Practicing Harp Happiness

Music is not a numbers game. You can’t quantify a moving performance or a composition with statistics like a batting average. You can’t predict how many minutes, hours, weeks or months it will take to be able to play a certain piece fluently. A player's skill isn’t solely a result of how old they are or how many years they’ve been playing. Those kinds of numbers aren’t relevant in the music world.

There are numbers that have great significance to us as musicians and harpists. Some are meaningful dates in music history, like the birth and death dates of important composers. Some numbers are important for what they represent. I’m thinking of the Roman numerals we use to describe chords and chord progressions, like a I-IV-V-I progression. Other numbers are even more practical, such as numbers for fingering. And then there are those numbers that are at the heart of our discussion today, the numbers in the time signature.

You know the numbers I mean; the numbers that look like fractions (but aren’t) at the beginning of nearly every piece, and sometimes in the middle. We call them the time signature or more technically, the meter signature, and although they are vitally important to our understanding of a piece, they are frequently overlooked. It’s not exactly that we don’t notice them or understand them. It’s simply that we discount their significance. That’s a hazardous habit.

The meter signature is our key to the organization and underlying rhythmic structure of the piece. It allows us as we learn a piece to put meaning into the notes, and our understanding of the meter allows a listener to make sense of the piece as they hear it. It’s the single most important factor in creating musical flow.

There’s a simple way to develop mastery of the meter signature. It’s likely that you do this already, but perhaps without the level of intention that I want to share with you today. Or perhaps you avoid this completely, either because it seems too difficult or you don’t see the point. If that’s the case for you, I’m hoping to change your mind today. And I’m bringing out my most persuasive ideas because I think I may have an uphill battle ahead of me. Why? Because I want you to count aloud.

Yep. I heard you groan from here. Yes, those groans travel through the air waves, my friend. I understand. As a young student, I hated counting aloud and thought it was a special form of torture my teacher had devised specially for me. But my attitude changed completely as I became a more mature musician, and I’d love to help change your attitude about counting aloud too. 

If you’re already convinced, that’s great. Stick with me, though, because I have some why’s, how’s and wherefore’s that will take your counting to the next level. If you’re a counting skeptic, stick with me too, because I want to try to change your mind and your music.

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

• Join the Live Podcast Taping on April 11
• Related resource Three Things Your Metronome Can’t Do For You blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-097

Playing hands together is a topic of constant concern and endless discussion for harpists. When should you start playing hands together? Should you learn a piece hands separately first? How do you begin putting the hands together? And the most frequently asked question: why isn’t hands together working for me? As much as we debate the other questions, this last one is the hardest of all to answer.

One of the more common problems in playing hands together is one I call the “left hand lag.” The left hand lag happens when your hands are playing together sort of, but your left hand seems to be taking too much time to find the strings it needs to play. It’s not a left hand issue; your left hand plays perfectly when it plays by itself. But when you play the hands together, your left hand seems to be behind the beat. It causes hesitations that interrupt the flow of the rhythm and slow everything down. 

Your teacher’s first response is likely that you need to read ahead for your left hand. Certainly most of my students have heard that from me, and probably more than once. But is it really a reading ahead issue? Or should we be looking elsewhere for a solution? At the very least, we need some more practical strategies to offer, ones that provide a way to actually practice gathering the information we need quickly so we can play the right notes at the right time.

Fortunately, we know the place to look for the answer. At the root of the problem, there is a coordination issue. Our hands aren’t working in sync, or our reading isn’t coordinated with the hands, or possibly both. So on this podcast episode, I’m going to share a checklist-type approach to finding where the specific issue may lie for you in any particular passage, whether it’s in the physical coordination or the reading coordination, or maybe both. 

Here’s a quote which I chose to inspire us as we work through this challenging topic today:

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. - Edward Everett Hale, American clergyman (1822-1909)

Today we can make at least a beginning with the idea that progress and success, and fluent hands together playing are not far off.

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

• Hub Challenge: One Small Step series
• Related resource Why Hands Together Doesn’t Work blog post
• Putting Hands Together YouTube video
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-096

We all know that making music is more than playing the right notes at the right time. It’s about the heart and soul of the music, the feeling we put into it and the feeling that we communicate through it. Unfortunately, no matter how much feeling we put into the music, the actual communication of that feeling relies on our technique. It’s one of those apparent paradoxes in music study. The beauty of your music depends on the fluency of your technical performance, but a technically perfect performance may or may not be a beautiful one.

So we spend, or should be spending, a significant proportion of our practice time strengthening and securing our technical skills. We practice the notes of our pieces slowly and correctly. But often we still miss the connection between slow, technically careful playing and the facility we need to let our music flow. That connection, the missing link between slow and correct and fluid and musical, is what we will be talking about today.

Here’s the thing: basic technique patterns are exactly that…basic. Don’t get me wrong; they’re important, even vital, for your harp playing. Those fundamental skills like scales, intervals, chords and arpeggios are the bedrock for every harpist’s technique. Practicing these patterns is not optional. The great harpists of every generation have advocated them. I myself practice them every day. 

But by themselves, those patterns aren’t enough to make your technique everything you want it to be, particularly if what you want your technique to be is fluid, flashy and…dare I say it…fast.

There are four important ingredients in the recipe for creating flexible, facile fingers, ones that do your bidding instead of slowing your music down. It’s likely that these aren’t things you consider in your technique practice; in fact, you may never even have thought of them as skills you could or should practice. But I promise you, they will help you focus less on your fingers and more on the music each time you play. And if you want to pick up the tempo for a piece, these strategies will help your fingers play faster too. 

Just to pique your interest a little, I will tell you that our discussion will begin with my three-word phrase that is the guiding principle for finger facility. That’s right - just three words that may totally change your thinking about what your technique work needs to do for you and your fingers.

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

• For more on this topic, review podcast episode 64: Spice Up Your Scales for Technique, Flexibility and Speed 
• Download the Scale Fingering Refresher PDF  
• Are you in the Hub? Join the conversation in our free community.
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-095

If you’re into computer games, you know it’s all about getting to the next level.

Even if you’re not into computer games, you probably know what I mean. Many computer games are built in levels and moving to the next higher level requires the player to complete certain tasks or amass a specific number of treasures or experience points. Until you can complete all the tasks, find all the treasure and do it in the time allotted without using up all your game “lives” in the process, you can’t move on. You’re stuck at that level.

Lots of gamers, I might even venture to say most gamers, get a little obsessed in the attempt to move up. They play the game over and over again, looking for the secret sequence or hidden treasure that will give them access to the next level. What I find interesting about this phenomenon is that it is so similar to getting to the next level in harp playing.

I know you didn’t think you had much in common with gamers, but you might want to think again. Both are solitary pursuits which require determination and focus. Success is exhilarating; a lack of progress is frustrating. And there’s always that next level.

One advantage I see for gamers is that eventually you can win the game. There is a final level that when you conquer it, makes you indisputably a master of the game. Music doesn’t have an end point built into it. There is always a next level.

On today’s show I’m going to share with you my ideas on the skills you need to “level up” in your harp playing. Similar to a computer game, each major advancement in your harp study will involve conquering key skills and just like in a game, until you master those skills, you can’t move on successfully. Unlike a computer game, though, you can try to move on, but you will find that progress is discouragingly slow. 

But if you know what key skills you need for that next level, you can forget the frustration and move up more quickly. 

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

• Join the Harp Mastery® Hub "One Smal Step" challenge.
• Related resource Teach Your Fingers to Do Your Bidding blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-094

To paraphrase the 17h century English poet Andrew Marvell,“Had we but world enough and time,This scattered practice were no crime.”

Andrew Marvell was referring to “His Coy Mistress,” but we might well apply these lines to the kind of practice we so often find ourselves engaged in. It’s not that we don’t have goals or that we lack the ambition to improve and grow. It’s just that there is so much wonderful music in the world and we want to play it all. It’s a big feasting table and our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, or in this case, our collection of music we want to learn far exceeds our available time to learn it.

It wasn’t quite so difficult when we had no YouTube, no Instagram and no TikTok to bombard us with videos that make us musically hungry. Instant sheet music downloads are a threat to our practice capacity as well. When we had to leaf through a paper catalog of music and order an expensive book that may take days to arrive, we gave the purchase a little more consideration. Now everything is just a click away. We watch our pile of music we want to play burgeon at the same time that our available practice shrinks. Quite the dilemma for those of us who don’t have “world enough and time.”

If you are one of those harpists - and who isn’t? - who finds it challenging to finish pieces and make the progress you want because there are so many pieces you want to play and not enough time to play them all, then today’s podcast is one you need to hear.

I promise you this won’t be a lecture on delayed gratification. It’s not a diet plan for us music gluttons. It’s a little more like an “eat your cake and have it too” strategy.

There are three keys to practice success and I’m sure you know what they are: consistency, time and focus. The most important of the three is consistency, of course. Simply playing something every day is where harp happiness starts. If you put more time into it, naturally, you will be able to make more progress. And if you focus your work during that time, that’s where you start actually seeing results. But when your time is limited and your focus is using the panoramic lens rather than the super close up focus, your progress will slow considerably. Unless you learn some strategies for prioritizing your practice. And that’s our laser focus today.

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

• Join the new challenge in the Harp Mastery® Hub. 
• Related resource Not Getting Things Done? 8 Steps to Making It Happen blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-093

Welcome to a “quick fix” episode of the podcast. I love these episodes because I get to teach at the harp, which is just about my favorite thing. Actually, playing music on the harp would be my favorite, but this runs a pretty close second. 

Today’s quick fix is for rolled chords. Rolled chords are one of the most distinctive sounds of the harp, and they are one of our most versatile expressive tools. They can be rolled crisply with lots of energy, or they can be lush and luxurious, almost like musical dark chocolate. But they can be tricky to play well.

We’re going to cover the three most critical factors of rolling chords on this episode: the actual technique of rolling chords, how to get them to fit into your piece and not slow down the tempo, and how to practice the rolls so your fingers sound even and smooth. That’s a lot to do in one podcast show so we had better get started. If you are by your harp you might find it helpful to try these techniques as I talk about them. If you’re at work or in the car, you can get the concepts now and listen again later when you can play with me.

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

• Podcast Episode # 39: Love Your Chords! 3 Ways To Make Them Lush and Lovely
• Related resource Essential Chord Techniques blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-092

As this podcast is released, it is the day before Valentine’s Day, and whether you celebrate the day in a special way or not, it’s hard to escape the advertisements urging us to buy and send cards, candy and flowers. I think, though, that we harpists have a special role to play, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day. 

Music, love and romance are inseparable for most of us. We have our special songs that bind us to those we love. There are certain pieces of music that tug at our hearts and move us to barely expressible joy or tears. In the words of virtuoso cellist Pablo Casals,  “Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”

And what instrument is more appropriate than the harp to be the voice of those beautiful, poetic things? In the Bible, we read how David soothed Saul with his harp music. Folk traditions the world over associate the harp with love. In early  Norse and various Celtic traditions, the harp was a symbol of love, and its strings represented a mystic bridge between heaven and earth by which one could ascend to higher levels of love. The men and women who play the harps in legends from every corner of the world are brave and courageous heroes whose music wins the freedom and the hearts of those they love. 

History aside, I imagine you feel as I do, that the harp is the quintessential instrument of romance. Harp music encompasses a wide variety of styles, certainly, but the beauty of its rippling arpeggios, lush chords and warm, liquid tone are undeniably magical.

Today our conversation is about romantic music. I’ll give you some insights about what music historians mean by the term “Romantic music,” which may not be what you think of as romantic music. We’ll also talk about romantic harp music, the composers who wrote it historically and the romantic-feeling music we love to play, no matter when it was written. I’ll even play a little for you. Plus I’ll share some of the techniques you’ll want to use to make your music more flowing, magical and, well, romantic.

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

• Join the free Harp Mastery® Hub for harp conversation and inspiration.
• Related resource Take a Musical Gondola Ride: Play a Barcarolle blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-091

By the beginning of February, I’m done with winter. The holiday playing is long over; spring is still weeks away, no matter what the groundhog said. I’m feeling the winter blahs, and not just in the day-to-day things. This is the time of year when my practice can suffer from the blahs too.

Have you ever noticed how when you have important things to practice for, you enjoy your practice more? You have more energy for it, because there’s a good reason to practice. It’s never a struggle to practice when you have a lesson or a performance coming up. But it can be hard to drag yourself to the harp bench if there’s nothing on the calendar. If you have nothing to practice for, it’s quite possible you have no energy for practice.

Practice is certainly easier to do when you know you simply have to practice. But what if you don’t have to practice? How do you stay motivated and energized?

The simple answer is that you might not be able to stay motivated. Motivation requires us to expend energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere. 

I’m going to say something that may shock you, or at least surprise you a little. I’m actually going to give you permission to NOT practice. That sounds like a radical idea, I know, but it’s a valid technique. When you’re not feeling it, maybe you shouldn’t do it. However, let me quickly add that there is a right way and about a million wrong ways to skip your practice, and the wrong ways won’t help you. You’ll end up out of shape, feeling guilty and miserable, kind of like when you binge on chocolate fudge and potato chips and have to wear your stretchy pants.

No, what we’re going to discuss today is motivation and where it comes from, plus what to do when you don’t feel motivated. I have five easy ways to pump up your practice energy and at least four of them are fun. The fourth one might be fun too; you ‘ll have to decide that for yourself.

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

• Last Call for the 5 Days to Freedom Intensive
• Related resource Do You Need a Reason to Practice? 3 Ways to Find One blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected] 

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-090

Today’s episode is another in our series of masterclasses, our podcast at-the-harp workshops where you can follow along with me as we do a deep dive into a vital aspect of technique or musicianship.

In this masterclass, we’ll be working on my tempo pyramid. Over the years, I have had lots of requests for reviewing my system for working a piece or a passage so that it actually gets up to tempo. This system is what I call the tempo pyramid and although the concept is fairly simple, it will definitely help you to try it out step by step with me. I won’t just walk you through the pyramid, but I’ll give you some of my bonus tips that will make it even simpler and faster. And faster is our whole focus today: getting the whole piece faster and closer to tempo, making that one difficult passage as fast as the rest of the piece, letting your fingers move faster and with more agility and security.

It’s a lot to do in one podcast episode so we need to get started. By the way, in our show notes, there is a link to a PDF of the tempo pyramid that is free for you to download. If you don’t see the show notes in your podcast app, you can find it on the podcast page at harpmastery.com. Just look for Episode 89, scroll down the page and you’ll see the show notes.

One more thing: If you’re listening to this while you’re running or driving in the car, keep listening. You’ll be able to follow along and get a good understanding of the concepts. You can come back to this episode later when you’re at your harp and play along with me.

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

• 5 Days of Freedom Intensive
• The Tempo Pyramid Free PDF
• Related resource Agility for Your Fingers: the Pronking Approach blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-089

We call them lightbulb moments, those unpredictable flashes of brilliance that spark our creativity. Or perhaps our inspiration comes from others we admire. Common thought says inspiration is necessary for anyone in an artistic endeavor, yet we believe it is elusive and selective, showing up randomly and bestowing its gifts unequally.

What does inspiration mean to you? Is it outside you, meaning that something or someone inspires you in a certain way? Or is it inside you, meaning that our inner lightbulb has a secret switch that suddenly flips and makes that lightbulb moment? Both? Neither?

Music history is filled with stories of inspiration, particularly stories about musical mentors who have helped shape the careers of some of the most famous classical musicians. From the greats like Mozart and Beethoven to modern composers like John Williams and Leonard Bernstein, these mentors have passed down their knowledge and expertise to generations of aspiring musicians.

If you look at harp history in particular, you can find countless instances of composers who wrote for harp because their wife, mother or other loved one played the harp. One of my favorite composer-performer pairs is the French harpist Micheline Kahn and her son composer Jean-Michel Damase. Damase told of his early musical education coming from sitting outside his mother’s teaching studio. He learned the language of music through the repertoire of the harp. He clearly learned it well, as evidenced in the numerous and mostly very difficult pieces he wrote for the harp.

Of course, Micheline Kahn inspired other composers too, and she premiered many of the works that we now consider pillars of the concert harp repertoire, pieces like the Impromptu by Gabriel Fauré as well as his Une châtelaine en sa tour,  Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, and Caplet’s Deux Divertissements and Conte Fantastique.

In today's episode, I’m going to share my ideas and my musings about inspiration. (Oh yes, we’ll talk a little about those fickle Greek Muses, too.) I will discuss some powerful sources of inspiration that you have available to you and how you can harness that creative energy to add growth, interest and fun to your harp journey.

Why should we care about inspiration? Does inspiration really matter if we’re just normal everyday kind of people and not aspiring to be musical geniuses? Yes, it matters a great deal. Inspiration is what fires our imagination, propels us to achieve and accomplish. Inspiration is what keeps us going when the work is hard. Without inspiration, music would be dull and meaningless, and who wants that? So let’s be sure we know where to find it and how to use it.

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

• Creating Harp Freedom Webinar 
• Related resource A Harpist of Firsts: Micheline Kahn blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at [email protected]

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-088