#089: Masterclass: The Tempo Pyramid

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]