We just celebrated another Independence Day here in the United States and I couldn’t help carrying the celebration over into the blog.

Technical facility is one of the skills every harpist must develop and maintain. A smooth, fluid technique not only allows us to play at faster tempos, but it gives all our music expression and polish. Technique is what makes even “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” sound profound in the hands of a virtuoso.

For harpists, developing independence in the fingers is a major part of technical study. Each finger must be able to play individually and with the other fingers. It must have an equal tone as the others and be able to match them in dynamic and expression. After all, we only use eight fingers; we can’t afford to have a slacker in the bunch.

Today, I thought I would share a video lesson that I taught to the My Harp Mastery members last year around this time. It was the first of four lessons on the theme of independence for your...

Have you ever attended a big family reunion, one of those massive ones where each branch of the family tree can be identified by the color of their T-shirt? If so, you know what an adventure it can be. You discover cousins you’ve never met, maybe never even knew of. You share meals and stories, play games, look at photo albums, discover connections. Maybe you simply relax and share the moment. It’s exciting, exhilarating and sometimes exhausting.

When you leave the reunion, you go home with a collection of addresses and phone numbers, along with that special feeling of having reinforced your sense of belonging and forged new connections to your roots.

I attended one such reunion last week, only with name tags instead of T-shirts. I’m referring to the 2018 American Harp Society National Conference, held last week in Redlands, California. As I write this, I’m on the airplane on my way home from the conference, and I am moved to share with you how powerful these...

“Have harp; will travel.”

That’s my motto for most of the year. My harp and I have watched more than one odometer tip the 200,000 mile mark, and one of my cars made it over 300,000 miles. You might think my harp and I are never separated.

Nevertheless, I always have at least one vacation each year that is harp-free. I figure it’s good for both of us. He sits at home peacefully and I enjoy the beach or sightseeing or any number of activities that he wouldn’t. (Yes, my harp is a boy and his name is Eric.)

I have taken my harp on vacations from time to time. It’s lovely to relax with the harp as well as without, but I find that the break from harp playing is restorative. I am able to come back to my playing with renewed energy and purpose.

I have learned not to worry about my time away. My fingers will be rusty; Salzedo’s Conditioning Exercises are waiting for me on my music stand. My music will take some refreshing or re-learning as well, but...

It’s just a warm up routine. No big deal, right?

For most musicians most of the time, that is probably true.

But your warm up could be an agent of change in your playing, an opportunity for growth. The trick is to take the “routine” out of the warm up.

Certainly there is comfort in the habit of a warm up routine. It becomes a tripwire for focus, clearing your mind and preparing you to concentrate on the work before you. It limbers your fingers and eases them into the technical rigors of practice while giving you the opportunity to review and strengthen your technique.

So why change anything? Simply because when you introduce variety into your warm up, you open the door to growth.

Your warm up likely feels comfortable, but growth isn’t about comfort. It’s about stretching yourself, testing your limits, setting new goals. By adding just a little variety into your daily routine, you set the stage for significant progress in many areas of your playing,...

A successful musician doesn't just happen. It’s not really about innate talent, and believe it or not, it's not all about practice. It is about three specific qualities that allow a musician to be able to practice effectively, play fluently and perform confidently.

The good news is that these are all qualities that can be developed. It's not a question of having them or not. Any musician can cultivate them. 

What happens to many aspiring musicians, however, is that they become trapped. Their actions are guided by misconceptions with the result that they never experience the progress and satisfaction that they expected. Their hard work hasn't brought them any closer to their musical goal.

First, let me clarify what I mean by success in this instance. I’m not talking about professional success. In this post I’m referring to what I call “harp happiness:” playing the music you want to play the way you want to play it, with musicality, confidence and...

Do you want to improve your sight reading? Are your efforts not yielding visible results? Maybe you're going about it the wrong way.

Sight reading is an essential part of musicianship. When a musician can sight read fluently, he can learn music faster, saving practice time and developing more confidence at the same time. And while most musicians know they should be practicing sight reading, it can be difficult to know how to go about it.

One tried-and-true method is the obvious one: sight read a piece every day. Choose the pieces carefully so that they are within your ability and maintain your tempo strictly. This method only works, however, if you have been developing three underlying skills.

You see, sight reading isn't so much a skill in itself as it is a demonstration of your skill level in three key areas. The stronger your skill in these areas, the better your sight reading will be.  Conversely, if  one or more of these skills is weak, it will make fluent sight...

Band of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry

Beyond the picnics and parades, Memorial Day is a day of solemn remembrance, a day to honor those of have died in battle. It began as a way to honor those killed in the Civil War, a war which remains the costliest by far in terms of American lives lost.

It is interesting to note that while the volunteers were being mustered for service at the start of the war, regimental bands for both North and South were being created also. While some bands were formed as semi-professional groups with flashy uniforms, others were simply assembled from those volunteers who had some musical experience.

At the beginning of the war every regiment . . . had full brass bands, some of them numbering as high as fifty pieces. When it is considered that in every brigade there were from four to five regiments, three brigades in one division and three divisions in each corps, an aggregate of from thirty-six to forty bands is shown for every corps. When a division...

I used to resist practicing scales.

My teacher thought they wee important, but I just couldn’t see it. Playing music – heck, even practicing music – was so much more interesting. Plus, when I was done practicing music, I had something to show for it, a piece I could play. Who wants to listen to scales?

I had all the excuses too. And then I learned better.

If you’re reluctant to spend time and energy practicing your scales, I urge you to reconsider. All I ask is that you read the “top 10” list below and see if any of those reasons NOT to practice scales are yours. I’ve tried to provide strong evidence to help convince you to change your thinking.

And if you’re a teacher whose students struggle with scales, the list below may provide you with some extra talking points.

10. Scales are boring.

You must be practicing them incorrectly. In the words of famed flutist James Galway, “Scales played in the correct musical way are...

Are you in the technique trap?

Maybe you have managed to escape the trap, or maybe you just don’t yet know you’re in it.

What is the technique trap? It’s the practice path that turns out not to be a path at all, but a circle that leads nowhere new.

Perhaps this sounds familiar…You slog away at your technical practice – scales, exercises, etudes – with the expectation of good results. You know it will take time to develop your skills, but you have confidence that over time you will see progress. But should it really take this­ long?

Over time, that situation leads you to the next level of the trap. You still spend time at your technique practice but your heart isn’t in it. Everyone tells you that you need to do this work, but you seem to get more done when you just practice your pieces. Besides, scales and exercises aren’t real music anyway.

Or perhaps you’ve reached the lowest level of the trap, where you’ve...

Do you think you know what the essential elements of technique are?

I used to think I did. From early on in my harp studies, they were drilled into my head, if not always into my fingers; elbows, wrists in, thumbs up, etc. I learned what amounted to a complete catechism of the points of harp technique.

Lately, however, I’ve been considering technique from a wider perspective. What if technique could be described in a way that would be applicable to any musical instrument? Are there basic technical requirements, essential elements, that supersede instrument-specific points?

Assuming that the goal of any technique, no matter the instrument (and of course, this includes the voice), is to foster more adept and expressive music performance, then the aims of technical development must be identical too.

I have identified four essential elements of technique, overarching concepts that reveal the true purpose of technical study. What is interesting about them is that they are...