The Secret to Dexterity: Crosstrain Your Hands - PHH 217
Release Date: 07/14/2025
Susann McDonald: A Legacy of Connection - PHH 222
Practicing Harp Happiness
There’s a moment — sometimes only after someone is gone — when we finally see the full measure of their influence. We may have known they mattered, but loss has a way of sharpening our perspective, of showing us just how much they shaped our world. Some people use the word legendary too easily. For harpist Susann McDonald, it’s no exaggeration. Susann McDonald, who passed away this past May at the age of 90, left an indelible mark on the harp world. She was an acclaimed performer, a respected author, an extraordinary teacher, and a passionate advocate for our instrument. She co-founded...
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Mistakes as Milestones: A New Mindset for Growth - PHH 221
Practicing Harp Happiness
Not all mistakes are created equal. Sure, some need to be addressed and fixed. But others? They’re signs of progress. They tell you that your ears are sharper, your awareness is expanding, and your technique is evolving. Let’s put it in context. We live in a world that’s constantly trying to correct us. Type an email, and autocorrect will instantly jump in. Google will underline a word in red, and we assume it's wrong—just because it looks unfamiliar. But autocorrect doesn’t always get it right. And neither does your inner critic. Just because something feels like a mistake doesn’t...
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5 Things Your Teacher Can’t Do For You - and 5 Things She or He Can - PHH 220
Practicing Harp Happiness
You’ve heard me say this before: I had wonderful teachers throughout my musical life. From my very first piano teacher when I started piano at age four, through my harp studies from age eight and my college years at the Curtis Institute, my teachers were all I could have wanted. They nurtured me, encouraged me, pushed me, and took me to task when that was required, and believe me, it was required from time to time. Most importantly - and this is one of my core teaching principles to this day - they were as invested in my musical journey as I was. They took my learning and my musical growth...
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Back to the Harp—Without Killing the Vacation Vibe - PHH 219
Practicing Harp Happiness
I know I’m dating myself, but here goes… Back in the 1960’s there was a television show called “Sea Hunt.” The show centered around a free-lance scuba diver named Mike Nelson, played by Lloyd Bridges. Mike Nelson was a former Navy diver and a member of the Coast Guard Auxiliary. As a free-lance diver, he was hired for all kinds of dangerous underwater work, everything from salvaging precious cargo from wrecked ships to rescuing people trapped in caves. Each episode had dangerous situations and villains who were ready to slash the hoses on Mike’s air tanks. In nearly...
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What Makes Any Piece a “Harp Piece”? - PHH 218
Practicing Harp Happiness
Here’s our question for today: what makes a piece of music a “harp piece”? Does it have to have been originally written for harp? Or composed by a harpist? Or could any piece of music, no matter what instrument or instruments it was written for, be a harp piece if you play it on the harp? I happen to think that the third answer is the correct one. Mostly. Let me explain. If you play a piece on the harp, it has absolutely become a harp piece whether it started out that way or not. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it should have become a harp piece. Some pieces just...
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The Secret to Dexterity: Crosstrain Your Hands - PHH 217
Practicing Harp Happiness
Happy Bastille Day! This isn’t a French themed podcast episode, and we won’t be breaking the bars on any prisons today. However, while the French national motto of liberté, égalité, fraternité is sounding across the globe, we should give some thought to the unequal treatment we give our hands. I mean the difference in the demands we place on our right and left hands. Probably you’ve thought about the very different roles that our hands play musically. Most often, the right hand plays a melody and the left hand plays an accompaniment. But think about it in a practical,...
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Celebrating of Summer - 20+ Pieces Just For Fun - PHH 216
Practicing Harp Happiness
This week I started my yearly ritual of going through my drawers of music and pulling out new pieces to play. Actually they aren’t all new; some are old friends that I haven’t played in years. Others are pieces that have been sitting around waiting for me to get to them. Others are favorites that I seem to pull out every summer and play for a while. It’s a summer thing for me. Perhaps because my playing schedule is a little lighter, I don’t feel as pressured or as driven. Also, though, I just want to play music, music that fits my vacation mindset. So this week as I was...
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The Superpower of Shortcuts and Why You Need Them Now - PHH 215
Practicing Harp Happiness
There’s a third kind of shortcut, though, that I want us to think about today. It’s the kind of shortcut that comes with experience. I remember when I was learning to sew and following all the directions very carefully so that I wouldn’t mess up. I even learned which pattern companies had the clearest directions, and which seemed to presume that I knew more than I did, so there were steps missing. Those missing steps weren’t shortcuts, per se; they were just knowledge that a more experienced sewer would have. One day, I watched a professional seamstress start to cut out a dress....
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Recovering from Burnout - the 5R Framework to Recover and Reset - PHH 214
Practicing Harp Happiness
It’s summer time here and time for a little R and R, rest and relaxation, maybe even time away. You might be feeling like you need some time away from whatever stress you’ve been experiencing. I hope it isn’t your harp playing that’s been causing the stress, but even playing and practicing the harp can cause frustration and burnout. If you’re feeling like you need a break from your harp playing, I’m here to help and to make sure you take that break in a way that will bring you more confidence and more joy in your harp playing again. Actually, at the time you are listening to this,...
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Freedom to Choose - How to Make Any Piece Sound Right - PHH 213
Practicing Harp Happiness
Have you ever made something and it turned out ok, but somehow it just didn’t look right? Maybe you thought those two paint colors would go together, but now you’re not sure. Or maybe the furniture arrangement in the living room looked great on paper but it sort of doesn’t work now that you see everything in place. I think we’ve all had those moments. I had one not long ago with a photo I was doing. It wasn’t quite right, but since I had to get it done, all I could do was to shrug and sign off on it, whether it was right or not. But if a piece of music we’re working on doesn’t...
info_outlineHappy Bastille Day! This isn’t a French themed podcast episode, and we won’t be breaking the bars on any prisons today. However, while the French national motto of liberté, égalité, fraternité is sounding across the globe, we should give some thought to the unequal treatment we give our hands. I mean the difference in the demands we place on our right and left hands.
Probably you’ve thought about the very different roles that our hands play musically. Most often, the right hand plays a melody and the left hand plays an accompaniment. But think about it in a practical, action-related way for a moment. If our right hand specializes in melodies, then it likely is accustomed to connected, legato playing, along with some chords and arpeggios.
Our left hand, though, because it serves to support the melody, is more used to jumping between low bass notes and chords above them, or playing a series of octaves, or playing continuous arpeggiated accompaniments. That is a very different skill set from the one your right hand has. Just try playing a left hand accompaniment with your right hand or a right hand melody with your left hand, and you will find it a little uncomfortable. Try playing hands together with that role reversal, and it may feel extremely awkward. If you’ve ever had to try to balance a left hand melody line with a right hand accompaniment, keeping the right hand softer than the left, you know how deeply ingrained those right hand/left hand roles are.
Of course, most of the time, each hand plays the kind of playing it does best. But what about those occasions when the roles are reversed? How do you prepare for them, so they don’t stop you in your tracks? That’s part of what I will help you with today. Even more importantly, I’ll give you a plan for developing more independence between your hands, and that sounds like a fitting topic for Bastille Day.
Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:
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Join the Christmas in July Week 3 workshop.
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Are you keeping up with the Summertime Challenge? Join here.
Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]
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