Practicing Harp Happiness

When my husband and I moved into our new house four years ago, we were moving from a very small house that was part of our business in the mountains to a nice, roomy house in a neighborhood. When we moved to the mountains, we had too much furniture to fit in the little house; for instance, we had dining room furniture but the house had no dining room. We had to put the furniture that wouldn’t fit in storage. 

When we moved to the bigger house, though, we were able to bring it all out again. It was a little like Christmas or at least meeting up with old friends. But there were some spaces in the new house that needed furniture that we didn’t have, and one of the things we decided we would like to get was a desk, specifically, a desk with pigeon holes for sorting papers and a lid that closed, so we didn’t have to look at those papers all the time.

Pigeonholes are great for organizing papers or mail or stamps or paperclips. They keep everything in their proper place. They keep the ri...

Today’s episode focuses on the music of harpist, singer and composer Sophia Dussek. It is partly music history, partly harp history and partly harp technique. But it’s really about connection. I want to help you feel a connection to our roots, to some of the musical and harp traditions that aren’t merely history, but are part of the fabric of our daily harp playing. 

There’s an African proverb that says,”Walk like you have 3000 ancestors walking behind you.” We harpists so often feel that we’re all alone on our journey. The truth is that we are only the newest leaves on a tree with many other branches full of other leaves, a tree whose roots were formed long ago. Every time we play, we are continuing the traditions of those harpists, so it makes sense to learn a little bit about them. The things we learn about our roots can help us connect to the music we are learning today in a deeper way.

That’s why I chose “connection” as the fifth of the five growth areas I identified in my bo...

Do you remember when you were a harp newbie? Maybe you still are, or maybe you’ve been playing for a long time and the time you were a beginner is a distant memory. That’s me, of course, I was a harp newbie a very long time ago. However, I can remember clearly the excitement I felt in my early days of harp playing.

You may have heard my harp story, but here’s the short version in case you don’t remember: Apparently, I heard the harp on the radio when I was two years old, asked my mother what it was, and told her that was what I wanted to do. I don’t remember that part, but I do remember my first harp. My parents had gotten some very good advice and started me with piano lessons when I was four, with the understanding that I could start harp lessons when I was eight years old, if I still wanted to play the harp by then. 

So - no surprise - when I was eight I got my first harp, a Lyon Healy Troubadour. I had a very high stool to sit on too. That was the beginning for me of a very lo...

What do fingers, flow and faith have to do with each other?  Absolutely everything. The three things are totally interdependent. You can think of them as three corners of a triangle, each corner being connected to each of the other corners. And, just like the legs of a three-legged stool, all three support your playing.

I’m guessing you haven’t thought of these three elements together before, or how together they form the core of your playing, so I’ll give you a quick sketch of what we’re going to talk about today. Also, I should be clear that we’re not talking about religious faith on the podcast; we’re talking about trusting yourself.

The idea is this: your technique, your fingers, produce flow and give you faith or confidence in your playing. You have to have faith in your fingers doing what you have trained them to do, because they really don’t need you to micromanage them. And you have to have faith that the flow of the piece is what you need to communicate the music. And foc...

Happy New Year! I’m excited about 2025. I’m excited about all the harp happiness that you and I can add to the world together. I’m excited about the harp goals that I am putting in place for myself this year. And I’m extra excited about the opportunity to talk with you about your goals today.

We aren’t actually going to be talking about goals as much as we will be talking about the most important step you will take toward achieving them. Of course, there are a lot of things that are important to the success of your harp goals: your motivation, your time, your choice of goals, whether or not you are working on your goals alone or with the support of a teacher or coach. But perhaps the single factor that is most important to accomplishing any type of harp goal is this: your practice. 

Without practice, your harp goal is just an idea. Practice is the engine that drives your goal. Whether you want to improve your technique, develop a repertoire, play a concert, learn to improvise, spe...

We are in the final days of 2024, and I, for one, am looking forward to the new year. Every year, as December draws to a close, I am intrigued by the mysterious possibilities that may lie ahead. What opportunities will I discover? What challenges will I need to overcome? Who will I get to meet or know better this year? I am always excited to start the new year, and I hope you are too.

I’m also setting goals for the new year, planning new projects and creating new ways to grow, not just for the harpists in our various Harp Mastery® programs but for myself as well. I have so many ideas that it’s hard to choose which are the key ones to focus on, but over the years I have found that limiting myself to a few goals is critical. If I have too many goals or plans, none of them get the focus they need. On the other hand, if I don’t plan at all, things tend to drift, and I don’t make any real progress. But once I choose my goals, I need to figure out how to accomplish them.

I have a sort o...

A special holiday music mix just for podcast listeners!

• Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming, arranged by Anne Sullivan 
• I Wonder as I Wander,  arranged by Anne Sullivan
• Ave Maria, by Franz Schubert, arranged by Anne Sullivan
• Sinfonia, from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, arranged by Anne Sullivan
• Slumber Sweet, a medley of Christmas lullabies arranged by Scott Lavender
• In Dulci Jubilo, arranged by Anne Sullivan

All harp solo selections are from my Break Forth CD.
Flute and harp selections are from the SPARX Christmas Echoes CD.
All CDs are available for digital download in our online shop.

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

• Listen to our Harpy Christmas playlist on Spotify featuring music by Anne Sullivan and other harpist performers.
• Find some great holiday sheet music or a CD in our shop.
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpm...

As you probably know, one of the reasons I started Harp Mastery® back in 2012 was because of the number of adult harp students I was meeting who were frustrated by their lack of progress. Although these harpists were at different stages and interested in varying kinds of music, what they had in common was an incredibly strong desire to play the harp, a desire that kept them practicing despite the challenges they were encountering. Although I hadn’t come up with the term “harp happiness” yet, I knew that I had to help these harpists find a path that would give them the joy and satisfaction they were looking for in their harp playing.

But years before that, I had already discovered something that shocked me about adult harp students. I had started a class for beginning harpists of any age - the classes usually had teenagers and adults - and I became intrigued by the reasons these students wanted to play the harp. Many of the adults had wanted to play the harp since they were young an...

One of the things I love about watching virtuoso artists perform is how easy they make it look. For instance, just this past summer I attended a reunion of many of us who attended the Salzedo Summer Harp Colony in Camden, Maine. One of the highlights of that weekend was a concert of music written by Carlos Salzedo, and the star performer on that concert was Judy Loman. She is in her eighties, and she walked onto the stage with as much comfort and ease as if she were in her own harp studio at home. 

One of the pieces she played was Salzedo’s Variations on a Theme in the Old Style. This is a monster piece, very long and very difficult. She told the audience how she first heard and fell in love with the piece when she was taking lessons with Salzedo in Maine in the summer as a young child - I think she was ten. As she was walking to her lessons, she heard this piece wafting from the windows of houses where other older harpists were practicing it. She asked Mr. Salzedo if she could lea...

This is the time of year when, more than any other time, it pays to be an efficient harpist. Just what do I mean by efficient? There are lots of ways we can add more efficiency to our harping, for example, practicing more efficiently. But at the holiday time, efficiency takes on a different look. 

At the holidays, we have more music we want to play, more places we want to play it, and less time to practice, let alone learn anything new. This is where a little creativity and some experimentation can help ease the crush and the rush. Specifically, I want to show you how creating variations from one piece of music can stretch your music without stretching your practice time.

Here’s a scenario that might sound familiar to you. You’ve been asked to play background music for a holiday luncheon. They want an hour of holiday music but you only have 30 minutes that you feel prepared to play. What do you do?

Well, you have several choices. You could learn new music, but you don’t have the ...