Practicing Harp Happiness

Do you review your pieces? If you don’t review your pieces regularly, then keep listening because today we are going to explore the different reasons you might want to start and a few different methods for review you might want to try.

But here’s the thing; if I asked a dozen harpists who say they review their pieces how they do their review, I will get a dozen different answers. Some people schedule it; others set a rotation. Some people do both. Some harpists are trying to develop a repertoire list of music they can play at a moment’s notice. Others are trying to keep the last piece they learned in their fingers. (By the way, we’ll talk today about what that phrase, “in your fingers,” means. ) 

I last talked about review on this podcast in episode 99. That episode is called “The Shortcut Way To Build And Maintain A Repertoire.” In that episode I outline some step-by-step frameworks to grow your repertoire with simple review tactics. I have linked directly to that episode in the ...

My harp background is in the Salzedo method. This is the technique method devised and taught by legendary harpist Carlos Salzedo. It was at the time, the early part of the twentieth century, a startlingly different concept of harp playing and harp technique and the aim was to bring the harp into the modern world. The aesthetic of the method varied in almost every way possible from the French tradition in which Salzedo was trained. 

But we aren’t discussing physical technique today. We are discussing practice technique, one practice technique in particular: slow practice. Please understand that slow practice has always been a part of harp studies and for very good reasons, which we will discuss shortly. Salzedo, however, was known for teaching his students to practice slowly and loudly.

I need to quickly add a couple of disclaimers. First, the loud and slow practice attributed to the Salzedo method is a broad statement, and as such, is not completely accurate. Second, and more impo...

Here’s a question we’ve probably all wondered about at some point: am I practicing enough? 

As a teacher, I can tell you that my experience has demonstrated that if a harpist - and this includes me - has to ask the question, the answer is probably no, you’re not practicing enough. But of course, the real answer is likely a little more complicated. It depends on what you’re trying to do.

On the light end of the practice spectrum, if you’re just trying to keep the rust off either your fingers or your pieces, you probably only need a few minutes each day. On the other end, if your ambition is to learn a piece or stretch your technique or develop a skill, you are going to need more time. I know it would be helpful to know exactly how much time you’re going to need, but coming up with a number would just be guessing. 

Even so, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some factors that can guide you that will keep you from overworking yourself or underutilizing your time. Simply put, your goal i...

How do you measure something that is unmeasurable? How do you quantify something that can’t be contained or counted? How do you assess something that is completely subjective? You might think you can’t, but yet, that’s what we attempt to do every day in our practice.

We try to gauge our progress. We try to determine exactly when a piece is “finished.” Exact measurements aren’t possible in music. We can’t time our progress. “This piece will take exactly 37 days to learn to the degree of polish that I personally want.” If only we could have that degree of certainty, the whole practice thing would be so much easier.

I realize I am guilty of perpetuating this unreality. I often use notional percentages to represent stages of “finish” for a piece. For instance, I’ll call a piece 80% done if I can play most of the notes correctly most of the time at a tempo that’s at least 80% of my goal tempo. It’s hardly scientific, but it gives me and my students a way to judge where we are on our jo...

The day this podcast episode is released, we will be living Day 55 of this year 2025. According to the calendar, we’ve already had 55 days this year to get things done, to grow, to accomplish. We’ve had 55 days to play the harp.

If you set goals at the beginning of the year, this is a good time to check in on them. Are you where you thought you’d be? Are you ahead of the game, checking things off your list and moving on to your next steps? If you are, here’s a huge high five from me. That’s the way to create harp happiness.

Today we are going to revisit your goals. We’ll look at how far you’ve come, confirm your direction and realign your course if necessary. We will focus on the progress you’ve been making and where your next steps may be.

But if you haven’t seen the progress you had hoped for or expected, no worries. Progress is tricky to measure and sometimes hard to spot, even when it’s happening. When you’re walking the path, you can’t always tell how far you’ve come or how ...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...