Where Harp Beginners Go Wrong - and Maybe You Do Too - PHH 235
Practicing Harp Happiness
I know what I’m going to talk about with you today could be controversial. It could sound totally off target to you. Nevertheless, I hope you will hear me out. I want to share with you why and how I think most harp beginners start wrong, even if they are working with a teacher. It isn’t exactly that we teachers aren’t teaching the right things or that we aren’t dedicated to the success of the students who are trusting us. It’s that the path we walk with them feels so slow. Every individual comes to the harp with a unique skill set and level of musical experience, with their own...
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Three Keys to Relieving Stress - PHH 234
Practicing Harp Happiness
I was moving the harp the other day and once again, it occurred to me just how much stuff we have to carry around with us. Granted, I move my harp all the time for rehearsals and concerts - it’s a big Lyon Healy Salzedo model harp - so you would think I’d be used to it by now. I guess I am, mostly; I don’t have to think about what goes in the car, and my harp bag is always ready to go. But when I start counting the number of trips I have to make between my car and the concert hall in the pouring rain, I start wishing for a Star Trek transporter. But recently, while I was...
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A Behind the Scenes Look at My Practice Week - PHH 233
Practicing Harp Happiness
Over the years I have had questions about my practice: how much practice I do, what I do in my practice, and so on. There has also been the occasional request to sit in and listen to my practice. I have always thought that my own practice routines and what I do on any given day in my practice wouldn’t be useful to share with most harpists, the reason being that the demands on my time and on my playing are vastly different from what the majority of harpists experience. And I have never believed that anyone could benefit from watching me practice or listening to my practice. But gradually I...
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Starting a Piece? Don’t Take It From the Top - PHH 232
Practicing Harp Happiness
So you decided to learn a new piece for the holidays - good for you! When I think of all the years I’ve been playing the harp, it’s a little amazing that I still feel a little thrill when I pick up a new piece of music to learn, and I’m sure you feel the same. Starting a new piece is a voyage of discovery with the promise of adventure, new notes to conquer, a few challenges to meet along the way, and finally, a beautiful piece of music we can play. Of course, the voyage is often a little rougher than we anticipate. It can take longer than we thought and can be more discouraging. We...
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Your Simple Six Week Holiday Music Readiness Plan - PHH 231
Practicing Harp Happiness
It’s nearly the end of October and already my daily practice is revolving around what I will need to play this holiday season. Yours might be too. The smart harpist knows that this is the time to plan your practice carefully so that you don’t have to cram practice time into an already overloaded holiday schedule. If we feel prepared to play going into the holiday rush, it makes everything about the holidays more fun. So now is the time to plan. We have about six weeks from now until the end of November. In my own planning I usually use our Thanksgiving as my target date to have my music...
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Here’s Why You Should Do It My Way: A Teacher’s Response - PHH 230
Practicing Harp Happiness
I once had a student say this to me: “But it doesn’t work when I do it that way.” We were trying to fix a passage in a piece she was learning. When she played the passage for me, there was an obvious stumble spot, and I had a definite idea about what was wrong and how to fix it. But after a week of trying to implement my suggestion, she came back to me, saying that her old way, even though it wasn’t really working, worked better than mine and so she was sticking with her way. Please understand that the student didn’t doubt the solution I was offering. She had tried it, just as...
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The 3 Things All Harpists Need to Do Well - PHH 229
Practicing Harp Happiness
If I were to ask you what you think the most important skills are for any harpist, what would you say? There are lots of obvious choices. You might include technical skills, like scales or arpeggios or putting hands together. You could mention skills like note reading, or sight reading, or rhythm skills or knowing basic music theory. What about working with a metronome or playing expressively? All of these are important, and none of them is particularly easy. While all of these are crucial, I consider them all just part of playing the harp. Every harpist develops these skills...
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The Real Reason to Memorize Your Music - PHH 228
Practicing Harp Happiness
Do you have to memorize your music? Of course not. How’s that for an easy answer? Okay, the podcast is over and we can call it a day. But of course, the answer isn’t that simple. No, you don’t have to memorize your music, but the fact that you’re asking the question tells me that you’re almost certainly thinking about memorization the wrong way, or at least very differently from how I have learned to think of it. What I want to help you understand today is the role that memorization can play in your musical growth, how it can make you a better musician, how it can help you...
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Why Every Harpist Needs a Method - PHH 227
Practicing Harp Happiness
When I was a beginning harp student, the technical method I was learning - the Salzedo method - was something I took very seriously. From my very first harp lessons, I learned the important points of technique, as Salzedo taught it. I wasn’t studying with Salzedo, of course, but my teacher, Marilyn Costello, was a student of his, and his method was what she taught her students. For a long time, I played the harp in innocent ignorance of the fact that there were other harp methods. In fact, it was a revelation to me in those early years when I discovered that most harpists in the world...
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Perspective Over Perfection: The Secret to Playing with Freedom - PHH 226
Practicing Harp Happiness
I’m sure you’ve seen that famous optical illusion picture that can be perceived either as two faces in profile looking at each other, or as a vase. That image is named the “Rubin Vase,” after Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin, who authored a book in 1915 called “Visual Perception.” This image, and others like it, have stimulated much scientific debate about how our brains understand and process images. What fascinates me is that moment when my understanding of the image shifts, that instant where I can see the second interpretation of the picture. Naturally, there’s a...
info_outlineShel 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 “shoulds” and “have tos;” our music doesn’t need to be. Our music is personal to us. The music we play, our repertoire, is something that reflects what we like and who we are. It is a personal expression at every playing level. Your personal musical expression starts from the very first day you are capable of playing a melody on the harp. Your music is in you and your music is you.
So if you need to choose your next piece to learn, it should be something you want to learn. Back to our conversation at the tea table. When I ask you what piece you’d like to do, you are probably going to tell me you don’t know. So we’ll dig a little deeper.
If you are thinking that there is a skill you need to develop and you’re looking for a piece that will help you do that, that’s great. I can suggest half a dozen pieces that will help you with that specific skill. But have you considered trying a sort of piece you’ve never done before? Or what about that bucket list piece that you aren’t sure if you’re ready for? This is the problem; there are too many choices.
There is simply too much music in the world, and it’s impossible to play everything we want to. So we need to choose. And what if you chose to make your next piece one that created a “did,” filled a want, or prevented a future regret. That’s what I want to help you with today. I want to give you a little system to help you choose.
I also decided to take a sort of light-hearted, fun approach to this topic, so since today is the fifth of May, I’ve created five possible categories to choose from in honor of Cinco de Mayo. After all, we can’t take ourselves too seriously!
Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:
- Today is the last day to register for the “Sharpen Your Focus” clinic.
- Shel Silverstein poem, “Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda”
- Harpmastery.com
Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.co
Looking for a transcript for this episode? Did you know that if you subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts you will have access to their transcripts of each episode?
LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-207