7 Ways to Prepare Holiday Music Now (Without Having to Practice Jingle Bells Again) - PHH 114

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Welcome to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I'm Ann Sullivan, a harpist on a mission to empower every harpist to experience more harp happiness. Over my decades long harp journey, I've had lots of successes and more than a few failures. And I know firsthand what it's like to feel that playing the harp the way you want may not be possible for you. Now, I play and teach all over the world, and I know what most harpists are never taught the secrets to gaining the skills and confidence you need to play the harp with beauty, freedom and joy. That's what the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast is all about, showing you simple steps to help you play the music you want the way you want. If you're an experienced harpist looking for that next level, or a harp newbie anxious to avoid the pitfalls, or a harpist who just wants more fulfillment and a little encouragement, you're in the right place, my friend. So let's get started. Welcome to the show. Christmas in July has become a thing the official story is that Christmas in July was first celebrated at a summer camp in Brevard, North Carolina in 1933. Being a classic film fan, I knew that Christmas in July was already popular by 1940 due to the film with that title. But now July is nearly as popular for Christmas as December, and I'm beginning to think that we will soon see stores moving their Christmas sales from August into July. Of course, for us harpists, summer is a great time to pull out that Christmas repertoire. In the slower days of summer, we can dedicate some practice time to refreshing and renewing our holiday hits list. But you don't have to immerse yourself in Winter Wonderland and Jingle Bells or even Silent Night to put a little Christmas into your summer. Now, if you're the type who loves holiday music, then by all means dive in with extra mistletoe and holly. But if you're not ready to surrender your summer harp playing to away in a manger for even a week or two, there are still some things you can do now you to ease your holiday workload when Christmas in December rolls around. Depending on your personal preference, you can geek out on the Musical Gingerbread or play the Christmas in July Grinch in style. So get ready to discover some fun ways to put some holiday sparkle in your summer without having to only practice all your holiday music. After all, summertime's a nice piece to play, too. I have to take a moment, though, to tell you how much fun my summer Sizzler camps have been. We've had Two of them. So far. We've had our practice camp and our technique camp, and we're coming up on our finish camp. Now, don't get the wrong idea about these camps. They're essentially 90 minute workshops, but I do my best to make them fun. We start with a warm up and we have a little second heart part to that warm up. So it's kind of like a little virtual ensemble. And there's of course, a lot of learning which we're calling circle time. You remember camp? Did you have circle time? We actually have a game and we have a little bit of a craft. Granted, it's not, you know, it's a craft that we do quickly and online. So it's. It's a little bit funny. You. But you don't have to worry. You don't have to be talented or artistic to do these crafts, because I'm not. But then we also have a little campfire song. We, you know, we do our best to make it fun, but they are really powerful, they're really impactful. And, you know, when I published the camps and put them out there in the world for the first time, the idea was you could register for all three camps and you could do that at a discount, or you could just pick and choose the camp you wanted to go to. And so we've had quite a number of people who just picked up on that single camp thinking, okay, all I want is the practice part, all I want is the technique part, or all I want is the finish part. And that's fine because at $27, you really can't go wrong, right? I mean, that's such a minimal investment. But they get in there and they discover how much stuff there is and they're thinking, well, gosh, I, you know, I wish I hadn't missed out on the earlier camp or how can I get in on the other camps? So let me just be really clear about how we've done this for you so that you don't miss out, because I hate missing out on stuff. So the other camps that have already happened, you can still access them. We have the replays. And I did that same workshop twice. We do each workshop twice on a single day, twice live, so that you can attend either or both. But both of those calls are recorded and the recordings are available. In fact, those recordings will be available all the way through the month of September to the end, end of September, so that, you know, if you're on vacation and you say, well, I don't have enough time to do it, now you will have time because it's going to be available all the way to the end of September. So don't feel that, you know, you have to miss out just because you're away. But we've had so many people ask about getting in on those other camps. We have a way to do that. We have a way. You can still opt into the camps that you've been missing or you can register for all three if you haven't been at any of them. But, but I have to tell you that the people who have attended these first two camps always come away. They tell me they come away with some nuggets, right? And you know, that's really what you need. These are, you know, topics that we talk about all the time here on the podcast and in my heart mastery and in my courses, all that kind of stuff. But these are slightly different ways of looking at things and hopefully this will give you some additional insights and a different way to look at what you are doing. So we have finish camp coming up live on August 2nd and you can go ahead and register for that now and still get in live, which is terrific because it's more fun live than watching the recording. So you can do that. We've put the link in the show notes or you can go right to heartmastery.com and you'll find it there in upcoming events. I urge you to take advantage of this. It's the, it's a really good, great workshop. They're fun, but they're filled with really great information. And they're so inexpensive at $27, really, you know, so practically a cup of coffee anymore, right? So do check that out. If you don't want to do it, that's fine, but I really didn't want you to miss out. So finish camp is coming up and we have one more thing coming up. If you are one of those last minute planners, we still have a spot or two at the retreat. So I would urge you to join us there if you can. You can still get in and get that, get that done. So if you're looking for that last minute harp getaway, the retreat is August 13th to 17th and it's in the beautiful mountains of East Tennessee. We have a beautiful lodge overlooking a lake. We've got, you know, it's got two hot tubs in this lodge. I don't know that I'll have time to get in, but it's just a beautiful place to be and you know, a nice small group to work with. You get nice, terrific individual attention from me and from one of our certified coaches. Coach Candice Lark will be joining me at this retreat and so we'll be having a great time getting a lot of harp time in. And that's, you know, that's a vacation for me and I hope it's a vacation for you too. Just time you, your harp and a lot of other, well, a few other people anyway, who enjoy doing the same thing. So you can find all that information under upcoming events on the harpmastery.com website and I would urge you to take advantage of that. As I said, you know, maybe you're one of those last minute planners. You have a few days in your schedule. I will tell you we do not have any more rental harps available, so you would need to bring your harp. But you know, lever harps are fine. So you can come with a small harp and still get all the benefit from the retreat that you can. So there's that. So important things that I needed to share. But now let's start talking about Christmas. So, you know, start thinking snow and jingle bells and, you know, mistletoe, holly, all that good stuff. Or maybe not, maybe that's not what you want. But what I have to talk to you about now to share with you seven ways that you can add that holiday happiness to your practice this summer in really interesting ways, more than just reviewing all your holiday repertoire. So if you're ready, we're going to dive right in. I have a musician friend, a very good colleague and, and we have worked together for years and I know her very well and know that one of the kinds of music she really doesn't like to play is Christmas music. It just kind of gets on her nerves. And I think that it's just because we get inundated with it, right? It starts in the stores in the summertime. Here we are in July talking about it and it starts early and it just goes on and on. And you know, some of the holiday music is beautiful and moving and some of it is really fun and also well crafted. But some of it is just, you know, grandma got knocked over by a reindeer or run over by a reindeer or whatever that tune is, you know, and it's just not what you want to hear. So she really doesn't enjoy playing Christmas music. And certainly she would be one who, who would never want to be practicing Christmas music in the summer. It's just not her thing. And maybe it's not your thing either. I know for some people, Christmas music is fun any time of year and they love to get it out and play it, and it's just a joy, and that's terrific. And so for those people, you know, get out that holiday repertoire and all those things that go with it. Work on your, you know, work polishing up, do the sets, do. Get everything all polished up and ready, and then you can put it away and it'll be all shiny when you're ready to take it out in the actual holiday season. But if you're not that type, if you're like, oh, please, the last thing I want is to work on my Christmas music right now. But you still want to be ready because you know you're going to need to play it. And you might even enjoy playing it in November and December, right? So this is, you know, you can get ready, you can be thinking about it. You can get. Get your holiday act in gear enough without doing that kind of practice. That's what we're talking about today. And so there are seven steps. Some of them, you don't have to do all the steps. That's not my intention. But there are seven different ways you can look at your Christmas music. Think about Christmas that may be more interesting to you or certainly more approachable. That's what we're talking about today. And even if you're the type who really likes to just, you know, go all out with their Christmas music 12 months of the year, some of these will still add some interest to what you're doing with your Christmas music. At least I hope they will. Now, the first one is the easiest one. And if you need that low barrier to entry with your holiday music, this is the one for you. And it's simply to organize. You don't even have to do any playing here. Just get out that music. Because you know, what you did with your music last year, right, when Christmas was over, you took all that music and you threw it back in the drawer or in the box or in the closet, and it's in a big pile because you were way too tired to sort through it all. At least that's what I have always done. When I'm done with the holidays, I'm done. Maybe you're the more organized sort that says, okay, well, I'll put everything away exactly the way I want it for next year. I love you, but I'm not you. So if. If you're that person, you can skip this one. But if you're the rest of us mere mortals, if you're one of those types, then this is a great time to pull out that pile that you threw in the closet last December. You get it out, sort through it. Think, I loved playing this. I hated playing this. I would encourage you to make three piles. One that's a ditch pile, one that's a keep pile, right? I, I, I want to ditch this. Not maybe that you want to get rid of it forever, but like, I, I don't want to play that this year. This I'm just putting aside. Maybe you've, you know, maybe you had a year last year where you had to play oh Holy Night everywhere you went, and you're going to try to avoid it this year. Perfect. You can put that in the ditch, at least ditch for now. Pile, not playing. And then you've got your keep pile. The ones your tried and true pieces, the ones you love to play. You can play them easily. You want to play them. There's your keep pile, and then there's going to be a third pile, right? Because you've got the pieces that you played a lot, the pieces that you played too much, and then you've got those pieces that you bought. Thinking someday I would like to add these. So you've got three piles now. You've got the ditch pile, the keep pile, and you're going to have an add pile. And you may want to, you can just keep your ad pile the way it is and think about that later. But you might want to go through that ad pile and pick out a handful of pieces that are going to be in this year's ad pile. Then you can put your ditch pile back at the bottom of your stack in the closet. Then put the add music that you're not going to add this year on top of that and maybe put a little divider there, you know, piece of cardboard, something simple, right? Then put your keep pile on top of that and your new pieces on top of your keep pile. So that when the end of October maybe or the beginning of November rolls around and you're thinking, it's time for me to look at this music, you only have to look at what's above that divider. You've got your keep pile, you've got the pieces you wanted to add, and you're ready to go. So organizing, sorting, all that good stuff, that's a terrific thing to do right now. And you don't even have to play any of it. Easy peasy, right? All right, well, let's get into some that involve your harp a little bit more. So here's one that can be just kind of fun. Take your favorite Christmas piece, the one you actually like to play and start using it as a warmup or just something fun to play anytime, right? So we're going to choose one and make it a warmup.

And I wouldn't practice it, you know, you don't have to practice. You can just use it as a warm up. I'll tell you what I do each summer.

I like to use and get out the Salzato Variations on Otanenbaum. And this is a habit that started when I was at harp camp in Camden, Maine. This was a piece that was assigned to me for my lessons that summer. And it felt kind of funny at first playing Otanenbaum in the middle of a heat wave in July or August. But soon I realized that, gosh, it was kind of fun. And for me, those variations are great technical warm up. They're always fun. And this is a piece I can use as an encore piece all through Christmas. I love to play it. It's not a problem. And I get to use it as a technical kind of a thing. So those Otanenbaum variations, my go to summer Christmas piece. And they show up some at some point on my music stand every summer. So if you have a piece like that, that would be a great thing to add. But just having one that you use as a warmup and you can trade it out, right? Use one as a warmup this week. Then if you have a different favorite, you can pull that out and use it as a warmup next week. You don't have to practice everything. But just refreshing some of that music in your fingers is kind of a nice thing. But you don't have to do that. What you could do, here's tip number three is to take one of those pieces from your ad pile or one of those pieces from your wish list, right? Like some year I'm going to really learn this and start it as a new piece. Start it, learn one. You don't have to bring out your whole Christmas repertoire again. But take that, that piece that you really want to play. I've always wanted to learn this person's arrangement of this particular Christmas song. Well, do it. This is your time. And lots of times in the summer we have sort of, you know, more flexible goals. We're not as driven to do something, and that can be really hard as far as keeping your practice momentum up. So if you have something new that is interesting to you that you want to work on, this is a great way to just give you that extra little nudge to get to the harp and Do a little bit of practice. So take one of those Christmas pieces you've always wanted to learn and do something new. All right, now we're going to get into some really interesting ones. Are you ready? All right. For tip number four, you could write your own Christmas arrangement. Ooh. Choose your favorite Christmas tune. Maybe it's Silent Night. Maybe it's, you know, I don't know, Frosty the Snowman. Maybe it's Jingle Bells. Maybe it's Something else entirely, Mr. Santa, I don't know. But choose a piece that you love.

And write your own arrangement. You've never written your own arrangement before. Well, then this is the time. So what you can do is find a couple of arrangements of that tune that are close. Maybe sometimes, if you can't find a harp version of it that you like, an easy piano version can be a good place to start and then gussy it up. You need some more chords, you need some bigger chords. Maybe some arpeggios, a glissando or two. Maybe some harmonics will add some color. Think about the things you can add to make it special in a way that is just right for the way you've always wanted to hear that song. So this isn't just about preparing for Christmas, is it? This is a Christmas theme. Yes. But it's really working on all those musicianship skills. Thinking about the colors that you have available in the harp. What do you like to play? What does your left hand like to do? What kind of sound do you like? Does the melody work? Do you need to change the key? What lever markings or pedal markings do you need to add? How might you need to get around some of those more difficult accidentals? Those are all things that are challenges in arranging that are really helpful to think about because they will help you in your usual music playing and learning to be thinking about those considerations. So it's a different way to look at music, but it's really a lot of fun. So try arranging your favorite Christmas tune. But. And here's tip number five, maybe you already have some arrangements of tunes that you love. Terrific. Choose two and create a mashup. You know what I mean? You're going to take two tunes and you're going to put them together. You can either weave in and out of them, right? Do a little bit of this one, then a little bit of that one, a little bit of the other one, and sort of mush them together. Or you could just make them a medley where you play one and then you play the other. Or maybe you play One, you play the other, and then you come back to the first one you've heard. Mashups, you know what they're like. So take a couple. Maybe you could even take three. You could theme them, right? Maybe they're all music about light or about snow or about cold. Or, you know, you could take all kinds of themes, create a theme that's interesting, and mash those two tunes together. And of course, they don't have to be holiday tunes, Right? We've heard plenty of mashups that use the Paco Bell canon with various Christmas pieces. There are quite a number of those. Or pieces like Debussy's Clair de Lune. Right. Moonlight, kind of a nice theme for Christmas. And you can weave that in with another piece. Or you could make it the moonlight by Suzanne MacDonald and Linda Wood. Right. It's a beginner piece, moonlight, but we know it's moonlight. And what if moonlight kind of morphed into a more traditional Christmas piece? That could be pretty, right? So choose two pieces. They don't both have to be holiday pieces. And create a mashup, another creative way to work with Christmas music. And if you're in that creative mood, here's another one. And I'll bet you haven't thought of this one. Maybe you have. Maybe you've thought of it and you just haven't been brave enough. Well, I am here not only to give you courage to try it, but to give you permission and maybe even an assignment to try it. Wouldn't it be fun to compose your own holiday piece? I know you've never thought of it, and for some of you listening, I know your first reaction is going to be, no, this would not be fun. Never thought of it, never wanted to do it. But it wouldn't have to be a big piece. And the thing about Christmas and the holidays, those themes are so inspiring. Whether we're thinking about, you know, a winter scene or thinking about a religious subject, there are so many inspiring things.

So think about what your holiday piece would be like. Could be religious, could be not. It could be maybe about snow with some very gentle little melodic figures, maybe some falling glissandos, maybe some calm arpeggios, little sparkles of harmonics perhaps, if you like.

Or what if you thought about the glow of a warm fire? You're sitting by the fire with a cup of hot cocoa. Or maybe you could have a flowing, warm kind of a melody with some really rich chords, maybe some little musical sparks. It doesn't have to be long. Eight measures is enough.

But you could get so much from this. First of all, if you've never written anything, it's kind of fun, and I urge you to try it. Think about start with some chords or start with a melody. Just a few notes doesn't have to sound good. It doesn't have to be, you know, the next.

Hit, you know, the next gold record. We're not looking for that. Just something very simple. Take a melody that you like, maybe from. Even from an exercise or something. Start with a few notes, put some chords to it. And if you want to make it even easier, sometimes the easy way to start is to think of a title, a title that inspires you, that could give you some, you know, a lot of ideas. Like maybe the title would be.

Falling Snow, or maybe the title could be Slippery Ice. Or.

Sleigh Ride is a title a lot of composers have used. There are any number of pieces called Sleigh Ride, the real familiar one by Leroy Anderson. But Mozart wrote one. Delius wrote one. There are other composers who wrote Sleigh Rides. You could write one, too.

Maybe there's another title that you've always been thinking about. Maybe something to do with angels or Christmas trees or stars. But think of a title and then just sort of mess around on the harp a little bit. See what inspires you. See if you can write eight measures that sound like something. It's a terrific exercise, and not just for Christmas. But Christmas is sort of an easy subject to inspire you, right? But think about all the things, all the skills that go into this, and there are skills we have that we don't often use. We're so busy playing what's on somebody else's page, right? You know, somebody else gave us this music, and that's what we're going to play. Well, make your own for a change. Ooh, a Christmas composition. I love it.

And the last suggestion that I have for you for Christmas music. To dream big and to plan. So imagine that you were going to create a dream set of Christmas music. Could be 20 minutes, could be half an hour, could be 45 minutes, could be longer if you want. But think about a dream set of Christmas music. Your favorite Christmas pieces that you would want to play. You know, somebody came to you and said, come play your favorite Christmas music for us. You said, okay, and those were the pieces you were going to play. So create that dream set. Write it out. These are the pieces. Put it in order, right? Pull out the music and. And try playing it through. Try preparing it as if you were really going to Play it somewhere. You now have a little holiday concert all there of your favorite music. And even if you never play it anywhere, it's very rewarding to think that you've created essentially a musical program and shaped it and crafted it and prepared it. And after all, once you have it ready, I mean, you never know. When you have that music ready, the performance tends to show up. So I would urge you to dream big that way. It doesn't even have to be a big set. If it's three pieces, that's terrific. But you have it ready and you have something prepared. Love it. You know, you just might want to play those things for some people who come to visit you at the holidays. You never know. But if you have the music ready, the opportunity to play will show up. So let me review those seven ideas. The first three were sort of the low barrier to entry, the easy ones, right? Organize your music, use your favorite Christmas piece as a warm up and maybe start a new piece, maybe one from your wish list for this year. So those were the first three. The last four were a little bit more creative. Arrange your, your favorite Christmas tune. Create a mashup between a couple of holiday pieces or maybe one holiday piece and one other piece. Compose your own holiday piece. Then to dream big by imagining a dream set of holiday music that you would love to play somewhere to, you know, plan that and prepare it. And then, you know, you never know. So those last four are biggies. And I hope that perhaps you feel inspired to try one of those. To arrange your own piece, to compose your own piece. I mean, they're fun. Even if your own piece that you compose is very, very short, no problem. Even if the arrangement you create is pretty basic, no worries there either. You have to start small, right? You need to start somewhere. And if you've never done this before.

Make your task small, don't make it huge. Same with the mashup. Choose two pieces that aren't difficult for you, and make the mashup kind of simple. Your first attempt might not be exactly the way you want it, but try it again, remash them, and you might find that your second attempt is a lot better. This is a great way to learn so much about the inner workings of music. The kind of stuff we don't usually explore, but the sort of stuff that we all instinctively understand from all the hours that we've spent listening to music and playing music, we know more than we think and it's time to that we put that to good use. And then of course, you know that creating that dream set of music, well, that could just be fun, could lead to something. You never know what. So if you decide to do one of these last four things to arrange your music or mash it up or compose it, or create that dream set, I would love to know. So be sure to send me an email. I'd love to hear your composition or your arrangement or your mashup or know what kind of music you put in your dream set. Because I want to be able to celebrate with you. So if you do any of those, please send me a quick email. You can email me here@podcastartmastery.com and because I'd love to know and I will respond for sure. So I'll be looking for those emails. So have fun with those. Again, a quick reminder to join me at Finish Camp our the last of our summer Sizzler camps. That will be on Wednesday, August 2nd and of course I'm doing it live twice at 10am Eastern and at 7:30pm Eastern. You can attend either. You can attend both, but you have to register. And the link to register for finish camp is right in our show notes for this episode. You can also find it@harpmastery.com and join me at Finish camp. And if you haven't joined the other camps and you think you might have missed out on something, let me tell you, you did. You can upgrade from finish camp and you can subscribe to all three camp at a discount, so be sure to check that out too. And they're cheap, right? $27 for finish camp? Really, it's a bargain. But if you're looking for something more in depth and you're a last minute vacationer and you want to take your harp, join me please at our retreat. Our summer retreat is happening in August this year and it is August 13th to 17th in a house near. We have a big lodge actually near Sevierville, Tennessee in the mountains on a la lake. It's beautiful and we still have some rooms available so if you're interested check that out on the website, send me a quick email and we'll get you signed up. As I said, all our rental harps are spoken for. But if you can bring your harp we would love to have you. Whether petal harp lever harp does not matter. We'll have some of each there so you will not be left out no matter what kind of harp you're playing. But this is a great time to just spend time with other harpists and get some really really focused one on one work some time just you and your harp, but some time with me and you and the harp. And of course our certified coach, Candice Lark will be there too, instructing. We've got some special ensemble stuff planned and workshops and it's going to be a ton of fun as always. So I'd love to have you join us if you are able. So you'll find the information under Upcoming events on the heartmastery.com website or just email me and we'll get everything you need to you so next week on the podcast is a mashup. It's a mashup of from Q and A calls that I have done over the years with the My Heart Mastery membership and I've sort of handpicked some of the more interesting parts of a couple of those calls and mashed them up for you. So these are things that maybe didn't deserve or I couldn't figure out how to stretch into an entire podcast episode on their own, but they're they were interesting questions that our members had that I answered live and I think you might be interested in those answers too. So it's a Q and A mashup next week on the podcast and I certainly hope you join me for that. In the meantime, please remember every day is a day you can add more Harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time.