Confidence isn’t something you're born with; it’s something you build. It’s gradually formed from experience. It’s bolstered with successes and sharpened with failures. If lack of confidence is holding you back, you have the whole thing backwards.

In this episode of the show, I’ll share some of m...

Some composers change music forever, Claude Debussy was one of those. 

Debussy is generally credited with the rise of the Impressionist movement in music. The Impressionists focused on the mood and atmosphere of music, conveying it through tone color and flow, rather than sharp musical detail. 

Musicality is so much more than dynamics. It is truly our own self-expression, our individuality revealed through our music. In our role as interpreters of music written by others, we often limit ourselves to following the indications the composer has written on the page. But with so many more too...

Placing is the first thing we learn when we start playing the harp. After our first glissando, after we find middle C, our first discovery is that we must suspend our hands in mid-air and that placing is how we stay physically connected to our instrument. But placing brings its own set of challeng...

I used to worry about getting the hiccups while playing a concert. Fortunately, those hiccups never happened. But I have had plenty of musical hiccups and maybe you have too. It’s time to make our music flow.

Musical flow, or continuity,  can be hard to achieve, if you don’t know how. In this epi...

Music has the power to inspire, to encourage and to unite. No song reveals this more clearly than the one written by a Philadelphia lawyer in 1768.

“United we stand,” are words familiar to every American, but few of us know that they first appeared as lyrics of what was perhaps the first song of ...

 Have you ever thought of your music as having colors?  Or thought about a color difference between major and minor? 

Maybe to you a minor key is just another key.

But to me a minor key is so much more. As a musician, I first learned to listen critically with minor keys. As a teacher, I have see...

Do you have nothing to play except a drawerful of half-baked pieces?

You’ve practiced hard to learn your piece. Now what do you do with it, especially if you aren’t planning to perform it? Keep practicing, and if so, for how long? Put it away?

If you’ve ever wondered how to tell if your piece is...

Fast flashy scales and graceful arpeggios are one sign of a strong harp technique, but they aren’t the only indication.

In fact, even if you never expect to play fast music or super-difficult music, you need a strong technique.

Technique isn’t just for speed. For instance  if you struggle to mak...

 What’s the one piece any harpist could name after just the first two chords? It’s the Pachelbel Canon of course.

Whether you’ve played it a thousand times or have yet to learn it, the Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel has become standard repertoire for harpists. The piece has embedded itself in our...

 Every harpist wants to play well for her teacher. Somehow, though, we always find ourselves explaining that we played so much better at home.

I know; I’ve been there too. But over my years of teaching I have gathered some insights from the other side - the teacher side - that will help you under...

We harpists all have our own practice style. You might not have thought about it until you discovered some of your harp friends have very different ways of practicing. Maybe this made you wonder if you’re practicing the right way or doing it all wrong.

In today’s episode, I review the first 2 pra...