Bridging the Gap Between Practicing and Playing - PHH 045

Welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness, the Harp Mastery Podcast. My name is Ann Sullivan, and I'm a harpist, teacher, and founder of Harp Mastery. I'm all about creating more harp happiness in the world by helping harp players like you play the music they want the way they want. But as a harpist who nearly flunked out of one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, I, although later not only graduated, but I went on to teach there. I know from personal experience that learning the harp is way harder than it looks. Here, each week on the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast, I show you how to solve the challenges of practicing and playing the harp. Whether it's about making your fingers behave or learning music faster, or getting your piece's performance ready, or just learning to enjoy your playing every day. Sounds great, doesn't it? Let's get started.

Welcome to the show. Well, you may have heard that practice makes perfect. Or perhaps you've heard that perfect practice makes perfect. Well, exactly what is it that we're making perfect?

Well, there is truth in both of those statements, but they are both also misleading and in a potentially dangerous kind of way, the truth part of this is that how we practice does determine how we play. But the danger comes if we take this to mean that if our playing isn't as perfect as we want it, we haven't practiced hard enough. So when our playing falls short of our expectations, we end up practicing longer or maybe more carefully or with more grit and determination. But longer practice can lead to injury or boredom. Practice focused on being correct often fails to be musical. And not surprisingly, grit and determination are not conducive to beautiful, relaxed heart playing. But there is one kind of practice that causes our practice to translate into the kind of playing we want. And if we practice this way, we play better in our lessons. We're more relaxed and we're more able to be expressive. This kind of practice is absolutely critical to our success, to our harp happiness. Yet, either we don't know about it, or we don't recognize its power, or maybe we just don't know when to use it. But after you listen to today's show, you will understand the right kind of practice, by which I mean the kind of practice you need to do to bridge the gap between your practice and your performing. And we're going to sum it up in a single word so you can remember exactly what, what to do and how and why. So if you've ever struggled with the fact that your practice gets you so far, but it doesn't get you to the kind of playing that you want to do. That's what we're talking about today. And I think you're going to find some revelations here that will change what you do in your practice probably forever. Now, also, in case you're interested, I do have a course that I would recommend that goes along with this, and that is our 30 days to done course.

We use 30 days as sort of a metaphor for learning a piece and taking it from the, you know, the day you open the music to the day you feel like it's ready to play. Putting that, we use the 30 days as a metaphor for that whole time frame. And the course is laid out that way. You may find, depending on your piece and your skill level and which how the piece you've chosen relates to your skill level, you may find that 30 days is not an accurate time frame. But this course is designed to show you what to do at each stage of your learning, and it has you approach a piece in a very different way from the way that most people approach their pieces. And why I wanted to let you know about that course today is that it's really related to what we're talking about and I'll mention it again at the end of the show and tell you a little bit more about it. You will find it. You'll find it in the show. You'll find a link to it in the show notes for today's episode. You'll also find it under courses@heartmastery.com It's a pretty simple course, but it's a very different look at practice. And as I said, it goes along with what we're talking about today. So if you find today's topic intriguing and something you'd like to find a really practical way of implementing in your practice, 30 days to done can probably help you do that. So with that out of the way, I'd like to start talking about this gap between practice and performing. Now, one more note before we begin. If you hear some background noise in the recording for this episode, it's because while I'm recording it, I'm at our getaway harp retreat in Florida, and the retreaters have been working with one of the other coaches, but you'll hear them come back to their harps and start, start playing. So if you hear that, that's what's going on in my world. Now let's see how I can help you with what' on in yours. Now, maybe this has happened to you. You've done your practice for the week and you go to your lesson. And you sit there, you're ready to play, you feel really prepared, and your teacher says, great, I'm glad you had such a good practice week. Let's hear that piece. And so you play through your piece and it doesn't work. In fact, it almost falls apart and you're left with the phrase we all have used from time to but it was going so well at home. It worked perfectly at home. I don't understand why it's not working today.

Maybe that's happened to you in a performance too, that those mistakes show up and you just don't understand where they came from. But the piece isn't going the way you practiced it. Now, I'm not really talking today about crash proofing your pieces. We're not talking about performance nerves or preparing to play your piece. What I'm really talking about is how you practice in general, how you practice every day, and how the kind of practice that we usually do actually doesn't help us learn to play the piece. And the more careful, the more correct you are trying to be with your practice, the more you may inadvertently be sabotaging your playing.

So just to be clear about that, and now let's clear up one more thing before we start talking. When I'm talking about performing your piece, I'm really talking about any time you want to play your piece. I'm not talking about doing a recital or a concert. I'm talking about playing through the piece of music for yourself, beginning to end, and having it sound like a piece of music instead of like something that still has sections and spots and stumbles. I'm not going to be talking about how to get through those stumbles. There's plenty of stuff to talk about there with practice techniques and spot practice techniques and everything else.

And as I said, I'm not talking about performing like a concert, just the regular kind of sharing your music that you might want to do. It's why we like to use the word sharing at heart mastery. Because it's about sharing your music with somebody else, whether it's your friend, your relative, your bridge club, your golf buddies, your family member who's overseas, at a nursing home, wherever. It's the kind of playing that you want to do, but it's also the kind of playing that we all want to do. We all want to be able to play our music smoothly, to have it be musical and expressive. And it's very frustrating. Frustrating when we've worked so hard, so many hours, so many weeks, some cases, so many months on a piece of music, and it still doesn't flow. We can do this right and that right, and we correct things and we fix things and we think we're doing everything we're supposed to be doing. And it still doesn't mean we can play the piece. We sit down to play it and we still get stuck. We still have those same mistakes.

And I'm not suggesting that you're doing anything wrong. You might be doing everything correctly. But there's a thing that we have to remember to teach, and that's what I want to remember to teach you today. And this is the thing that's going to fill in that gap that's going to make your practice pay off. It's not easy. It's going to be a mindset shift, and it's going to require a little bit of trust. Trust. Trusting me in that. The. The stuff I'm telling you today is not only.

The things that have worked for me, but the things that I have found work for my students. They're the things that I was taught and the things that I discovered the hard way as well. So these, you know, we're not making this up. It's tried and true, but you need to, at some point, give up and trust the process. If you can be comfortable doing this and trying it, you're going to find that it works. And hopefully I'll give you everything you need today to have faith in it and to trust that process and to make it work. So let's get started, and I'm going to start by giving you the word for today. I told you we were all going to sum it up in one word, and here's the word. The word is overlook. That's right, overlook. And we're going to talk about three different ways that that word overlook, should be fitting in and being part of your practice. So if you're ready to trust the process, or at least to open your mind to trust the process, I'm going to tell you what overlook can do for your practice. If you think about it.

Overlook seems to be the opposite of what we want to do in our practice. We dive in, we dive into details, don't we? We're looking at every finger, we're looking at every note, every lever or pedal change. We're looking at the dynamics. It's all about those little, little things. Because we don't want to overlook any detail.

But we're going to apply the word overlook in some completely different ways today. And this is the first.

I want you to think of it as an overlook. You know, like when you go to a scenic overlook, right? You're driving along the road and it says scenic overlook. And you pull out and you get out of your car, you pull over, rather get out of your car and there's a beautiful vista opening right there in front of you. Maybe, maybe an incredible valley, mountains, trees, a vista you can see for miles. It's a scenic overlook. That's the first kind of overlook we have to pay attention to when we're practicing. And what this means is that we're looking for the big picture. Our practice shouldn't all be about those details. It should be about creating the music. Okay? So you say, well, how can I create the music with the wrong notes? Well, there's a time, maybe lots of times, to get in there and focus on the notes and get them right. And I'm not going to tell you not to do that because that does need to be part of your work. It's part of the work of every musician. But I want you to learn to be able to release your focus from those details and to mentally step back, step out of that car and look at the big picture. Don't be stuck trying to look at only the wrong notes and the wrong fingers and hope that the music will take care of itself. And it's not just about practicing the dynamics or practicing phrasing. To be able to play the piece of music means you have to be able to see it, at least in your mind. To see it, maybe in your inner ears, to hear it, you need to be able to see it as a whole piece, as a single entity, something that has a mood, it has a color, it has a meaning, it has a story, it has a pace, it paints a picture.

You need to be able to see it from that viewpoint. Most of our work with the piece is too up close.

Right? Not seeing the forest for the trees, perhaps is an example. But picture yourself at that scenic overlook I talked about a moment ago, right? What if you pulled your car, you saw the sign said scenic overlook, and you sat in your car, you pulled your car over to the side of the road and then you didn't get out to look at that vista? What a waste of a scenic overlook, right? What kind of scenic overlook is it if you're staying in the car and you don't get out and walk to that railing and look over the mountainside?

But yet, that's what practice does. If you never try playing the piece of music, if you don't put your focus there, you're Just stuck in the car. You're doing all the right things. You're, you know, everything that you need to create the music. Everything except actually doing it. You haven't gotten out of the car to take a look. So how do you do this? Well, you're going to start by simply playing your piece, beginning to end.

Learn to experience the pacing of the entire piece. Even if all the notes aren't right, those are little details we can fix. And you know how to fix those because that's what you usually practice, and you know how to do that. So what if instead of just staying in the car and working on those details, what if you played through the whole piece to see what was there to experience that vista, to get that whole picture, to get the overlook. That's what we're looking for. To release your focus from the notes, the fingering, the details, and to start listening, creating, playing through the entire piece.

Don't worry as you play through it, if you have wrong notes, you'll be able to fix them. That's where the danger is. In a statement like perfect practice makes perfect. Your practice shouldn't be perfect if it's always perfect practice. You're not working hard enough, so don't worry about that. You'll be able to go back and fix mistakes. And trust me, there will be always mistakes to go and fix. You will never have a shortage of mistakes. At least I never do.

That shouldn't stop you from experiencing the big picture. And the sooner you start that.

Even if it feels like an experiment, the sooner you start that, the better off you'll be, because that's where you want to go. Kind of like keeping your eye on the prize, right? All right, so you get the idea. That's the Overlook now. But that's only our first kind of overlook. Let's look to the second way. I would like to use the word overlook. And this is the probably the sense that you were thinking of. And maybe you've already guessed what one of my three ways was going to be, and this might be it. I want you to remember to overlook the flaws. Right? We often say that in performance you need to play past your mistakes, and this is true. But think how different that is from what we usually do in practice. Our whole focus in our practice, our whole intention, is not to let those mistakes slip by, right? We want to be focused on them. We want to be alert to every wrong note, every misplaced finger, every imprecise rhythm. We want to be alert. We want to be observant. We get Critical in an appropriate way. Hopefully. Hopefully we're not getting hypercritical. We don't want that.

But these kinds of mistakes are the things that seem huge up close. They're what we're looking for so much of the time when we practice. But believe it or not, when you're playing through a piece for someone.

They'Re tiny little things. And most people who hear your piece are going to overlook them, or if you prefer, over listen them, right? If they're listening to it.

They'Re not going to notice them. And you have to practice ignoring them. You have to practice overlooking those flaws. Because in the long run, a wrong note here or there, or a misplaced finger or a missed pedal or lever, they don't need to detract from the piece.

They're just a little blip, a momentary thing that happens and is done. The only place that lives on is in your mind.

Now, I make lots of mistakes all the time. I'm not a player that has ever had any pretensions to being perfect. I'm just not. And I am always grateful that whoever listens to me, judging me, right? Most every person you play for is not there to judge you. They're there to listen. They're there to hear the music. They overlook your flaws, and you need to as well. But this is very tough. It requires that you have a second mindset that you can turn on or off as it happens, as you need it. So your first mindset is the one we're always comfortable in, that practice mindset. Going to fix it. It happened wrong. I'm going to fix it. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it over. I'm going to do it till I get it right. I'm going to do it 10 times, 20 times, 100 times, whatever it is. That's easy.

Yes, it's hard work. I. I fully understand that, appreciate that, been there, done that. And it's hard work. But it's much easier to fix a mistake and to focus on it and to stop and to deal with it than it is to play past it and ignore it and let your mind help the music out by staying at another level, by staying in that scenic overlook mindset, you need to change from a habit of correction to a creative mindset. We're ignoring the need to correct. Putting that aside and working on that big picture, that flow, that mystical flow, right? That seems to happen. We're bringing out the creativity. We're letting ourselves be expressive, even if it's not perfect.

Even if it's not completely correct, that's okay. You need to overlook those flaws. They're going to happen. But the thing is that if the first time you're playing your piece for someone is the first time you've practiced overlooking flaws with that piece, you don't have the skill to do it. You're not able to do it. You need to practice doing it. So be sure that you are playing your piece every day. You know, it depends right on what stage your piece is in. But play your piece, and as you play it, make sure you are practicing playing past whatever mistakes you have, overlooking those flaws, keeping your mind moving forward.

Playing is not the time to judge, to remember to correct. It's the time to create.

And that's a sincerely, hugely different mindset. And you need to practice it.

And this is the. It doesn't come easy. I know it can be very difficult. This is the part of the process that is hard for people to trust. Yes. Okay, you can understand the need for the big picture and you can sort of work at that. But those mistakes are still happening. And we're caught up in our mistakes as often as, you know, we think we want to just play the music.

Fixing those mistakes can take on a bigger importance for us. Not that it should, but it often does. And so learning to turn that off is tricky. And it's going to take work and it's going to take a little bit of self discipline, but when you learn to release yourself from that correction habit, you're going to be so much closer to playing the music and so much able. So much closer to being able to play it despite what happens. So that when you go to your lesson and stuff doesn't work exactly the way it worked at home, which is likely.

You'Re going to be able to play past it. Now, your teacher may go back and help you correct things, and that's okay, but you're being able to create the music despite what happens is the difficulty difference between practicing and playing.

How's that for a thought? Okay, so hang on to that one while I tell you about the third kind of overlook. I think to be able to play successfully, we all need to be able to overlook our apprehensions. I know we're afraid of things. There are lots of things to be nervous about, having the audience looking at you. Just the fact that maybe you're playing for someone and maybe you're playing in a different space, not in your own little comfy room. Maybe you're worried about being judged. Maybe you're Worried that your nerves will be so bad you won't even be able to play. Or maybe you're worried that you'll forget how the piece goes, or your fingers fall off the strings, or a string will break, or your bench will collapse, or any of those millions of things that we worry about, right?

The fears are there. Granted, some of those things are more likely to happen than others. You don't need to be afraid of any of those, or certainly not all of them. But you need to overlook the fears. Don't expect them to go away. They never do. So many performers have had a lifetime of performing and never ceased to get nervous.

What they have learned to do in those years of experience is to trust that something's going to work anyway, even though they're nervous. So when you're asked to play for someone, or when you volunteer to play for even just a friend.

I want you to overlook the fear that comes up, the shakes that come up, the nerves that come up. Acknowledge them, and then overlook them.

As much as you can. And you can see that this will take some practice, too, right? Not an easy thing to do to be able to just let go.

And you won't be 100% successful. Most likely, you might be, and congratulations to you, you're a born performer.

But if you can overlook your apprehensions enough to just play the piece.

And if you can overlook them just that little bit more to get past the idea that, oop, that was a mistake that happened. If you can overlook them even more, to just let your mind revel in the big picture and enjoy creating that big picture for whoever is listening to you.

That'S where the Overlook is at its most powerful. Because you're stepping out of that practice realm and into the playing realm. And you have a way to prepare for that, to practice playing. How's that? It's not just practicing the music to get it right, but practicing playing the music so you and others can enjoy it. And that's how you bridge that gap.

Think for just a moment about how you can actually do this. You know me, I like to give you things you can do, not just talk about things in sort of a theoretical scale. I like to give you things that you can take to the harp bench, right? You can take these to your practice and do something with them. So here are some ways you might consider starting to close that gap, starting to add the Overlook into your practice.

I think that the first and most important thing to do is every day in your practice, devote a small part of your practice to Playing through something without stopping. Whether it's playing through a review piece, making it musical and playing through it, ignoring the mistakes that happen, overlooking the flaws, or whether it's playing through a big section of a piece that you're working on. Like, say you're working on a really long piece. And you worked on those first three pages yesterday. And you're going to work some on the second three pages today. Well, play through those first three pages and make yourself play all the way through them without stopping to correct, without stopping to fix things just to see where they are. To get in the habit of creating that big picture. Or play all the way through a piece that you worked on yesterday. You worked really hard and practiced all those details yesterday and today. You're not going to just work on those details. You're going to play all the way through what you worked on. And then tomorrow you'll go back to working on the details. But every day I want you to practice playing. So that's the very first thing you can do.

Now, another thing that you can do is to use some of the practice techniques that we talk about from time to time to help you bring out the flow in your music. Whether it's playing through a section extra slowly, but at a steady tempo, or playing through a section and adding dynamics, or all those different techniques that add practice and continuity and control to your music. All of those are good. And in fact, those kinds of techniques are the ones that we use in that 30 days to done course that I was telling you about. So that course starts with, actually with the Overlook Big Picture. And has you begin to work on the piece from that big picture angle. And for that whole first seven days of the course, you have two techniques for each of those days. Well, for six of those days, the seventh day is a Fun Day kind of technique. But there are 12 different techniques to use to help you practice that piece in these creative ways that are going to allow you to see the big picture right from the beginning. Then we start looking at the bigger sections of the piece and how those are going to come together. And then in the third week, we finally, finally in the third week, get down to the nitty gritty and fixing those notes and fingerings and details. Now, I know that seems really late in the process to you. But it's a fabulous way to begin to change your mindset. To begin to look at the piece from a musical angle right from the beginning instead of just from that, you know, well, I'm going to fix the details and turn it into music later kind of process. And then in the fourth week to finish out that, you know, ideal 30 days. In that fourth week, what we do is have you just iron out the wrinkles and make it all, put it all back together and polish it all up again. Now, whether that works for you in 30 days or whether it takes you a little bit longer or maybe less time with a shorter piece, that's just fine. But I think knowing these techniques would be valuable. Now, my Harp Mastery members, you already have this course. So for you, if you are a My Harp Mastery member, look in your library and you will see 30 days to done. I think it's actually right in the table of contents for you, and you will be able to do your 30 days to done right from there, but it is published as a separate course. And so if this is something that interests you, I would urge you to head over to the website. You can use the link in the show notes or just go to harpmastery.com and look at our courses. But take a look at that, and it'll give you some techniques for walking through this process and beginning your music from this overlook kind of perspective instead of from just focusing on the details. So that's how I think it's really the best way to bridge the gap between practicing and playing. Remember, it's all about just making your music smooth and flowing and beautiful and making it what you want it to be. And in order to do that, you have to practice it that way. And there's the rub. So let's get you on your way to doing that and similarly on your way to a little bit more harp happiness. Yeah. All right, well, so thank you so much for joining me today. Now, on next week's show, we're going to be talking about the harpist Carlos Salzato and his impact on music. And maybe I'll play for you a couple of excerpts of Salzado pieces that you might not even. You certainly might not have known them, but they may not even sound like some of the music you would associate with him. But I'd love to just give devote a little bit of time to talking about this fascinating harpist and composer or true innovator. And so that's our topic for next week's podcast. Before I leave you, I'd like to leave you with this thought. Remember, every day is a day that you can add more harp happiness to the universe. Yes, to the universe, to your own world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. So go play now. And I look forward to seeing you next time right here on the show. Thanks for tuning into 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.