! You need to always be watching your technique…and that’s complicated. And you have to keep your tunes in your fingers…and that gets harder as you learn more tunes than you can remember you know. And you have to learn new stuff…which is easy to let slide while you’re busy watching your posture and remembering what you already know. And there’s theory. And there’s history and beyond your repertoire stretches, and…and…and…

…we get it, there’s a lot to practice…

…and there’s only 24 hours in a day…and all those Hallmark movies to watch, and laundry, and exercise, and meals, and work, and…sleep

So how are you going to get all your practice in? That’s not the question. The real question is – how do you decide what to practice?

You might need to use a time budget – but we’ve talked about that before – chopping up your practice time and assigning it at the micro level (think, “of my 30 minutes, I will spend 10 minutes doing…”) and the more macro level (think, “by the end of this week, I’d like to have learned that tune…”) and the even bigger level (think, “by September, I will begin to slowly refresh my holiday repertoire…” before you summarily forget it’s already October, but I digress).

And it’s a great idea to have all those levels of thinking about your practice, but then you have to make the REAL decision – what should you be practicing right now? Well, that’s up to you. I mean, I can only know my goals, and those of my students and the people I coach. If you’re not one of them, I have no way to know (BTW – shameless plug – I’ve got coaching slots available*). So, then the real question is – how do I decide what I should be practicing?

Here is a process to determine what you should be spending your time on:

Actually define what you’d like to be able to do (yes, this means write down what you’d like to be able to do with all that practicing). It can be grand (I’d like to play the Ceremony of the Carols on my 21 string lever-less folk harp) or mundane (I’d like to be able to play my exercises as slowly and carefully as Jen asks me to at my lessons so that I can actually get through them without fumbling). But write it down…maybe in that practice journal you either haven’t gotten, haven’t started, or think is just stupid.
Do a “mind dump”. Mind dumping is really popular right now. And with good reason. Yes, this is more writing things down, but in a good way. You really are going to try to dump, from your brain and onto the paper, everything you know about where you are, where you want to go (see #1 above) and what you already know. Write down everything you can think of that relates to how you play now, what you’d like to be able to do, and anything you might already know about the path between the two. No, really, write it down. All of it.
Now let’s build a “mind map”. Maybe you’re not a writer and you’re pushing back on this. Then you might not mind this step so much – a mind map is just a visual map of the stuff you wrote down. Yup – a drawing! Sort through all the things you wrote in #2 and identify which ones are related to one another. You might find, as you’re making your map, some things are more related than you originally thought (technique? theory? fingering?). For example, Carolan is all the rage this year (don’t ask me, I have absolutely no idea why, but he is!). But to play a lot of Carolan’s tunes, you need to be able to flawlessly and quickly play a scale – part of a scale, all of a scale, most of a scale – he used them a lot. So, in your map you’ll start with what you want to work on (playing Carolan) and “map” it to all the things that might help you get there (smooth, seamless, rapid scales). And I’m sure you’ll have loads of things to work on – so put them all on the map…and show which ones are related to which others.
Give it a hard look. Be realistic. Do you have the time to do all of that? If yes, go to a. If no, go to b.
1. Do the thing! Now you know what you need to work on and how they’re all linked, so you can put together an approach to your practice. Be sure to include steps for each day you practice, each week and each month. Be realistic. Assure that everything lines up in a reasonable way (for example, you’ll want to be able to play simple scales before you start doing scales that are compound rhythms or complex executions). If you’re not sure, ask your teacher. Remember to plan more than just each day – let the days build on one another.
2. Do the thing! Now you know what you need to work on and how they’re all linked, so you can put together an approach to your practice. Be sure to include steps for each day you practice, each week and each month. Be realistic. Assure that everything lines up in a reasonable way (for example, you’ll want to be able to play simple scales before you start doing scales that are compound rhythms or complex executions). If you’re not sure, ask your teacher. You will need to leave yourself plenty of time (over the calendar) and take small… but consistent (daily)…steps. Remember that 15 minutes every day is better practice than 2 hours on a Saturday! If you only have 15 minutes, now you’ll know what to spend them on! Remember to plan more than just each day – let the days build on one another.
Keep track of what you do! This can be easy – write it down. Too lazy? Too busy to spend all that time (20 sec) writing it down? Use that fancy phone you have! Record your practice once a week – then you’ll be able to see what you’re doing right and what needs a little more attention.
Don’t forget the cookie! OK, it doesn’t have to be a cookie (but it can be!) – make sure you also have a reward for meeting your plan. Whether it’s buying yourself a goofy harp trinket (I’m not mocking them, I have them too!) for practicing every day or for learning a tune completely or for performing the tune well when you needed to, you set the reward…and be sure to deliver! You will deserve it.

Let me know how you know what to practice – in the comments below!

* If you’re interested in coaching (or lessons) – let me know!

Power tool

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Jen

As musicians, we use all kinds of tools. This, of course, includes our harps (duh!) and our tuning wrenches. But there are plenty of other tools we use all the time. Don’t believe me? What about your practice journal? Your metronome (yes it counts, even if you barely use it!). Your electronic tuner? Pens, pencils, sticky notes, highlighters – all tools. Books and books and pages of music? Also tools. But perhaps the most useful tool is one that can help you learn, improve, and focus. What is this magic power tool?

Your phone!

Yup, your phone really can be a life saver (well, practice saver at least).

No, not for watching videos (although that’s a good way to learn new tunes). Not for surfing Facebook. Not to check the weather, be a Twit, or to surf up irrelevant factoids.

I’m pretty sure there are two things my students can hear me say before the words can actually get out of my mouth. The first one is: SLOW DOWN! You might be tired of me saying that too. But I repeat it because — it’s true.

The other one they know is coming is: RECORD YOUR PRACTICE! Use your phone camera to record yourself.

I know that often, no one believes me. But every once in a while, I hear back from someone, “Oh! You were right! I didn’t know I was [insert your current technique foible (sticking out my pinky, not bringing my 3 back in, actively making roach antennas, not actually placing, etc. the litany is long!)] but I really am – I thought you were just being mean.”

This is, of course, a variant of, “Oh, I didn’t know I was slowing down/not waiting/not counting/consistently playing the wrong note” that arises as well.

It is really important to acknowledge that there is a lot going on when you’re playing a tune. You feel this keenly when you’re learning a tune (when even an 8-bar romp seems to last forever, none of the notes will stick together in clumps, and you are sure you’ll never learn it). But once we get past the initial feeling of fear/dread of having to think about each note, we think we got it.

But we don’t. Mostly because there is so much to get – fingeringandplacingandtoneandharmonyandpostureandbreathingandeverythingelse

What you lose – almost immediately – is the ability to monitor yourself! There are so many things to think about and you can only pay attention to so many.

And that’s where your phone comes in – set your phone up on your music stand (obviously point it at your “work area” of the harp – at the strings where you are playing). Make sure you use the video function rather than the still camera. Then push the button and let it go.

Don’t worry about making a huge video – you’re going to record– review–delete. After you have recorded, then you’ll review – watching for what you can learn. Following reviewing, you can then delete that file (or upload it for your teacher) and start the process over again. Make sure you record with sound so you can hear the tune (and the metronome!).

What are you reviewing for? Well, the list is long and distinguished! You will probably need to review it a few times to catch everything. You’re looking for closing, placement, good contact with the string (or getting enough finger on the string), no hesitations, relaxed hands, appropriately raised elbows, no grimaces, etc.). And you are looking for places that you fumble*.

You won’t record your pieces just once. You can repeatedly record when you’re learning the tune (as above). Later, when you’re more facile with the it, you’ll be looking more at the musicality with which you’re delivering the tune – still fingering and placing but also dynamics, phrasing, accents, and those places that sounded good in your head just don’t sound as good in the real world.

No matter which stage of learning you are in with a tune, you are also looking for the places that you need to focus your work. The tricky fingering not working? Focus on just that bit, work it over until you figure out a new fingering and a better way to do it. Then you can append the bit just before (coming into the tricky bit) or just after (coming out of the tricky bit) and build up a larger and larger chunk of the tune until the whole thing just works.

Have you tried recording your practice? Want to share what you learned in the comments? I’d love to hear about it.

*I classify fumbles into two buckets, each of which has a different solution. The first bucket is “I had no idea where to go next”. The solution there is to review the tune and keep working on it because you don’t have all of it in your head yet. The second is “I knew exactly where I needed to go, I just couldn’t seem to get there”. The solution for this bucket is…SLOW DOWN!

Not SLOW again?!

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Jen

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

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

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

Here are six things you can get from practicing slower:

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

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

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

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

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

COMMENTS BELOW THE LINE

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

From Helen:

Getting out of the Land of Should

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Jen

I love teaching. I learn so much from each of my students. They all have their own strengths and challenges, but I find that there are sometimes overlaps. This week, no less than three students have been trapped in the Land of Should – a dark and horrible place which is easy to find and sometimes hard to leave.

You might have been there. You might be there right now. You can tell you’re there by the signs:

“I should practice more”

“I should be more motivated (even though there’s a global pandemic and nothing is as it typically is)”

“I should be able to ignore the things going on in my life and keep playing”

“I should be able to play this by now”

“I should be better than I am”

I get it. The Land of Should can be very seductive. And sometimes it seems like it’s the only place the bus stops.

But being trapped in the Land of Should is actually painful and not very comfortable. After all, WHY should you (practice more, be more motivated, be more accomplished, and by extension, have a pristine home, have read all the “right” books, being wearing the right look, etc. – whatever)??

But shoulds are often unhelpful – these thoughts don’t get you any further ahead. Telling yourself you should do (or be) something doesn’t change anything or suggest useful changes. It only sets you up to feel like you’ll never get where you’re going. The Land of Should is like that.

One way to look at is that these thoughts are actually you bullying yourself! You’re telling yourself you’re a disappointment. Would you say something like that to your best friend? I didn’t think so.

And right now, we all need a little more TLC – especially from ourselves! Even the most stalwart and resilient among us are feeling a little peaky. So, it’s no surprise if the pull of the Land of Should is becoming stronger.

How do you escape its terrible orbit? Here are five ways to get out of the Land of Should:

Journal. You know I’m always exhorting you to keep a journal of your practice. Here’s a good use for it. First, you can document your practice time – what (objectively) did you work on, where did you leave it, where will you pick it up next time? Secondly, you can also capture how you are feeling about the time you had (especially if you’re feeling like you have not done enough). As always, keep your journal in any means that works for you – in a notebook, on your computer, as an oral history in your phone voice memos, as an abstract drawing – it doesn’t matter how you keep it as long as that medium works for you!
Be realistic. There’s a lot going on in the world, no matter who you are or where you live. With the ongoing uncertainty and changing information as physicians and scientists learn more about it, it’s easy to feel like we’ll never have our feet on solid ground again. You can use your time at the harp to help soothe your frayed nerves and the anxiety of not knowing. Maybe this isn’t the time to double your repertoire or add those highly chromatic pieces you admire but don’t feel ready to take on. But you do have repertoire already with which you can be fairly comfortable – play that. Noodle! Improvise. Play nothing at all. But don’t cut yourself off from your harp. At a minimum, allow the reverberations of playing the notes impact your body. Take some time and take some ease. No matter your level of play, you can do this! Are you a rank beginner, still trying to remember which finger is 2? No worries, play a single string and let it ring while you feel the gentle vibration and hear the beautiful timbre! Then play another. Think that’s only for beginners? Nope – there’s a lot of soothing in a playing a single string and letting it reverb for you for as long as it likes…then play another one, etc.
Reframe. It is easy (especially in difficult times) to focus on the negative, to beat yourself up and as a result to feel bad. Reframe your thoughts! It isn’t that you didn’t practice enough. Rather, you made the best use of limited available time. It isn’t that you aren’t progressing. Rather, you currently have higher priorities requiring your time and attention. It isn’t that you’re not motivated. Rather you are dealing with a lot and will be back and focused soon. But DO NOT tell yourself you’re not “good enough” because you haven’t done something.
Study your history. You haven’t always felt this way. Think back to a time when you didn’t feel like this and understand that you have ups and downs and that’s ok. Your truth includes being strong and resilient and sometimes it includes being a little bit fragile and that the fragility passes – and all of it is part of you! And that’s kind of cool – because there’s interesting in there (to be found sometime when you’re transitioning from fragile to strong!).
Be nice…and positive. Be nice in general, but especially be nice to you! And don’t torment yourself. Instead, focus on the good (if only because it’s so easy to focus on the bad – and who wants to do easy stuff?).

If you find yourself lost in the Land of Should, perhaps one of these might help. If something works for you, please let me know. And if you have another way to escape – please share in the comments below.

March is National Noodle Month – I’m SO Tired!

Posted on March 9, 2020 by Jen

Who knew?! Yes, March is National Noodle Month, and with the return to Daylight Saving Time, we’ll need it!

I always warn you about the time changes. Especially those of you that live far from the equator where you gain or lose multiple minutes of daylight each day. The imposed time change is hard on people, and we are no exception.

But you’re in luck! If you’re playing along with the four week composition challenge, you’ve now established noodling at every practice session. That noodling might just help save your practicing while you adjust to the new weird daylight that isn’t happening when it is supposed to.

Because…

you can noodle when you are tired.
there’s no right in noodling. And possibly more importantly
there is also no wrong in noodling either!

It’s just the thing for when your brain and your hands are just not up to working together. Or working at all. Perhaps best of all – noodling is still playing, so it totally counts as practice!

One of the first things I learned as a fledgling harper was the pentatonic improvisation. I typically share it with my students in their first or second lesson (they might use a different verb than share – a verb like impose or coerce!).

If you’re not familiar with pentatonic improv, the pentatonic scale has five notes (from the Greek – penta (five) and tonic (note)). On the piano (if you’re so inclined) the black keys make a lovely, easy to find pentatonic scale. On the harp, set yourself to the C major scale and PLAY ONLY THE WHITE STRINGS! This will give you a lovely pentatonic scale from which to easily work.*

Go ahead, give it a try. I’ll wait.

What you’ll notice about a pentatonic scale is that there’s no “ugly”. You truly cannot make a bad noise if you stay in the scale (that is, play only the white strings). Everything you play within the scale sounds pretty good.

Isn’t that freeing? Now you can noodle with abandon, regardless of how tired you are, because nothing, literally NOTHING you play will sound bad!

And because nothing will sound terrible, you have no reason not to click your recorder on while you noodle. After all, you have a delete button so if there’s nothing inspired, no loss. And you have a record button, so if you listen later and hear amazing – you’ll be able to reconstruct those musical thoughts and build them into a composition (or just keep them as something to amuse yourself).

All that from a little noodling when you’re too tired to practice! Give it a try – and see if having a fun, easy poke around the harp doesn’t maybe give you a little energy boost. Maybe even enough energy to practice when you’re tired.

Keep noodling even after you’ve adapted to the time change – it’s a great addition to your practice and it’ll get you used to collecting your thoughts!

* of course there are other pentatonic scales on the harp (or the piano) but the ones I’ve presented here are so easy that you’ll have a scale that requires no effort to find. If you prefer something other than the G major pentatonic scale, go for it!

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!

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