Practicing Harp Happiness

How often do we say, “If I only knew then, what I know now”? Sometimes it’s about life experience, like surviving teenage drama. Sometimes it’s about turning down an opportunity, like not buying stock in Facebook before the company went big. 

Obviously, we aren’t able to go back in time and really have a “do over.”  I imagine that if we could, It’s more than possible that the result wouldn’t be what we expect. We can never know how our world would have been altered, if we’d taken the other fork in the road. We can only guess. 

Here’s my “if I only knew then” statement for today: If I only knew as a young harp student what I know now as a harp teacher. The fact behind this is key. The fact is that everything I learned about being a good student, I learned from trying to be a good teacher. If I had known as a student even half of what I’ve learned through my teaching, my harp life might have been so much easier. 

Most teachers of any subject will tell you how much they learn from t...

Mirror, mirror on the wall. If only my mirror could show me all.

We humans love our mirrors. At some deep-rooted level, we love to see ourselves. Maybe you remember the famous scene in the movie Lawrence of Arabia when Peter O’Toole playing Lawrence first puts on the white Arab robes and headdress. He is for the moment all by himself in the desert, so there is no dialogue. According to the film’s director, David Lean, the only instruction he gave O’Toole was to improvise what this young man Lawrence might have done in this situation.

O’Toole experiments with the sweep of his robes by running and spinning, feeling the gleaming white cloth swirl about him. Then he stops, and with no mirror to hand in the desert, takes out his shiny silver dagger from his belt and tries to use it as a mirror to see how he looks. David Lean remembers remarking under his breath during the filming, “Clever boy!” 

Looking into a mirror, though, only gives us a limited perspective. We can only see what i...

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 the World Harp Congress and nurtured a global community of harpists, uniting people across continents through music.

But her story is more than a list of titles and accomplishments. It’s about the way she created a sense of belonging — for every harpist, no matter your style or skill level. Whether you play concert halls or in your living room, her influence has touched you. And today, we’ll celebr...

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 automatically mean it is.

In harp practice, this same principle applies. That little stumble in a piece might not be a sign of backsliding. It could mean you're playing at a higher level and noticing subtleties you didn’t even hear before.

Consider this: I was deadheading flowers in the garden the other day. At first, I only saw a few to snip. But as I trimmed those, more and more faded blooms seemed t...

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 personally, not as a reflection on them, but as a mission that mattered to them because my music mattered to me.

It would be easy to say that they were the inspirations for my own teaching path, but truly, the path itself showed up more or less by accident. But as is the case with so many blessings, it showed up when I needed it and led me in directions I could never have expected. At each step a...

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 every episode, Mike would have to make a hasty ascent from the depths, which he would attempt to time carefully to avoid “the bends,” a potentially fatal condition more formally called decompression sickness. On occasion. Mike would have to spend time in a decompression chamber. 

Watching this as a child, I was fascinated by the danger of too hasty a return to the surface. On the one hand, Mike would be running out ...

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 don’t work on the harp. Take the “1812 Overture,” for example. This piece was written by Tchaikovsky to commemorate Russia’s victory over Napoleon. It’s 15 minutes long, It requires a full symphony orchestra (minus a harp), an additional brass band, a bell carillon and a battery of cannons - yes, cannons. How could a single harp play a meaningful rendition of this monster work? You could play some of the themes f...

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, 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 skil...

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 looking through the stacks, I thought maybe I could give you some ideas of pieces that might fit your summertime mood. Or if it’s not summer weather for you right now, maybe these pieces will add some sunshine to your harp playing. 

Some of these are classics from the harp repertoire or classic transcriptions for harp. Others are newer compositions you may not know. I’ve thrown in a couple popular music selectio...

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. She was making a concert dress for me, and I was excited to watch her start on it while I could watch. What turned out to be an even bigger thrill was to see that instead of painstakingly pinning the pattern onto the cloth, the way I learned in Home Ec class, she just laid a few weights on the pattern to hold it lightly in place and cut around it. What a shortcut and a timesaver! And why had I never though...