It's time for a confidence boost.

You've been practicing your holiday music and feeling like you're making good progress, but it's not quite there and the performance date is coming up soon.

Your music is mostly fine. It has up days when everything goes perfectly and down days when it feels like you've never played the piece before. Maybe it's not quite up to tempo. Or maybe there are just a few measures - or maybe more than a few - that are resisting all your attempts to learn them and play them smoothly. Whatever the issue is, it's starting to be a little concerning because time is getting short.

We never want to feel unprepared or less ready than we would like for a performance, but sometimes it happens, despite all our planning and preparation. Believe me, I am the last person who would try to tell you that you should have started learning the piece sooner, or practiced more. I know all too well from my own experience that sometimes music just takes longer to come together than we expect.

But since we can't change the performance date, we can't wait for the issues to resolve themselves. We have to figure out a way to make everything work. That's something every professional harpist knows. There's a time when more practice is not an option. You have to look at where the music is today and make some choices. It's not giving up and it's definitely not staying up late to cram practice. Trust me - that never works.

What I want to share with you today are seven things I have done when I have needed to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat. These are things you can do which will save you stress and worry and allow you take a breath and relax. Even better, they will let you play beautifully, with confidence. You may have tried some of these, or maybe even all of them, yourself, but if you have a performance date coming up a little sooner than you feel ready for, consider this a reminder.

It's also permission. You don't have to make this hard on yourself. That's not what music should be about, and it certainly isn't what harp happiness is about.

So sit back, take a sip of tea and let's dive in.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

• Retreat Early Bird Pricing
• Free PDF: 20 Ways to Crush the Rush
• 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-236