How to Get to the Finish Faster - PHH 100

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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. Music learning isn't a race, and we all know that that doesn't stop us from wanting to get to the finish line to that magical moment when our piece is done. Now, ironically, if you ask a group of harpists exactly what done means or how to tell when you get there, you'll get a few very indeterminate sort of answers and more than a few hems and ha's. I mean, is the finish line the point when you can play the piece with no or very few mistakes? Is it when you have it memorized or when you've played it for an audience? Is it whenever you want it to be? Is it when you're so sick and tired of practicing it that you just want to put it away? Well, when I started blogging in 2012, which was a long time ago, I had a mission to spread harp happiness. To help harpists enjoy their playing and their practice. To enable them to find and keep the joy in their harp playing, which somehow seems to often slip away. Now, in my teaching, in the years just prior to my starting the blog, I had begun to notice an increasing number of frustrated harpists, particularly adult students. And the biggest frustration, one that was common to nearly all of them, was that they had no pieces they felt they could actually play. The finish point, that sense of musical accomplishment was continually and distressingly elusive. And what seemed like a reasonable solution, more practice, actually seemed to make the problem worse. The finish line receded into the dim distance. Now, in order to help harpists find a system that would end this demoralizing cycle, I created a course called 30 Days to Done. And in that course I systematized the steps that experienced harpists use to learn and, and finish music faster. I wanted to make the system clear and repeatable for any type of piece at any level by any harpist. And the system works. But there is one big question that the course doesn't answer fully, and that's the topic of our discussion today. This question is the one I alluded to a moment ago. What does it done mean? And how do you know when you've gotten there? And this 100th milestone, this 100th episode of practice, the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast seemed the perfect moment to talk about it. Now, before we get started, I just want to thank all of you who have been listening to the podcast who have made this little podcast journey of mine so special. Have no fear, we are not stopping the podcast. I mean, I, I blogged for, for 10 years before I switched over to a podcast. And so, you know, weekly teaching in this way is something that I love to do. And I so appreciate that you have been on this journey with me, whether you're, whether this is the first episode you're listening to or whether, like Lori, you've listened to every single episode here since I've started. Now, Laurie is one of quite a number of people, loyal listeners to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast that are live with me today, live as, as I have been streaming the, the recording of this episode. So we have people from all over listening and participating and we'll get to some questions from them on this topic that we're talking about and we'll get to some some of their questions later as part of this special recording too. So than for listening and a super special thank you to all of you who have joined me live on the recording of this episode on this call today. This is so much fun. Usually it's just me sitting here with my microphone and I'll stop and start and do what I need to do. And today I get to talk to you and teach the way I love to teach, which is teaching real people real things. So, so that's what we're talking about. So the, the course that I created. Again, this 30 days to done course.

I will tell you how to access the course, but I want to say right up front before people get too excited that those of you who are my Harp Mastery members, you already have access to this course. So don't think, go thinking this is something you have to buy. You have access to this in your membership and if you go to the table of contents, and you look under the heading practice, you'll see the 30 days to done course right there. So please remember that that that's part of your membership already. So just wanted to be sure that I mentioned that and got that out of the way. We have so many things to talk about today, and I really want to dig into this whole idea of done. So if you're ready, that is where we're going to start. So let's talk about what done isn't and what done is. As I mentioned just a moment ago, done is really hard to define, and there are some good reasons for that. But let's talk about what I think done is not. I don't think.

Done is something that we aspire to. Eventually.

We'Re going to talk about done being part of every harpist experience. It should be, and we're going to talk about how to create that. I don't think done is a place you never reach. Now, granted, we never will have. You know, it's. We'll never have that perfect.

Moment, that perfect musical moment that we can frame forever. I mean, maybe. Maybe you will, and you'll record it, and that will be terrific. But that's sort of a fluke. That's not what we're talking about in terms of done. We're not talking about a perfect performance that you can, you know, pin to your refrigerator like that, you know, terrific drawing you did, or the terrific painting, finger painting that your kindergartner did. Right. It's not going to be that permanent. Music is something that happens in the moment. So when, while it may seem like you're never there because it's never quite exactly what you wanted, that doesn't mean it's not done. And that may be something you haven't considered before.

But going along with that done is not like a rubber stamp that you can put at the top of your music and say, yep, finish this piece, and then you put it away. Because once you've gotten a piece of music to that point where you feel comfortable playing it, that's not when you want to put it away. That's when you want to show it off to the world. That's when you want to keep playing it and let it soak into your bones and let it soothe you, let it energize you, let it be part of your accomplishment that you carry with you, part of your musical soul that you carry with you, and hopefully that you share with those around you.

So to get just a little bit more practical, what Is done. Done is not a place, it's a process, it's a stage, a process of increasing comfort and familiarity with your music. Done gets done. Er, if you want to look at it that way, it just gets better and better. It's a feeling of a piece, an idea of a piece that changes and grows with you. I have pieces that I have been playing quite truly for decades, and every time I might put that piece away for a moment, when I bring it back, I have a new thought about it, a new way that I could. Oh, maybe I'll shape it this way. Maybe I'll change the tempo a little bit. Maybe I'll do dynamics differently this time.

So it's a process, it's a stage and it. It doesn't stop, it just done goes on for a long time. But don't expect to reach one point and feel like, phew, I'm finished with it now. That kind of finish, as you might expect, right, that kind of finish doesn't happen. So it's a stage and it's a process. And I believe that done is something you create from the very first day you start a piece, you start creating that finished product, that beautiful piece of music. And I really want to take just a moment and let that sort of, you know, play around in your head for a second. Let that rattle around in. In what sometimes feels like an empty space in between my own ears, but. But, you know, let that just sink in for a second. If you're creating that piece from day one, if you're creating the finished piece of music from day one, how would that change the way you start a piece from the very beginning?

Would that change not only the way you start it, but the way you look at every step, every. As you proceed and practice your way through that piece?

That's a big change for a lot of people thinking that done and that vision of done is going to inform their practice from the very first time they look at a piece.

And we're going to start talking about that first, because I think it's the most important concept that I want you to learn and to understand.

But I first want to give you this word of encouragement. No matter how long it might seem to take or how many obstacles you have to. You have to surmount to get there, Done is closer than you think.

And if you haven't experienced done yet, we're going to be talking about some ways that will not only change your attitude toward what done is and how to get there, but will actually help you feel that finish Just a little bit faster. So, all right, I'm going to give all of you here on the call an opportunity to just type into the chat one thing, one word, one phrase about what either about what done would mean to you or what you might feel like if you got a piece done or what you think the biggest obstacle has been so far to you getting a piece to done. So I'm going to give you just a few seconds to type that in, and then I'll read out some of the answers so you can make it quick. Just one or two words is fine, but where does done live in your own mind or in your own experience? What has been the biggest obstacle between you and done? Or maybe what has been the biggest thing that speeds your way?

Suzanne says that flowing is done. I think that's a really great idea and I think one that. That a lot of us would feel. Carol says to play for others confidently. Absolutely. To be able to do that. Robin said, done is when I don't have to think about the notes and can focus on. Can focus on musicality. Excellent. Darlene says, having a piece done gives me confidence. Elizabeth says done is getting a good mark for it in the ex. All right. Lori says, done is when I play it for someone. Great. Pam says, personal completion. I love that idea. Pam Winteroth says, when I can express myself. Great. Judy says done is when I can play a piece through without stopping. You know, that's a great landmark, isn't it? It's like, okay, I can play a piece through without stopping. And that's probably a big, big part of done. She goes on to say, I've learned that it does not mean there are no mistakes in the playing. Excellent. Judy. I love that. Susan says, I've never had done. You are not alone, my friend. She says, I can always find new ways to make mistakes. Well, we'll talk about the role of mistakes in done and, and that. And how those are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Cindy says done means that I can express musical expression. Pamela, to have minimal mistakes, be able to concentrate to the end. Robert, comfortable playing in pieces like harp circle. The polishing comes after. Good point. Robert and I agree polishing comes after, and that's something we don't ever finish. Kind of like, you know, your silverware always needs polishing or your furniture always needs dusting. That's kind of, you know, in there. Monique, Playing through a piece without feeling the need to stop every time I stumble a little. Great. Monique. I like that. Beth says, when I can feel comfortable playing it. Gene Done is when I can play through the mistakes. Yep, exactly. Keep going. Especially with an audience. And Carol says able to play for an audience, but it may be different depending on the audience. An excellent point as well. So you're hearing a lot of the same words, aren't we? We're hearing words like comfort and confident and playing through mistakes. And, and, you know, the mistake issue is a tricky one, so we'll come back to that. But, and I love what Robert said about, you know, the polishing is, is, is further down the road. And isn't that an interesting idea to think that done doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to continue polishing it. Okay, good. All right.

I like this. Kat says when I get done is when I can play something for people without freaking out. Yep. I think she's not alone there for sure. All right, well, let me talk about the. The framework, the system that I talk about in 30 days. To done. 30 days to done. 30 days. Okay. It's sort of an arbitrary number, but I picked something because 30 days is kind of a cool number. First of all, I know a lot of harpists who would love to be able to say yes in a month. I finished a piece of. Because for some harpists, and of course, some pieces are longer than others. Right. But for some harpists, 30 days.

Would be wonderful for them because their pieces seem to drag on and on.

And so I just made it an arbitrary framework. Boom. 30 days. And then I took those 30 days and I divided them into four weeks. So there are four stages, and we'll be talking about each of those. But in general, the idea here was that you could use this system. You can use this system to start a piece and take it from start to finish. As Robert said, we've got a lot of polishing that can go on later. Right. But we're going to take it to that point where you can be comfortable and confident playing it for someone in that 30 days. Now, some pieces and some harpists might take less time. Some pieces and some harpists might take more time, but with this four week, four stage framework, you're going to be able to keep moving through it. And I think that the concepts here are what are really critically important. So.

In this process, it's important to realize you are learning the piece from the outside in, not from the inside out. Right. It's kind of nice when we, you know, think about putting on your. Your sweater. Right? You don't want to put your sweater on inside out. We don't want to learn a piece inside out either. By the time we're done with it, we're going to know it inside and out, but we want to start with that finished product in mind. So we're going to be learning it from the outside in.

It's not about starting with the details, it's about adding those details as we get more comfortable and confident with the bigger structure. Think about if you were painting a painting, right? You're going to do a painting, and it's a portrait. Are you going to start with the eyelashes on the person's face? Probably not. You're probably going to start with some of those bold outlines and sketch those on your canvas and then start filling things in. Those eyelashes may be some of the very last things you put on.

In my experience with a lot of students, I have discovered that many of them harp speaking wise, start with the eyelashes, that they're so busy looking at some of these little bitty details that they never get to the bigger picture. So that playing a piece all the way through for them happens weeks, maybe, hopefully not months into, you know, after they begin the piece.

And that, I think, is the wrong way to do it, because if you haven't experienced the whole piece, but have just gotten to all those little parts, you don't have a really good understanding of how those little parts fit together, those little eyelash kind of details. But if you can start from a broad outline, then the little details not only make sense, but they have the right proportion. Plus, if they're little details of, you know, one little note or a pedal buzz or a finger buzz, those are things that, as you are more comfortable with the piece, you will find they are easier to work out.

So it's a question of proportion. It's a question of overall knowledge and familiarity.

And that's why you don't want to start with the details. You want to start with that broad outline.

Now, most of us who had music lessons as children had the complete opposite experience, where our teacher said, do this little chunk, do it this way, and come back next week, and then we'll add on the rest.

And that's a great way to instruct a young person who may not have the.

Wisdom, the experience.

And the discipline to look at a big project and decipher some of those tasks for themselves.

But that process of learning actually is very slow to produce results.

If you think back to those early piano lessons, if you had them, I know I certainly did. We had recitals once, maybe twice a year, so we only had to have two pieces ready at that stage, right. So we could take a long time to learn them. This process that we were using when we were kids produces results very slowly. It's great at that level. It's teaching children how to learn. It's making sure that they get bite sized chunks to work with that. The tasks don't seem too daunting.

But it actually impedes your musicianship growth because it doesn't ask very much of you. It takes a very long time to get those results. And that can actually keep you thinking that maybe you aren't good enough or maybe your piece will never be ready because it is so slow and not terribly rewarding. Now, more experienced, busy players know that that's not the way to do it. They've got too much music to learn and they need to learn it quickly. Plus, a process like that makes you do work that you don't need to do. So what this 30 days to done idea does is it helps you use the skills and experience that you have so that you can start from further ahead in the process.

You don't need to do work that you actually don't need to do. Or in the phrase that I use often, don't practice anything you don't have to.

We don't have to give the same level of attention and effort to every single measure in a piece. Some of the measures are going to be harder than others, but the ones that are easy for us, we don't have to practice with that same level of attention. So this is a faster process.

Now.

There, I told you there were four weeks to this course. And I'm quickly going to go through the ideas of these weeks and tell you what each of these stages is about and essentially how they work. And then I want to go through some questions. I've got some questions that I know a lot of people have asked me about this particular course and I want to talk about the questions that you might have about this course as well. Those of you who are here on the call with me. So let's talk about these four stages. The first one that I identify in 30 days to done is what I call spray paint. We're going to cover it all now and we're going to fill it in later. This is that broad outline on the canvas that I was referring to a minute ago. And you're going to play through the whole piece.

Hands together, as much as you can. What we want to do is find out everything we can about the piece, listening to the piece, beginning to the end, to the end. Listening to somebody play it does not count because it's not you as a player experiencing the piece, it's you as a listener experiencing the piece. And most of us know that that's very different. It's not reading through the piece, just reading it through from the music either. Because just reading it through is also not very. Not a realistic look at what that piece is going to be like to play. And if you've ever pulled out a piece of music that looks like it's going to be really simple and try to play it and discover that it's very diffic. You know what I mean? Looks can be deceiving. So you need to get in there and wrestle your way through it once.

Now, in the course, I set out an entire week and 10 different techniques, 10 or 12 different techniques during the week that you can use to help you get a big picture view of the piece. But this is learning the piece from the outside in. We're going to learn it. We're going to look at it all the way through. We're going to look at it in big sections. We're going to look at it in smaller sections as well. But you're going to get that big picture view of the piece. You don't have to stop and practice little details. Now, you can do a little bit of that if you have to check a fingering or something. But we're not doing that real repetitive sort of work. Not right now. We want to see how much we don't have to practice. That's the idea of spray paint. It's also extremely informative because only in playing the piece all the way through will you be able to not only see but feel the patterns that come back. Oh, look, those measures are just like those measures. These measures are just like these measures, except in a different key. Oh, look, this one is the same, except for the left hand chord.

Or. Oh, I see. All of these chords have three notes, but this one has four notes. Anything but it's going to give you that basic preview of everything that you need to know.

What I love about the idea of getting all the way through a piece right in the beginning of the piece is that I know what's coming. I don't have to worry that when I've learned the first two pages and I turn to get to that third page that I'm going to be sandbagged by something I wasn't expecting. I know what's on that third page. I've already been there.

Playing through the entire piece also gives you the idea to say, oh, you know what, the first two pages and the last page, I can kind of 50, 60% play them all the way through already. I need to learn page four first or I need to learn those bottom, you know, those middle three lines on page two. They're the ones that are going to be really hard. So it gives you the idea of how to strategize your practice for the piece. Just imagine if you haven't done that before, how much time that might save you. Right. So that's week one. Week two is all about finding the flow. After you've gotten sort of that big picture view, we're going to, going to get some little, some, some, some of that detail work in and still keep that big picture in mind. I call this where technique meets vision. You're going to start playing things through, starting to do a little bit of hands separately work really and starting to, you know, dig into those big sections and little sections a little bit. Once again, we don't want to get into any details that we don't need to at this point. We're looking to by the end of week two get, you know, where you can kind of get through most of the piece. Kind of mostly it's not, it's not going to be up to tempo, it's not going to be pretty, it's going to have lots of stuff that still needs fixing.

But by the end of week two, if you're using this four week framework, by the end of this stage at any rate, you're going to have a pretty decent handle on the piece. It's not anywhere near ready to play for anybody. But it will no longer scare you, you will no longer have parts that you haven't looked at.

And you'll know exactly which measures are going to be those problem measures that you're going to need to start drilling. Because ta da. Week three, that's where we get down to the nitty gritty. This is the stage I call iron out the wrinkles. We're going to pick it apart and we're going to put it back together. So you're going to do a lot of spot practice here. You're going to do that small section work, work on those details.

You're going to really start looking at the stuff that doesn't work. Now what you will discover is that during those first two weeks, a lot of the stuff that you might have thought you were going to need to practice a lot has sorted itself out.

And some of that is not nearly as challenging as you thought it was going to be, and so you don't need to do too much detail work on it. But there are almost certainly going to be some of those measures where you think, oh, okay, I still. I'm. I'm going to need to do a bunch of drill on this because my fingers still aren't picking up the right patterns, or I still can't get these four measures hands together, or I'm still messing up this rhythm. And so you're going to need to do that kind of work. But this is where it belongs. You already have a pretty good. Pretty good picture there on the canvas. We can see what it's going to be, but it's not right yet. So in iron out the wrinkles in this third week, we're going to start ironing some of that stuff out, Realizing, too, that this is going to take some time.

But it doesn't have to hold us back from moving on. There are some measures in some pieces that are always going to require extra drill.

And no matter how good the rest of the piece is, those two measures are always going to be ones where you have to review them slowly a few times.

Anytime you come back to play the piece. And you're going to know that. So we don't have to let the whole progress of the piece slow down and stall because of those couple measures or those couple measures. And those couple measures. There might be a few of them. Right. We know that over time, they will get less. Less challenging, they will get a little bit more familiar, they will cause us less difficulty. But that doesn't have to stop us from moving on to done, because in the fourth stage of this, the fourth week, ideally, you're going to move on to the stage I call insurance. It is insurance. We're going to just prepare it so that it's prepared in a way that we can to go back to the words that some of you here on the call used, that we can play it for others, that we can play it confidently, that we can make it flow, that we can feel finally like we're playing it, not practicing it.

And that's the stage where, yeah, you're still going to have to do some spot practice, but we're starting to pick it up to tempo. That tempo process can sometimes take a while, and that doesn't have to keep you from getting to the done stage.

You're going to get to tempo over time. It requires familiarity. It requires a certain comfort level that can only be built with time. But that doesn't mean that your piece isn't at a point where you can share it, even if it's still kind of slow.

So just a thought there. So this is a completely different way from the way most of us were taught to learn a piece. And yet it's a very efficient and effective way to use your skills, the skills you have now, the experience that you have, and bring that to help you to learn music faster. And the more you go through this process, not only the more pieces you'll have done, but the more confidence you'll have starting a new piece and the further along you'll start that new piece each time.

Because what are we building? We're building your reading skills because we're getting all the way through the piece. You're not having to learn two measures, then the next two measures, then the next two measures. You're looking at the whole piece and filling in the details as you go. And that's the place we want to get to now. If you started music lessons as a kid, came back to them as an adult, this is probably the stage that you skipped.

If you never had music lessons before and you just started the harp, this is probably the stage that nobody's taught you yet. Or probably the system nobody's taught you yet. Well, until now. Right. But this is a good way. It feels a little scary at first because it's much.

Much safer to take that, you know, sort of baby step approach to a piece.

But, you know, baby steps take a long time to go the same distance that adult strides do. I mean, they may move faster, but they fall down more often and they're much smaller. Right. So we want to take adult sized strides. And that's what this system is all about now. So if your piece feels like it's too long and you can't do it in this time frame, well, use this, this 30 days to done system. Break your piece in half. And when you get to the end of week two for the first half, start at week one for the second half and you'll have, you'll still be on a pretty quick timeline, but you'll have one piece that's already one part of the piece that's actually moving along while you get the other half of the piece off the ground. If the piece is really short and you don't need 30 days, terrific. You can compress this into just a few days. If that's all your piece needs.

Compress it into two weeks, no problem. You may find that you have a piece that you try out with this 30 day system and you think, wow, I thought this was going to take me way longer, but guess what? I'm already to stage three, and I'm only, you know, a week into this, so I've already moved forward faster. Well, that's just good news, right? But here's one of the biggest leaps of faith that this system requires.

Many of us are taught to begin a piece with hands separately practice. Now, I can't see you, but if you were taught to begin your piece with hands separately practice, you could just raise your hand. And I'm sure that there are a lot of you raising your hand out there, because a lot of us were taught that way.

Hands separately is great because you get to see the details. But when do details fit in this system? Week three, maybe some in week two. They don't fit in week one. We're looking at that big picture. So what happens if we always start a piece hands separately? Hands together is a big leap that we need to make in the middle of our music learning, because hands separately and hands together are not the same thing. I mean, right hand plus left hand does not equal hands together. Hands together is a completely different coordination of processes than one hand. It's very different. And if you've learned the right hand and you've learned the left hand, you have to relearn it as hands together. And so if you are one of those who has trouble putting stuff hands together.

Try this and do hands together from the beginning. It's going to take a lot of stumbling at first, but you will learn how to coordinate that hands together playing. And you're going to be learning the piece the way you actually want to play it from the beginning, because nobody wants to hear you play a piece hand separately. Right? So let's start hands together. Even if it feels like a struggle, that struggle is going to pay off so much. The dividends you're going to get from that struggle are going to be incredible because you're going to be able to sight read better. You're going to be able to learn any piece of music faster, because hands separately will then be relegated to the part of practice that it is most useful for, and that is error correction.

It's for fixing mistakes. It's for smoothing things out. It's for, you know, clarifying what's going on. It's not for basic learning. I realize that that first step can be really daunting in this process, starting hands together, but it is so worth it.

So that's perhaps the biggest, biggest fear people have with this system and the As I said, the biggest leap of faith. But it's incredibly valuable and not for just this one piece. It's going to speed everything along. So let me open the floor now and let you type in your questions. I've got.

A bunch of ideas here that may help. The course goes into lots of detail, of course, about specific techniques, but you don't even need those techniques to go through this same process with your own pieces. Take a piece that you're going to start. You can even take one you've already started. Play it all the way through, See what needs work and what doesn't. Identify the big sections in your piece. Like, okay, well, this is kind of, you know, theme A and this is kind of theme B. And then theme A comes back again. Identify those for your yourself. Then look for those little sections of four bars that can be your practice sections. And four measures is right for a lot of pieces. It's not right for every piece. So, you know, use your own judgment for your own piece. But those are going to be your little practice sections. We need those too. But they're the sections that are come up, going to come up more in weeks two and especially in week three, not so much in week one. So let's see.

Lee has typed in here. She says hands together. Yes, the way to go. This has helped me on so many levels. Lee has been part of our coaching program. Lee has done a lot of work on all the My Heart mastery materials. And she is a hands together convert and beach. Hello, Anne. She says an important thing to remember is that you do not need to be perfect. Oh, thank you for getting this in here, Anne. A difficult. You do not need to perfect. There we go. A difficult spot in order to continue learning the piece. That is the hardest thing for me to get past, and that's so important. You don't have to have that difficult spot exactly right in order to play the whole piece. There are plenty of ways we can make accommodations if it's never gon. If it feels like it's never going to come together, we can make some accommodations, right, so that those two measures don't have to stop you and, you know, the whole piece, the whole picture is different from two measures. We may be focusing on those two measures and they may feel like, you know, a big mountain in the middle of our otherwise seamless, you know, rolling hills kind of piece, but they aren't that for a listener. So that perspective is important too. Thank you, Ann, for saying that. Evelyn, can you show us what stage one sounds like? It seems like it would be a mess. Yes. Oh, and missing notes. Yes. It's going to be a mess and you're going to miss notes. And you know what? That's okay. We're not looking for perfection. We're looking for playing. Perfection is so far down the road. This is the kind of thing that Robert was talking about before when he had his comment about polishing happens later. You can play the piece long before you feel like it's perfect. And that first time through is going to be a mess. It's not going to be a steady tempo. You're going to be stopping and starting. You're going to be struggling through this measure. Well, don't stop and practice that measure. Go on to the next one. Do the next one. If you have to stop between every measure for a while, go for it. If you get to a place where you think, okay, I'm really kind of playing this hands together, but my left hand has no clue. Well, I'm just going to breeze over that and I'll play my right hand through that. I'll bring my left hand back in two bars later. That's okay, too. It's going to be a mess. The mess is going to be part of your process, and that's okay. But you need to experience what the piece is about. Right. If you start by practicing those little things and making sure that every note's perfect before you play the next one, you're going to be looking at your piece through this little pinhole and it's going to slow down. The way you learn the piece, it's not intuitive. It feels like it goes against the grain. I know that. And it can require some fortitude to let yourself play wrong notes. But that's what it's like, and that's what it's supposed to be like. It's okay. But imagine what will happen as you get more experienced. At this point, you'll be able to sight read with fewer and fewer mistakes. That's the reward that happens down the road for you, and it's a really, really valuable reward. Okay. Susan says, I so needed to hear this. I do this but not consciously and more aimlessly because I'm impatient to get to the end. Well, you know, I'm with you there. I love to get to the end. And what I love about this process is that you get to start from getting to the end and it reduces amount of. And this is in air quotes here, boring practice, repetitive practice that you have to do. So, yep, a little bit more consistency. It Will will help for sure. Elizabeth says, can you say a bit more about working on a longer piece and splitting it into sections? Do you go through all the stages for the first section before moving on? Absolutely not. This was what I was talking about just a moment ago with.

Suppose you've got a piece that's eight pages long. Well, I still, and I do this to this day, and as Evelyn said, it's a mess for a lot of pieces. My eight page piece, I'll put it on my music stand, look at it for the first time, I will play through the whole thing. Sometimes it means I'm not getting through every single note, but it's like, okay, well, let's, let's kind of get through it as messy. And, and if it takes me an hour to get through the piece the first time, that's okay. I'm still doing it because then I know everything in that big picture that I need to know. But then what I'll do is I'll say, okay, well those first two pages, they're kind of an opening section. I get it. And notice that having gotten the overview of the piece, I have a little bit of understanding about that. Then the middle three pages are something else entirely. And then the last two pages are kind of like the first two pages. Oh, and there's that extra page at the end that's actually an ending. So I'm going to divide it into the first two pages, the next three pages, and then the three pages at the end, I'm going to divide it into three big sections. And so I'm going to work on those first two pages because that's going to be fun because they're kind of like those ending two pages too. So I'm going to work on the first two pages and I'll get them through the first two stages. And by the end of the first two stages, I have enough of a comfort level with them that I can start to work on the details, which would be the third stage.

And as I'm ready to start the third stage for those first two pages, I begin to work on those middle three pages. Now I may find also that those ending pages are worth tacking on early. You know, I'm working on those first two pages and by the time I get to stage two, maybe I want to actually work on those last two pages as well. And because they might all get to that same stage pretty quickly, but I'm going to get one part of the piece through those first couple weeks, then I'm going to start the next part of the piece and bring that on at the first stage so that I'm doing detail work for some of the piece, but not for all of the piece. I'm still doing that spray paint kind of work on the new sections that I bring in. Does that make sense?

Connie says I struggle with pieces I want to learn that are a bit above my level, but yet I want to move ahead with my learning. Well, Connie, be sure to combine them so that you're. You're looking at, you know, you've got sort of that longer term project of the piece that's too hard for you or a bit above your level, as you said, and make that your longer term project. And maybe do what I was just talking about with Elizabeth. Break that piece into chunks and work on one chunk at a time, you know, and section it out that way. At the same time, when you've got that long term piece, bring in pieces that are below your level. Right. So if, if. And these levels are purely imaginary. So, you know, because I don't. Levels in heart playing are not so clear and they don't translate very well from one person to another. So let's suppose you're at level four and you want to work on a level six piece. Well, that's fine. Level six piece is going to be your long term project. But I want you to play to fill in the rest of your practice with pieces that are at a level three, maybe one at a level four, so that you can have a quick turnover of these easier pieces that will keep you motivated and energized and moving right along. And that's what I would do. Darlene says, understanding the big picture of a piece, making it come together sooner and loving your piece. Yeah, that's, that's the aim. That's what we're looking for here. Pam says it's like a pretest for spelling words. What a great idea, Pam. I love that analogy. The spray paint idea is like a pretest for your spelling words. Most students miss some words at the beginning of the week. Then they study the ones they missed and by the end of the week they show great improvement. I love that idea. That's perfect. Evelyn says, when do you use the metronome? I use the metronome at for everything except the initial playthrough. That initial playthrough where you're struggling through the piece for the very first time. I will count as I'm working on it to make sure that I'm getting the essential relative note values in the right place, but I don't use the metronome for that because I know that, okay, those two lines I did at one speed, and the next two lines I'm doing at another speed, and I'm kind of all over the place, and I don't let that bother me. So I don't use the metronome for that kind of a playthrough because I'm just not ready for it. But I use my metronome all the time for everything. But remember that the metronome is there to help you keep a steady beat. And learning where that steady beat is early in the learning process of a piece is so critical because it's going to give you time to line things up. The metronome is not just there to make us play faster and to drag us along when we don't want to be dragged. Right. But it's there to allow us the time to get where we need to be. So you can let that metronome keep you to a nice, slow, relaxed tempo, which will allow you to line everything up. So. So I use the metronome for everything, as I said, except for those initial playthroughs where my. My tempo's all over the place. So Ann says, I'd like to analyze the music and see if there is a repeating pattern. I work them and think I know this. Then I go on absolutely great strategy. And that's exactly the kind of thing we're talking about. When you can. When you have enough of a view of the piece to see those repeating patterns, then you are able to say, oh, I know this, and you can move right along. It falls right in with the don't practice anything. You don't have to strategy falls right in line with that.

So the. The last thing that I want to tell you about this strategy is that please don't hold yourself back from getting to week four, because week three, that's where we're doing spot practice. That's where we're fixing details. It's so important that you don't bog down there, because that's where you. If you've bogged down and not finished pieces, that's probably where you get stuck waiting for things to get better. Please take them through to that fourth week and start the fourth week. Strategies are all about creating the flow. This is where we get back to playing the piece beginning to end and making it flow, figuring out how we're going to adapt those couple of measures that we can't get through so that we can get through, so that we can actually play the piece. How are we going to manage that? That's what we're looking for. So in that fourth week, we are putting everything back together. We're playing it. We know that there's still stuff we have to work on. Maybe it still needs to get up to tempo, and we're still adding dynamics, and we still have a couple spots, but that's where the flow comes back. That's where we get back to really playing the piece all the way through and having that start to create the music that we're looking for. Those spots we will continue to need to work on. We will always need to work on them. So don't slow yourself down from finishing the piece waiting for those spots to be perfect, because they won't be. They take time. I mean, it doesn't mean that you won't get them. Right. That's not what I mean. But we don't need them to be exactly right. Right. Then we can still move on. A lot of those kinds of things, once you put them back in context, they suddenly get easier somehow. Some of them don't, but some of them do. So let yourself go on to that last stage of putting everything back together and doing spot practice as you need it section practice as you need it. But doing 90% of your practice playing all the way through, it's a terrific way to do it. It's more fun, it's more musical, and it's what we're looking for when we start a piece. Right. We don't start a piece so that we can practice two measures over and over for the rest of our lives. We start a piece so that we can play it. We want it to be done, and that's where we're going. So please don't let yourself fall into that, you know, phase three trap of, oh, the spot's not right yet. I can't go on. Yes, you can, and you should.

Okay, so that's the essence of the 30 days to done system. Those of you who are my Heart mastery members, you have this course. And if you want to go back and look at it, remember, the course includes not only a demonstration piece that. That is properly marked for you. And you know where I can walk you through those things. But it's got a video lesson for each of those four stages. There's the PDF that gives you specific practice techniques for each day of the week in each of those weeks. And in addition to that, there's. There's some, you know, getting beyond done kind of stuff. What do I do. Now there's a little self assessment you can take. There are two live trainings that I did on this system that are also included in that course. So there's quite a bit. And my Heart Mastery members, you have access to all of this. If you, if you are interested in the course and you're not a My Heart Mastery member, you can get it. Just go to courses on heartmastery.com It's a standalone course. It's $25. I think it's an incredible value. And I will tell you this since it's free for my Heart Mastery members. We are don't tell anybody because it's not open yet. But at the end of this month, we will be opening My Heart Mastery members. So if you decide to go ahead and purchase the 30 days to done course before April 24th.

Then when we open My Heart Mastery membership, if you decide to join us in My Heart Mastery, and of course, I hope you will, we will refund you the cost of the course. So, you know, you're not. It's. There's no, no losing here, that's for sure. A couple other things to remind you about that we have going on at Heart Mastery right now. We're, we are as, as of the date when this podcast goes live, we are in the open enrollment period for our coaching spring trimester. So if you haven't joined our coaching program and you think that working with one of our certified coaches would be the fastest way to achieve your HARP goals, and it probably will be. This is a great time to do that. So be on the lookout for that. And we have just opened registration for, for our, well, it's technically our fall retreat, but we're having it in August this year. And all that information is up on our website, too. So just a couple quick reminders there. Now, next week on the podcast, we will be doing a quick fix episode. So. Oh my gosh, I have to interrupt myself because Lee just said coaching is a true gift of time and talent. Lee has. Lee is one of our, one of our star coaching students, that's for sure. So thank you for those kind words, Lee. We have a bunch of other coaching students on this call too, so. And a shout out to all of you. So. Yes. So next week on the podcast is a quick fix episode and I'll be talking about how to play without looking at your fingers. Or at least without looking at your fingers so much. So why would this be important? Well, because isn't it nice to think that you could read music faster you wouldn't have to memorize those measures to play them. Yeah, we know we need to look at our fingers sometimes, but if you're looking at your fingers in order to play a difficult passage, you're probably looking at your fingers too much. So we're going to talk about how you can reduce the amount of time you need to actually see your fingers and, well, what should you be doing instead? So we'll be talking about how to do that on the next episode of the podcast, which will be, of course, episode 101. So before I sign off, I just want to thank all of you listening for your support of this podcast and for letting me speak into your ears every week. Special, special thank you to all of you who joined me live on this call today. It has been such a treat to have you here.

I should do these podcasts live all the time, but it's been just a ton of fun. And thank you so much for being here, being part of celebration and oh. So here we go. My usual sign off, right?

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 well. Thanks so much for listening and for being here, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Okay, bye everybody.

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.