Find Your Practice Style: Style No. 3 “The Beagle” - PHH 001

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. Today, we're talking about practice styles. Now, that may not be something you've thought about before, thinking about exactly what your practice style is like compared to somebody else's, but I'll bet at some point you've been in a group of harpists and you've discovered just how different the way you like to practice is from the way some somebody else likes to practice. And you've probably noticed that there are different results from those practice styles, too. And if you haven't, well, then you're going to find out quite a lot in today's show. Now, I have blogged before about two of the most common practice styles, styles that I've run across in dealing with students over the years. And today we're going to talk about a third style style. And all my styles are named after breeds of dogs just because I love dogs and because all these practice styles are good. They have their superpowers, they have their, you know, challenges, their little oops moments, but they're all wonderful. And so today, the third practice style that I'm going to discuss with you is called the beagle. You know, beagles, like, like Snoopy, you know, happy dogs. And we're going to be talking about exactly what makes a beagle practice style. We'll be talking about its particular superpowers, its particular challenges, and how you can use those and work with those to make your music learning faster. So it's all in knowing exactly how you like to work. And remember, all these practice styles are good. They all have things that they are excellent at and things that they could improve upon. But there are no bad dogs here. But before we get into the practice styles, I want to Just tell you about a couple things that are going on. If you are listening to this episode when I'm releasing it, then you are in time to join us for, for our special June challenge. Now, this challenge will be happening in June of 2021 and it is called Build, Extend, advance and it's a technique challenge. It's. Well, I'm calling it the technique course that you wish you had years ago. It's going to refresh your technique. If you've never had a good technical foundation, this is the course to build it. If your technique just needs a little bit of refreshing from time to time, and doesn't that happen for all of us, then this is a great course to help you go back to the basics, check everything, fill in the holes. And if you really think you just want a better understanding or you want to take your technique to the next level, this is the course for you too. It's going to be a 21 day challenge and it's got three, five lessons per week in those 21 days and four live virtual seminars. So we'll be doing that and I invite you to join us for that challenge. All the information you're going to need is on the page. I'll put it, I'll put the link to that page in today's show notes so it's easy for you to get to. But I will tell you this, that Build, Extend, Advanced, exactly what you need for your technique. Think about it for a second. You're going to build the foundation. Then we're going to help you extend that foundation and work on all the specifics of the techniques to get those moving faster, with more facility and in advance. We take everything to the next level. So that you'll be developing your technique. Yes. And making it a little bit more facile. Absolutely. And taking it to the next level. Definitely. So this is going to be a great course to join us for. Also in the show notes, you will find a mention of the blog post that I refer to in today's episode about the other two practice styles. So you'll be able to check that out. And don't, don't miss. At the end of this episode, I'm going to review all three practice styles and give you sort of a point by point comparison so you'll be able to identify your own practice style and work quickly to make the most of it. So, all right, let's dig in.

Imagine for a moment that you want to get a dog for your family. Your family has decided that what it absolutely needs is a canine around the house. And you, you are now looking for exactly the right dog to bring home. Well, you have a lot of choices, don't you? But one of the first things you probably will do is think about what kind of dog you want. Now, there's the obvious sort of choice. Well, I want something big, I want something little, I want something with lots of hair, something with not a lot of hair, something that barks, something that doesn't. So something that's good with kids, something that will work in a small apartment or a big yard. And so you start researching what breed of dog is going to be best for you, because that's what it comes down to, right? Every breed of dog has their own characteristics, their own special things. Now, granted, every dog is different, but each breed has particular things that it's known for its specialties. It's breed superpowers. So when I started thinking about practice styles, that's what I started thinking about. Not that they apply in every single respect to any particular harpist, but that it's a really nice general way to look at the strengths and the challenges of each kind of style of practice and what you need to do to take that to your own particular practice, to be able to bring it into what you do and have it help you learn music faster. Now, I started out by saying that there are no bad dogs, and that's really true. None of these practice styles is bad. In fact, they all have really wonderful characteristics. But each style has particular habits that are associated with it that also get in your way a little bit. So this is what we're going to talk about. Now, I did a blog post a while back talking about the first two practice styles that I identified and I called them the German shepherd and the Greyhound. Now, German shepherds, in practice terms, German shepherds are very much like the dog. Think about a German shepherd dog. They're very trainable, they're very, very loyal, they're very obedient and they know when things are correct. The German shepherds know if it's right or if it's not. That's one of the reasons they make such good guard dogs, such good seeing eye dogs. They' very perceptive that way and they're very dutiful. Now, a German shepherd practicer is the kind of practicer that really likes to get things right. That is watching the fingering, watching the counting, likes to take things slowly at first so that they can be sure they're not missing the details because they don't want to get them Wrong and have to do them over. So they like to work very methodically, very carefully, which is great, except that what this often means is that they learn music kind of slowly. It takes them a long time to get from the first time they look at a piece of music to get it playable, because they're looking at all those little details all the way along the way. So German shepherds are sometimes frustrated when they see other harpists learning music very, very quickly, and they're still, you know, taking things hands separately and pulling it apart and back together. Now, of course, the good news is that German shepherds do learn to play music, and they learn to play it very well and very correctly, and it can be extremely beautiful. This is not a musical judgment either, but they just like to go slowly. Now, contrast this with the second breed, which I call the greyhound. Greyhounds, not so much detail, people. Greyhounds like to race to the end, right? These are the fastest dogs we've got, and they. They like to cut to the chase, just put those blinders on, metaphorically speaking, get to the end. They want to win the race. So when they see a new piece of music, the first thing they want to do is play it, and they really know they ought to be practicing it. They just don't want to spend a lot of time down in the details the way the German shepherds like. They just want to play it. They get to the end. So what greyhounds often do is they will get a new piece of music, and in just a week, maybe less even, it'll be playable, but it will have inconsistent fingerings, and it may have lots of mistakes, and it may have lots of hesitations because then they have to go back and clean it up. They'll play it quickly, but then they have to clean it up. And they're not good at being patient and being slow and careful in the early stages. They want to get the music done, and if they have to go back and work on it afterward, they. They will. Now, I personally am a greyhound. I love playing the music and then realizing that I have to clean it up. But what happened is that when. When I was in music school, I realized that there were definite disadvantages to being a greyhound, and that was that I had to do a lot of cleanup, and that doesn't come naturally to me. So one of the things I had to do in music school was figure out how to bring some of those wonderful German shepherd qualities to my greyhoundness, so that while I still love to learn music fast and get to the end and Cut to the chase. I'm not quite so focused on just getting to the end at the expense of some of those details. And I watch them early on a little bit more. Now, some of my very successful greyhound friends have learned that. That they can learn from the greyhounds, too, and they can learn to get to the end a little bit faster by spending some of their practice time letting go a little bit and just seeing and experimenting with playing and not always be just so focused on the details.

And then there are the beagles. Now, we had a beagle when I was young. His name was Charlie, and Charlie was wonderful. He was a great dog. He was energetic, he was enthusiastic. He loved people. He loved to run. We had a big backyard, and Charlie was all over it. Charlie was the. The essential, energetic beagle. Very distractible. You know, he wasn't. He wasn't so focused on a task as much as he was just focused on having fun. Now, he had his oops kinds of moments, too. I remember he used to, when my brother was very little, he would take food out of my brother's hand before my brother could actually eat it. So, you know, Charlie was not. Not 100% good dog, but he was a wonderful, wonderful friend. And I think beagles are great. So let's talk about beagles in harp terms. Well, how might you know a beagle if you met one that's a harpist beagle? This is. Well, their music stand would probably be filled with music to overflowing. They might have piles of music on the floor. And not because they're messy, but because they got it out because they thought they wanted to play it. And they. These are the. The. The beagles or the harpists who have never met a piece of music that they didn't want to play. And they'll get it, and they might look at it for a little while, and then they'll put it aside because something else will take their fancy and they'll be ready for something else. They are always ready for a new challenge. They're ready for a new harp course. They're ready to try something else. They're in a bunch of different harp groups. They love playing, and they'll go after all kinds of new experiences, which is great, right?

But the beagles will often have a complaint and be a little bit frustrated because they don't have time to play everything they want to play. And it's not just the oh, gosh, there's more music in the world than I can possibly play kind of complaint. It's the Sort of. Well, I want to get this piece done, and I've been working on this piece and this piece and this piece. And then I've got the stuff for my lesson and I've got the stuff for this harp group and I've got the stuff for that harp group or I promise to play at church and I've got all this music and. And I'm not getting anything done. It's all just kind of half baked and I don't have the time to prepare it all and I don't know how to do it. And that's where the beagle's weakness really is. That's their challenge. Trying to somehow corral their desire to play everything they can play because they love the harp and they love playing and actually get something done. So this is a, you know, it's a different kind of challenge from a greyhound challenge. The greyhounds will just play it and clean it up later. It's a different challenge from the German shepherd challenge because the German shepherd will take their time and learn one piece before they pick up the next one. The beagle plays something for a little while and then it can't resist the next piece that's coming its way. So let's take a look a little bit about what you might do to tame your inner beagleness. If this is sounding like you.

So what the beagle can do is to take that wonderful energy, that wonderful enthusiasm that leads them to play everything.

It's a big backyard. We're going to put a fence around it. That backyard can be as big as you want. It can have as many pieces as you want in it, but we're going to have to put a fence around it so that you don't stray too far. And here's my suggestion for one kind of fence, metaphorically speaking, for a beagle. So here's the fence tactic that I have used with beagle students pretty successfully, and maybe it will work for you too. Find one piece that you really want to get done, whatever done means. Let's figure out one piece that you want to finish. And for this one week, you're going to a lot practice time to focus on that one piece. Now, you're not going to try to practice everything else that you want to play, but what you are going to do is take everything else that you think you're. You need to play or you want to play and divide it into three, four or five big chunks of time, and you're going to take each of that, each chunk which might be you know, might have one chunk for ensemble music, one chunk for church music, one chunk for lesson music, and however many other chunks you need. But take those chunks and put one of those on each day during the week. Then take your practice time. If you normally have an hour to practice, take your hour and divide it in half and say, I can spend half of that time on my one piece.

Then I will spend the other half of my time on that one chunk. Then tomorrow I will spend half my practice time on my one piece again, and the other half of my practice time on another chunk. If I worked ensemble music on Monday, I'm going to work church music on Tuesday, I'm going to work my lesson music on Wednesday, or whatever it happens to be. But over the course of one week, you'll get through everything you need to get through. But you will have allotted practice time, focused practice time on one piece for every day that week. And that's how you make progress. Remember that what the beagle is missing is progress. They've got. They practice, but there's so much to practice that they're really not quite sure how to divide up their practice time so that they actually get something done. And that's where the frustration is. So if you can fence your yard so that one, you have one piece every day for one week, and then. But only use half your practice time on that end, your other half of your practice time, you really can use however you want. And if you're a super beagle, you might not want to be bound by that much, that much organization.

But what you can do is have four or five different chunks of music if you need that many, where you do a different chunk each day. Now, one of the things that Beagles fear is they fear organization and they fear work, like practice as work and, and etudes or technique work or that sort of stuff, because they think that it's going to take away the fun of playing. And at some level, they know that it's what they ought to be doing or that they should be doing more of it anyway, but it just doesn't suit them. And they're afraid that if they put that much effort into it, it's going to take the joy out of their playing. So when you build your fence, you need to take that into account. You need to leave yourself time to enjoy what you're doing and to figure, okay, well, I know I need to put in some work, because that is how things get better. But I don't have to work all the time, and I don't have to play the same piece all the way, all the time, and I don't have to struggle, struggle, struggle. So your fenced in yard may include work on that one piece you're going to fix, knowing that you're going to work on another piece next week and work on that chunk so that you can get that done. But you might need to leave some of your practice time just for something else, whatever you feel like doing. Because that's what's important to beagles, whatever they feel like doing at the time. So if you're a beagle, what do I suggest you do? We'll run through it one more time. What I suggest you do is find practice time every day and find one piece to focus on in that practice time. Then do some of your practice on that particular piece every day that week. Then divide up and rotate through the rest of your music and leave yourself a little bit of time for just whatever comes your way, if you like. Now I realize this will take a little bit of organization and it will work the best if you have a little bit of organization. And I know that goes against the grain. But if you can promise yourself that there's one piece that you will practice every day for a week, you will see progress on that piece and then you can go on to the next one on your list and you can take the piece you've worked on this week and put it in one of those chunks. And that's how you make progress as a beagle.

So which one are you? Are you a German shepherd? Are you a greyhound? Or are you a beagle? Or are you a combination of all of them? Many of us are. We share traits from different breeds. But I'll tell you that there's probably one of those I'm guessing that you identify with more closely than the others. And so that's why I wanted to give you a little point by point sort of comparison of the three breeds, just to give you some quick ideas of each of the breeds and an idea of what you can do to really harness the power of your breed and at the same time, sort of maybe learn a little bit from a couple of the other breeds as well. So if you're a German shepherd, your superpower is that you like to get it right. Woo hoo. Good for you. But your challenge is that you don't want to make mistakes and you can't practice the harp without making mistakes. That's just the way it happens. So you can't let those mistakes get in your way. So I would suggest that you remember that show, the Horse Whisperer and the Dog Whisperer, Those kinds of shows? Well, here are these whisper words that I want you to use for yourself. If you're a German shepherd, I would like you to say it's okay to play it sometimes. I would like you to understand that it's okay. In the course of learning a piece, a really great tool is to play it through. Even if it's messy, even if there are a ton of mistakes. Play it through, see what it's going to be like when it's all done. It's going to really inform your practice so that you're practicing the things that actually matter, and it's going to help you get to the next level faster. So. So if you're a German shepherd, it's okay to play okay if you're a greyhound, your superpower is you like to get it done. You want to get to the end, you want to play it excellent. Okay. But at the same time, where is this a challenge for you? Well, because you don't really want to. You don't want to take the time to practice it first. You just want to just get to the end. And there's important stuff that happens in practicing, you know, like the right notes and the right rhythm and fingering that actually works and getting out hesitations, all that kind of stuff. That's important. So what are the whisper words that we could use for you? Well, playing it better means playing it right. And so if you want to make what you play a little bit better, you're going to have to put a little bit of time, just a little bit of time in getting it right. So if you're a greyhound, see what you can make right in your piece. Pick one thing each day and make it right.

A beagle, your superpower. You love it all and you just want to play it all. What a wonderful place to be, Right? Until you realize that one of the things that's really holding you back is that you don't want to practice it all, because that might feel like work. And not that you don't want to do the work, but, you know, it might take away some of the fun. And beagles are all about fun. So what did we suggest as those whisper words for you? If you're a beagle, just practice one thing. Practice one piece each day for one week, and that's how that piece will get better the rest of the time. Play whatever you want. Practice however you want, but focus on one thing for a little bit of time each day for a week and watch that improve. So those are your whisper words. Okay, so hopefully you had a little aha moment in some of this discussion. What I'd like you to do. What my little challenge to you for the week. Whatever breed you have identified yourself with, choose one aspect of one of the other two breeds and try that in your practice this week. You'll find it very enlightening, I'm sure. You might not find it easy, but you'll find it very enlightening. And you might even find something that's worthwhile that you want to keep around in your practice as you go. Okay? So, and a quick reminder, we do have our challenge coming up in June, and if you would like to join us on the challenge, you will find the link in the show notes. It's build, extend, advance. And we'll take your technique, you know, from zero to a hundred. Oh, that sounds like a good thing for the greyhounds, doesn't it? But trust me, there's plenty in there for everybody. You German Shepherds are going to love the build stage, where we fill in all those technical holes. And then in the extend stage, we'll take that to the next level, adding more facility and more speed. And in the advance, we really push things forward quite a bit. And we will get your technique working better than it ever has, or maybe just back to peak efficiency if your technique was already really good. But remember, when your technique works, then your playing works. You can't play it if your fingers won't play it, right? So all that wonderful music starts with your fingers. So please join us for that June challenge. It's going to be fun all the time. My Heart Mastery members will be joining us, too, so it's going to be a great group. And then one last thing, be sure to be here for our next show. Our next show is going to be on how to have a perfect lesson. I know you didn't think that was possible, but I will talk about that and share those secrets with you on our show next week, so don't miss that one. And I will see you then. 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.