Working through grades can be exactly what your playing needs, or the very thing holding it back, and which one it is has nothing to do with the sort of harpist you are. Heather and Angela help you tell the difference.

They go over what's on offer, from ABRSM and Trinity to university routes and How To Harp's own certification, and they're honest about both sides of it rather than landing neatly on one.

In this episode:

- Why "exam hopping" can leave real gaps in what you're able to do

- Angela's example of a player at grade five who had never played a harmonic

- What sitting in your level for a while gives you that racing ahead doesn't

- Why a syllabus is worth a look even if you don't enter

- What aural and sight reading tests build in you beyond the tunes themselves

- The value of a real deadline, and of a second set of ears

- How exams shaped Heather and Angela's own learning and teaching

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Angela Boraston - Harp Tutor at How To Harp

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #HarpExams #ABRSM

A library book about choosing an instrument for your child, left lying around the house, is where this whole story starts. Heather's guest is Rachel, who read it at 11, came downstairs the next morning asking for a harp, and has since been named BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2026.

Heather asks her about the years in between, from a first rented harp in Aberdeenshire to a masters at the Berklee campus in Valencia, and about how quickly everything changed once the result was announced for the Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year.

In this episode:

- How the Clàrsach Society rental scheme made that first harp possible

- Why she wrote a conservatoire application and never sent it

- Two years on pedal harp, and what pulled her back to the lever harp

- Where her tune Number 43 came from, and why it's really about Glasgow

- Applying for the competition on a whim, and the boxes we put ourselves in

- Letting go of feeling she had something to prove, and what that did for her nerves

- The concert and workshop she's bringing to the How To Harp membership

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Rachel Groves - Professional Harpist, Composer, BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2026, and How To Harp Guest Tutor

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #RachelGroves #ScottishHarp

Heather's learning and teaching philosophy has never been spoken about properly before, and she lays the whole thing out here. It came out of a live session during our Celebrating Harmony Weekend, when she heard herself explaining it and realised that's genuinely how everything at How To Harp has been built.

It centres on three ideas she's taken from the jazz musician Clark Terry, imitation, assimilation and innovation, but she doesn't think they happen in that order. She makes the case that they're a Venn diagram rather than a staircase, with every one of them at work from your very first lesson.

In this episode:

- Why Heather refuses to say the word "should" to a learner

- The Suzuki idea that we pick up an instrument the same way we learn to talk

- Her brother Alistair, the name she couldn't pronounce as a baby, and why nobody corrected her

- What's really going on when adult learners feel stuck and impatient

- Why our beginner and post beginner pathways are designed to take at least a year

- Asking what you like about a single bar of music, and where that question takes you

- How waiting until you know enough can end up holding your playing back

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #AdultHarpLearners #TeachingPhilosophy

Niccie heard a harp at the ballet when she was little, then waited more than four decades before she started playing one. Heather sits down with her to find out how she finally got going, and why doing it her way has mattered so much.

She's nearly three years in now, and she knows exactly how she learns, what she wants from an instrument, and what she'd rather take her time over. Heather gets into both harps, the teaching that suits her, and the mindset that holds it all together.

In this episode:

- Why weekly lessons weren't right for her, and how monthly ones with Angela work instead

- Choosing a Pilgrim Clarsach, and the harp she never expected to fall for

- Building and painting a Harp-E from a bare kit, levers and all

- Being on the autistic spectrum, and how the harp settles a busy brain

- Picking music that's far too hard on purpose, and preferring exercises to pieces

- Harmonics on the lower metal strings, and getting two hands to agree with each other

- Practice Togethers, the technique bank, and a community where nobody feels behind

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Niccie Hughes - Learner Harpist and How To Harp Member

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #LearnerHarpist #HarpJourney

Plenty of people come to the harp later in life already sure they've missed their chance.

The Heather and Angela episodes are usually a Harpy Tutor Chat, but in this one Heather is asking Angela a set of questions she hadn't seen beforehand. It's part celebration of Angela's two years with How To Harp, and part honest conversation about what teaching adults asks of you.

In this episode:

- Angela's first ever one-to-one lesson with us, and the 10pm high that kept her awake

- Why adult learners compare themselves to a fantasy self, and stop seeing their own progress

- The maple tree from our goal-setting session, and the member who planted one at home

- Knowing how hard to push someone, and why she calls it a tightrope

- The piece a learner falls in love with that's well beyond them, and why there's no easy answer

- The one gift she'd give every adult beginner

- How her confidence changed once she was actually doing the job

- Heather on what it's like having another harpist on the team

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Angela Boraston - Harpist, Harp Tutor at How To Harp

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #AdultHarpLearners #HarpTeaching

Nadia's best-known tune sat in a drawer for eleven months before she published it, because she wasn't sure it was good enough. It's since been heard well over a million times, and the German harpist and singer joins Heather to talk about how she works, and what she listens for.

Much of it goes back to her training in Lieder, where the piano part is written to illustrate the words. She's spent a career carrying that idea across to the harp, treating it as a duo partner with a voice of its own rather than a set of arpeggios underneath the melody.

In this episode:

- Falling for the Celtic harp at sixteen, after hearing the duo Sìleas live

- Why she went back and took classical lessons after teaching herself

- Starting every song arrangement from scratch, hunting for patterns she hasn't used before

- Building "Sagittaire" around a short film, and writing music to picture

- Collecting light, wind and acoustic spaces as raw material

- Putting her first video online when most computers couldn't play it, and the invitation that arrived two years later

- Whether the tradition can be stretched too far, and why she doesn't think there's a line

- Her concert and harp and voice workshop inside the membership

- One piece of advice for adult learners, and how to know a teacher is right for you

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Nadia Birkenstock - Harpist, Singer, Composer, and How To Harp Guest Tutor

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #NadiaBirkenstock #HarpAndVoice

Heather turned 40 last weekend, and this week she's flying solo with something a bit more personal than usual. It's an honest look at how she handled the run up to a birthday she really didn't want, and what she'd do very differently next time.

It's not really a birthday episode though. If you've ever put something off because you were dreading it, you'll recognise a lot of this. That same pattern turns up all over harp playing, and Heather talks through how to face it, why changing your mindset is much easier said than done, and why she's heading into this next year with a lot less dread.

In this episode:

- A whole year spent worrying, and the moment Heather realised nothing had actually changed

- How a poor attitude sucks the fun out of something before it even happens

- Why a bit of a wallow is fine, but a year-long one isn't

- The stressful lesson, the exam, or the technique problem you're quietly avoiding

- The three choices you've got when a concert's coming and you're dreading it

- Reframing the work you've put in, the people listening, and the sound of the harp

- Why sharing it with someone is the most useful thing you can do first

This is a vulnerable and funny one, and really it's about how much time and enjoyment we can lose to something we can't change, and how quickly that turns round once we choose to look at it differently.

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #MusicianMindset #PerformanceAnxiety

Heather sits down with Karen, a much-loved part of the How To Harp membership, to hear how she found the harp and what it has come to mean to her. Please listen with care, as Karen speaks openly about living with serious illness, including cancer.

What follows is warm, funny and full of heart, a reminder of how much music can carry us through, even in the hardest of times.

In this episode:

- How a flute and harp concert first sparked Karen's love of the instrument

- The surprise harp lesson that started it all

- The harp she named Joy, and the story behind it

- Choosing the Skye Boat Song, and why a reflective piece felt right

- How playing supports her through treatment, physically and mentally

- Finding humour and positivity in the hardest moments

- The practice trackers Karen created for fellow members

- Her advice on making practice a treat you reach for first

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Karen Marks - Learner Harpist and How To Harp Member

Learn with us:

https://www.howtoharp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #HarpJourney #LearnerHarpist

Heather & Angela are back for another Harpy Tutor Chat, sharing an honest conversation about what it means to keep growing as a musician. They reflect on their own experiences, the challenges of developing new skills, and why staying curious is such an important part of any harp journey.

From learning completely new instruments to taking regular harp lessons, they explore different ways of developing as musicians. They also discuss accountability, professional development, festivals, workshops and why experiencing life as a learner helps them better understand and support their own students.

In this episode:

• Why Heather learns a new instrument every few years

• Why Angela still has regular harp lessons

• The value of accountability in your own musical development

• Learning through festivals, workshops and new experiences

• How becoming a beginner changes your perspective as a teacher

• Why curiosity is essential for long-term musical growth

• Supporting students by continuing to grow yourself

This is a thoughtful and encouraging conversation that reminds us there is always something new to discover, whatever stage we’re at in our harp journey.

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Angela Boraston - Harp Tutor at How To Harp

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #LifelongLearning #MusicEducation

Heather chats with Gwyneth about EFT, tapping and how emotional blocks from the past can affect the way we feel, behave and make music.

They explore how tapping works, why performance anxiety can feel so powerful, and how simple emotional freedom techniques may help musicians feel calmer, freer and more confident.

In this episode:

• What EFT and tapping are

• How Gwyneth helps people get free from the past

• Why performance anxiety can be so difficult for musicians

• The story of a pianist who worked through deep performance fear

• How music can bring up emotions and memories

• The five minute tapping routine Gwyneth will be sharing in the membership

• Why Catherine recommended Gwyneth to How To Harp

• How tapping can support stress, sleep and emotional wellbeing

This is a fascinating and thoughtful conversation about performance anxiety, emotional freedom and how musicians can find more calm and confidence in themselves and their music.

Host:

Heather Downie - Harpist, Principal Lever Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Founder of How To Harp

Guest:

Gwyneth Moss - EFT and Tapping Specialist

Learn with us:

https://www.HowToHarp.com (membership, courses, retreats)

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, comment, subscribe, and share it with a harp friend. It really helps the podcast grow and helps us connect with more harpists around the world!

#HowToHarpPodcast #HowToHarp #HeatherDownieHarpist #PerformanceAnxiety #EmotionalFreedom