The Stories Behind the Songs: Three Carols Revisited - PHH 239
Release Date: 12/15/2025
How to Learn a Piece You Can’t Listen To First - PHH 262
Practicing Harp Happiness
When I was a young harpist, there was no internet. I know that would shock a young harpist today who has grown up with the wealth of resources that are available with a single click. I was curious about when exactly the first internet-savvy generation grew up, so with a quick search - everything is clickable - I found the Gen Z’ers are the first internet generation, born between 1995 and 2010. That means those Gen Z adults are now between the ages of 16 and 30 or thereabouts. While the internet may feel like a birthright of Gen Z, the rest of us have come to rely on the internet too,...
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3 Things You Can Do to Make Your Music Smoother Instantly - PHH 261
Practicing Harp Happiness
I’m always wary of instant cures, of instant solutions. You know what I mean, those ads that promise you can lose 10 pounds overnight or become a fluent French speaker in 2 weeks. The funny thing is that nobody believes the promises in the ads, but still we buy the products - just in case. There is something powerful about an instant win. It’s the tantalizing idea that we could get exactly what we want for almost no effort or investment of time. It never seems to matter that the instant results seem improbable, The idea of something for nothing, or almost nothing, is too powerful to...
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What Your Desert Island Pieces Say About You - PHH 260
Practicing Harp Happiness
Here’s the picture: it’s the most unusual shipwreck in history. Somehow or other you have ended up alone on a desert island with just your harp. It’s interesting to consider how this might have happened. Did you swim to shore after the shipwreck with your harp strapped to your back? Or maybe you used it like a raft and your harp is what saved you. But somehow, against all the odds and flying in the face of reality, you ended up on this island with your harp. Even more amazing is that your harp is in tune, no strings have broken, and the weather is exactly what your harp needs to stay...
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When Right Is Wrong: The Ultimate Musical Dilemma - PHH 259
Practicing Harp Happiness
Playing music is hard. Trying to evaluate how well you are playing it is even harder, much harder. If this were a sport, a game like baseball, our efforts in relation to those of the opposing team would be reflected in the score. In an individual sport like golf, your score is a marker of your performance against the challenge of the course, the weather and any number of other factors. In an artistic endeavor, such as art or music or dance, there isn’t an objective numerical scale to score the outcome. I think that’s why I am always ambivalent about Olympic figure skating judging. I...
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7 Ways to Place Chords: Beyond the Rules - PHH 258
Practicing Harp Happiness
When was the last time you took a moment to just play some chords on your harp and let yourself simply enjoy them? When you hear that rich, resonant sound, you know that this was what your harp was meant to sound like. Perhaps hearing someone else play chords like that was why you decided to play the harp. It’s goosebump territory, for sure. You can feel it in your bones, in your core. I don’t know that there is a more beautiful sonority than a big beautiful harp chord, perhaps lushly rolled. But, I also know that there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t have to stop in my practice...
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Creating Your Secondary Practice Style: A New Look at Your Practice Breed - PHH 257
Practicing Harp Happiness
A number of years ago, I wrote a blog post comparing practice styles to two breeds of dogs: a German Shepherd and a Greyhound. This was my metaphor for discussing a topic I found really hard to address with my students, the fact that their natural practice style was a determining factor in the speed of their progress. Let me explain. I had some students who were committed to doing everything correctly and as a consequence learned carefully and thoroughly, but rather slowly. I had other students who wanted to play the music right away. Their enthusiasm and energy got them to the finish line...
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Moving Up: The Intermediate Level Skills You Need - PHH 256
Practicing Harp Happiness
I think one of the biggest challenges in music study is that it is very difficult to really measure our progress. It’s so easy to lose track of what we’ve accomplished when we’re faced with new challenges that often seem to be more of the same ones we’ve been struggling with all along. The notes are still hard. Our fingers still aren’t moving fast enough. We still can’t make our music flow. The reality of music study is that we will continue to face the same challenges at every stage of our harp journey. At the same time that we find new levels of facility or expression, we...
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Simplify and Renew: How to Spring Clean Your Harp Playing - PHH 255
Practicing Harp Happiness
Spring is finally settling in where I live. You might be weeks ahead of me or behind me or in a totally different hemisphere, but in the spirit of sharing what’s on my mind and what’s happening in my world, I want to talk about spring cleaning today. Naturally, though, I’m not talking about cleaning windows and carpets and closets. I want to talk about spring cleaning your harp life. When I first decided to focus on spring cleaning for this podcast, I didn’t want to take the easy way out. It would be easy to talk about harp care - changing strings, cleaning your harp, the right...
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Music Theory Starts Here - PHH 254
Practicing Harp Happiness
If you came to me for a lesson and said you wanted to work on music theory, my first reaction would be to do my happy dance. I admit it - I am a theory geek. I love talking about the building blocks of music and exploring the way composers use them to create the kaleidoscopic variety of music we love to play. But after my happy dance, I would ask you this question: why do you want to learn music theory? It’s not a test question; there is no wrong answer. But I have often found that harpists make assumptions about what theory knowledge will do for them, and those assumptions,...
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Your Ultimate Guide to Practice Journaling - PHH 253
Practicing Harp Happiness
I was recently at the home of a harpist friend, and she showed me her stack of diaries, her appointment books from past years. There were decades of them. She was deciding it was time to get rid of them, but she wasn’t quite ready to do it. I had to admit that I pitched mine long ago, and that occasionally I have wished that I still had them. They would be fun to look through. Those entries, even the most prosaic ones, recall so many memories. They bring to mind places, people and events that you have nearly forgotten. Suddenly, you are transported to a different time and place, even a...
info_outlineI’m kind of a Christmas carol geek, if there is such a thing. I’ve always enjoyed playing them and even as a young person, I was fascinated by where they came from: their origins, translations, composers, text sources, etc. For me, the stories behind the carols were a kind of history and geography lesson rolled up into the magic and meaning of Christmas.
I think the origin stories are what really held my interest. The writing of “Silent Night” because a church organ in Austria was damaged, or the composition of “O Holy Night” as a dedication piece to a renovated organ in France are stories that aren’t just interesting, though. They shape how I think about those songs and how I play them, certainly how I arrange them as well.
Today, I want to share the back stories to three carols. I know you’re familiar with these carols, but you may not be familiar with their origin stories. If you’re like me, you love hearing insider scoops and these are back stories you probably won’t hear anywhere else. What’s more, these three carols all share similar ethnic roots; they are all, to some degree at least, Czech.
I think all of these stories are interesting, and I think I can guarantee that at least one of these connections will surprise you. What I hope is that you learn something that will give you a new connection to the music itself, so that when you play these carols or even when you hear them, they resonate in a little more personal way because you know just a little bit more about them. It’s kind of like discovering something new about a friend you’ve known for years, something that adds a new layer of interest and delight.
So sit back with your cup of coffee and I’ll tell you a story.
Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:
- Blog from the archives: 7 Surprising Facts about “O Holy Night”
- Blog from the archives: Not So Silent Night: Going Viral 200 Years Ago
- Harpmastery.com
Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com
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-239