Could Your Practice Today Actually Be More Fun? - PHH 211
Practicing Harp Happiness
Every time I talk about putting more fun into your practice, I hear feedback like, “I enjoy my practice,” or “I really like doing the challenging work,” or “My favorite part of practice is my exercises and etudes.” All of those harpists are enjoying their practice, and that’s terrific. But that’s not what I mean. Much of what we do in our practice can accidentally disconnect us from the music we want to make. We identify and correct mistakes. We drill our technique. We repeat passages over and over again. That’s all part of practice, and it is part of what enables us to play...
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Do You Hear What I Hear? Listening with Your Ears Open - PHH 210
Practicing Harp Happiness
Four friends went to an orchestra concert. Afterward, they went out for dessert and compared notes on the concert, talking about what they heard. Here is what they said: One person heard the person in the row behind crackling a cough drop wrapper.One person, a flutist, heard that the clarinet wasn’t in tune with the flute.One person, a harpist, heard that the orchestra drowned out the harp solo.One person heard that the piano soloist was humming to himself while he played. Oddly enough, when the review of the concert appeared in the newspaper the next day, it seemed the critic had gone to a...
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Is Your Practice Not Working? Maybe Hard Work Isn’t the Answer - PHH 209
Practicing Harp Happiness
Today I want to talk with you about hard work. I don’t mean how to buckle down and do the hard work. We all know that playing the harp is hard, and we spend a lot of time working out practice techniques, strategies and routines to help us play the music we want in spite of the difficulties. No, what I want to talk about today is how to get out of the “just buckle down and do it” mindset. The truth is that when it comes to playing the harp or even music in general, sometimes trying harder is counter-productive. For instance, the harder we try to get that harmonic to ring, the more it just...
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Is Music Theory Really Useful? Turning Theory Into Practice - PHH 208
Practicing Harp Happiness
Is studying music theory really useful? Yep. You heard right. I really said that, and I’m a total theory nerd. I’m not going to leave you in suspense. Of course, knowing music theory is useful and helpful and part of being a good musician. But only - and this is a big “only” - if you know how it’s useful. Did you ever take a class in school and the whole time you were sitting in class you were thinking, “I’m never going to use this stuff”? Of course, you did. I remember sitting in my calculus class in high school - which, incidentally, I really enjoyed - knowing...
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How to Choose Your Next Piece - PHH 207
Practicing Harp Happiness
Shel Silverstein wrote a beautiful and supremely short poem that perfectly fits today’s topic. The poem is called “Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda,” and in just seven short lines, Silverstein sums up the ultimate way to prevent regret. He tells us that all those woulda-coulda-shouldas vanish with one little “did.” Doing beats wishing every day. So if we were sitting in the same room together, sharing a cup of tea, and you asked me what I thought your next piece should be, I’d have to ask you a question right back, “What do you think you want to do?” Life is filled with...
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Looking Beyond: Choose Your Focus - PHH 206
Practicing Harp Happiness
Fact number one: Your focus is in your control.Fact number two: Your focus is a critical factor in your success and harp happiness.Conclusion: What you focus on matters… a lot. In the last episode of the podcast, we were talking about focus in terms of placing your chords. I cited one of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes, “You hit what you aim at.” I’m going to put a different spin on that today. We aren’t going to talk about focusing on a goal exactly. We’re going to discuss how to shift your focus to get you beyond a sticking point or a challenge. Here’s my idea in a...
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Placing Chords: How to Find the Right Strings the First Time - PHH 205
Practicing Harp Happiness
The great Zig Ziglar, much-beloved author and motivational speaker, never played the harp as far as I know, but one of his most often quoted remarks is perfect for today’s topic. Zig said, “You hit what you aim at, and if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.” If you have ever had difficulty placing the notes in your chords, today I am going to teach you how to fix your aim. Of course there is more to placing and playing chords than just aiming at the strings, but you do have to get to the right ones. This is what makes three-note chords more difficult than two-note intervals,...
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Review Done Right: It’s More Than Repertoire - PHH 204
Practicing Harp Happiness
Do you review your pieces? If you don’t review your pieces regularly, then keep listening because today we are going to explore the different reasons you might want to start and a few different methods for review you might want to try. But here’s the thing; if I asked a dozen harpists who say they review their pieces how they do their review, I will get a dozen different answers. Some people schedule it; others set a rotation. Some people do both. Some harpists are trying to develop a repertoire list of music they can play at a moment’s notice. Others are trying to keep the last piece...
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Why Slow Practice Works - and When It Doesn't - PHH 203
Practicing Harp Happiness
My harp background is in the Salzedo method. This is the technique method devised and taught by legendary harpist Carlos Salzedo. It was at the time, the early part of the twentieth century, a startlingly different concept of harp playing and harp technique and the aim was to bring the harp into the modern world. The aesthetic of the method varied in almost every way possible from the French tradition in which Salzedo was trained. But we aren’t discussing physical technique today. We are discussing practice technique, one practice technique in particular: slow practice. Please...
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Rhythmic Confidence: It’s Not About the Math - PHH 202
Practicing Harp Happiness
If I had the opportunity to teach music to an absolute music newbie, someone without any previous musical instruction or experience, I know exactly how I would begin. I would start without printed music. That’s hardly revolutionary. The German composer Carl Orff is known today not only for his most famous work, Carmina Burana, but for the innovative methods he brought to musical education. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze created Eurhythmics, not the 1980’s pop band with Annie Lennox, but a system for teaching music through movement. Music schools throughout the world have been teaching young...
info_outlineFact number one: Your focus is in your control.
Fact number two: Your focus is a critical factor in your success and harp happiness.
Conclusion: What you focus on matters… a lot.
In the last episode of the podcast, we were talking about focus in terms of placing your chords. I cited one of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes, “You hit what you aim at.”
I’m going to put a different spin on that today. We aren’t going to talk about focusing on a goal exactly. We’re going to discuss how to shift your focus to get you beyond a sticking point or a challenge. Here’s my idea in a nutshell: when we focus on the hard thing, we lose perspective on why we are doing the hard thing to begin with. That can cost us a lot in terms of time, energy and enjoyment.
Consider some of the things we focus on that can leave us with a feeling of letdown or even loss. We spend weeks preparing for Christmas, only to realize on December 26th that we didn’t really remember to enjoy the day. Or we put days of effort into making a special meal - Thanksgiving dinner comes to my mind - and everyone is finished their meal and watching the football game almost before we’ve sat down to our own plate. Or we prepare so much for a special performance that we don’t know what to practice the day after it’s over.
What about the things we focus on when we’re practicing or performing? Are we focusing on the things that will help us grow and move us forward? Or are we only concentrating on the difficulties that are in front of us, whether those are wrong notes or stumbles or performance nerves?
I believe that often we are looking through a microscope at too many of those moments, when we really should be using binoculars to see what lies ahead, beyond the hard part. Instead of going into the rabbit hole where our perceptions are distorted (that wrong note really doesn’t matter that much!), we need a healthier perspective on what we’re actually trying to do, so that we can get past the sticking point and get back to loving the music.
Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:
- Register now for the “Sharpen Your Focus, Elevate Your Performance” Clinic
- Take lessons with a Harp Mastery® Certified Coach.
- Harpmastery.com
Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]
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LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-206