If I Were Starting Over: What You Should Know - PHH 123

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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. If I were starting over, I would. Hmm. Well, that's our topic for today's show. If I were starting my harp journey over again from square one, what would I do differently? Knowing what I know now? Obviously, I've done decades of practice, taken thousands of lessons, done thousands of performances, and I've taught countless students. I've watched students thrive, and I've worked with those who struggle. And both kinds of students have taught me so much. They've given me a breadth of experience that goes well beyond my own personal harp journey. As I reflect on what my own harp story was like, the remarkable privileges that I had, the circumstances that shaped my harp life gave me only one view of harp study. My own. But over the years of working with so many other harpists, I have come to identify a few factors that can speed up a harpist's progress. Any harpist's progress, no matter that harpist's age or skill level.

I've also seen the Harp Happiness killers, those sneaky saboteurs that steal our enthusiasm for playing the harp. I've fallen victim to some of them from time to time, and I've certainly seen and experienced the damage they can cause. But I'm not going to talk about those today, at least not directly. No one needs a list of things they shouldn't do. Instead, we're going to focus on the things you should do. The actions that separate the harpists who keep learning, growing, and loving every minute. Well, perhaps almost every minute of their harp journeys from those who end up just a little frustrated and disappointed or maybe end up quitting. Now I can tell you from where I am right now, harp playing is a marvelous adventure packed with creativity, discovery and personal growth. It's not for the faint hearted, but if you've already started this journey, then you are one of the brave ones, my friend. After all, simply buying a harp takes courage. I'm going to start our discussion by sharing just a little bit about my own harp story. Maybe from a different perspective than I've shared it before. But before we get to that, I just want to remind you that you know every week every here in the podcast Show Notes you'll find that there are some resources for you. I know that sometimes I mention specific links, you'll find it in the show notes. But you know, there's the link that I'm sort of featuring and talking about. But we I also list a blog post that has some related content that might help you follow up on our discussion today. And so that's always there for you. So make sure this week in the Show Notes what you'll find is an invitation to join me for my next live Monday warmup, which you will find in our Heart Mastery Hub. I usually do them every week, but there isn't one today. When the when this podcast airs, our next one will be on October 9th. And I want you to to get in there and get in the hub and find it. So I wanted to give you just a little bit of warning. If you are already a member of our Heart Mastery Hub, then you that you head over to the meetups tab and you can just join the call live from there. So I would invite you to join the hub, but if you haven't and if you don't know what our hub is all about, it's our social media.

Little Harp Mastery platform. But it's social media without all the hoopla. So if you're not a fan of Facebook or Instagram and you don't want ads and you don't want all that kind of stuff, but you want a place where you can discuss with other harpists and just find some resources like our live Monday warmups. And we have challenges from time to time. So little things in the hub, it's totally free and it's offered just here through Harp Mastery. So there's nothing else in there, no ads, we don't track any data. That's not what we're there for. We do ask for your email address just so that you can participate, but that's it. So I'd love for you to join us. There and we have lots of stuff and lots of people there to talk to. So that's the hub. And we usually do a live Monday warmup and I've taken a couple Mondays off. But October 9th is our next one and I'd love for you to join us. Also, you will find a blog post that I wrote several years ago called Are youe Living youg Harp Dream Or Just Thinking you are? And there's a link to that blog post which, which is just a different way to sort of look at why you play the harp. And just sort of thinking about it can sometimes bring some added clarity and some added energy to what you're doing. Might give you a little bit of direction. If you're feeling a little bit lost or lacking a little motivation or direction, this might help clear your thinking just a little bit. So be sure to check out the Show Notes. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, whatever app you're listening in, you should be able to access the Show Notes. If you can't, just go over to heartmastery.com click on the podcast and click on the link for the podcast page and you will see them all there. So enjoy. And you know those resources are there for you. That's why we do that. But let me tell you a little about my harp story. Now, this is not a story about how I got started playing the harp, but really what I want to share is just to give you some perspective how straightforward and easy my harp journey was.

So I'm not sharing the, you know, rags to riches, struggle kind of story. Oh, I had my struggles. But. But there are so many harpists who managed to play the harp and find brilliant harp careers, become amazing players despite the fact that they lived in a place where there were very few harp teachers. Or perhaps they had parents who weren't supportive of their harp playing. They just didn't have access to everything I did. I mean, I had it very easy and I know how lucky I was. At least I know now I didn't. Of course at the time you don't. But you know, I was born in the Philadelphia area. That's where I grew up. So this is a major metropolitan center with one of the major orchestras in the world, the Philadelphia Orchestra. So this is a, was a huge, it still is a huge cultural center. And so when I told my parents, and I was quite young that I wanted to play the harp, while they weren't quite prepared to get into the harp thing right away, they knew who to send me to for piano lessons. My parents Both had musical backgrounds, but neither one was a professional musician by any stretch of the imagination. My dad could play the piano, but he was a computer guy. My mom played the piano and even took lessons as an adult. She certainly did as a kid. But, you know, they were definitely not musicians. It's not what they, what they did. But there was a strong musical gene, I suppose, on both sides of my family. So my mother knew who to go to for piano lessons. We had an excellent piano teacher who lived very close by. And my mother had been in choirs that this woman directed. And she knew how talented this woman was. So she sent me to her for piano lessons. I was four when I started piano.

And this piano teacher, Dorothy Carter was her name, she was not only a very gifted teacher, but she knew that my ambition was to play the harp. And I had been given the deal by my parents and my piano teacher that I was to study piano and if I still wanted to play the harp when I was 8, I was 4 at that time. If I still wanted to play the harp when I was 8, then I could start harp lessons. I really enjoyed piano lessons and I know that Mrs. Carter enjoyed teaching me, but she knew that I really wanted to play the harp. In fact, she had played the harp and she had a harp sitting in her piano studio. So it was always there to sort of inspire me just a little bit. And when it came time for me to look for a harp teacher, she knew to send me to the very best. So I went to play piano because of course I couldn't play the harp at that point, went to play piano four and to meet Marilyn Costello, who was the principal harpist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Because Mrs. Carter knew that there was no point in, you know, just not starting from the top. So you go to the best and this was the best. So Ms. Costello said that I was too young. She didn't take students that young. So I started with a Curtis student. So already think about how fortunate I was. You know, I had a wonderful piano teacher. I went right to the premier harp teacher because we had this world class orchestra in town and she had students studying at one of the world class music conservatories. And I studied with a teacher, Elizabeth Burke. I studied with her for two years and then Ms. Costello took me as a student. So I was studying with her from the time I was 10, all the way through my years, my college years studying at Curtis.

So I had excellent instruction. And because it was Philadelphia, I had endless playing opportunities. I was playing in amateur orchestras and Youth orchestras. I was playing in three or four orchestras by the time I was 13. So I had lots of opportunity to play.

I didn't realize how unusual that was or how lucky I was.

And I don't want to share this for you to think that I'm boasting about my background. I'm just acknowledging how unusual it was and how because of that, it really took me a long time to understand that this was not everyone's experience and that many, many more harpists had struggles of different kinds along their journey. Oh, I had my struggles, yes, But I had so many opportunities that so many harpists didn't have. And of course, I started the harp young, and as we know, not everyone does. So my perspective was really very singular.

I had an unusual circumstance, and so it wasn't until I started to know the backgrounds of more harpists as I went into college mostly, and then beyond, and of course, when I started to teach that I realized that other people had different experiences. So while it took me a long time to realize all the things I'd taken for granted, when I realized the difference between my journey and a lot of people's, it really hit home. And I think that that's part of what created my own teaching mission of really making sure that harpus had access, that they had opportunities. It's why I started blogging in 2012.

Because I wanted to be able to bring the knowledge that I'd had access to in this really kind of marvelous way to as many harpists as I could. Harpists who didn't have access to that information and might be struggling or feel frustrated or feel alone. So that's, as I said, the perspective, the part of my harp story I don't always share. But I learned a lot. And what I learned.

As I started comparing my experience to that of other people is I learned what some of the richness was in my own experience, what the things that I did right, not just the opportunities I had, but the things that really created the energy to sustain my heart, playing through the difficult years, and the things that I could share with my students that would help them do the same thing. So let me get a little specific. The lessons. The lessons with the best teacher I could find. The lessons, of course, were key. And normally lessons are part of a young musician's experience, no matter what instrument they're playing. You take lessons. I do think that lessons are important for people at any age because you just trying to teach yourself. You don't know what you don't know. Things go Faster. When you have a teacher who has experience, who's been through all this and can show you those shortcut ways. I think the other massive thing that I did right, and this was in part because it was so easy for me to do it where I grew up, but I played.

Every chance I got.

And fortunately, my parents supported that. My poor father gave up all his nights and his weekends because he had to move the harp for me. Take me to this orchestra on Tuesday, that one on Wednesday. Thursday was just generally choir night, but I would be at rehearsals on Friday and Saturday morning. And concerts maybe on a Saturday and a Sunday. So, you know, he. He drove me a lot of places because he had to move my harp. So I had. I was very lucky with that. But just playing in all those things. By the time I graduated from high school, I knew the. The scores to a lot of musicals. I'd been playing a lot of those. I knew how to get through what we call a book show. I'd played in orchestras, I'd played solos with orchestras. I'd played orchestra parts. I'd accompanied choirs. I'd accompanied singers. I had done all these things and more.

Before I got out of high school. How lucky was I? But so much of what I learned about harp playing came from taking advantage of those opportunities. Now, there were plenty of things that I did wrong along the way. I'm not sure that anybody believes me when I say this, but I was truly a terrible practicer. I hated to practice. Although I enjoyed playing. It took me a ridiculous amount of time.

Up to the time I started college, just about to understand exactly what practice was supposed to do and why it was important. Now I was able to get by because I was also blessed. Things came pretty easily to me, but not everything did. And so there was a time when all of a sudden I was up against music that needed to be practiced. And I didn't really have the practice skills or know how to get it done. Oh, I figured it out eventually, but. And I do like to practice now, but it took me years to get that figured out. Practice is important. I know I don't have to tell you. You could have told me that for a long time and I wouldn't have believed you. But of course not. Practicing is kind of a killer.

One of the things that also didn't help me in my harp journey was that I didn't really cultivate harp friends. You know, like many harpists, even though I was in an area with a lot of harpists, I always sort of felt like the only one. And I know this is the experience not just of adult students, but of younger students as well, because when we have our harp camp for youth in the summer, it's so wonderful for these kids who are finally getting to spend time with other harpists their age. And they all say, oh, I always feel like I'm the only one. There's nobody else who plays harp in my school or nobody else who plays harp in my orchestra, or nobody else my teacher is teaching who's my age, or nobody else that I know who plays the harp. And while sometimes it's fun, especially as a teenager, to feel like you're the special one, at some point, it just feels a little lonely. You want somebody who understands you. And I think while that may be something that teenagers feel extra acutely, we all feel like that. And harp friends are great because harp friends get it right. They know how hard it is. They know what you struggle with. They can help you change a string or, you know, you can have string changing parties with your harp buddies. You can talk music. You can talk about all that cool harp geeky stuff.

In a way that you can't with somebody else. Harp friends would have been. Would have been really helpful.

So while it's a little bit different for adults, I think that there are definitely some similarities between an adult's harp journey and young person's harp journey. Where it's massively different for adults, is that adults get to design their own path. Young harpists, sometimes they don't have a path. They're just taking lessons and enjoying it. I've taught plenty of students like that, and sometimes I would have students, parents who'd say, well, you know, she doesn't want to be a harpist. She just enjoys the harp. And I said, you know, that's great. That's the most wonderful thing. I don't need to just teach harpists who want to become professional harpists. I want to teach people who love to play the harp how to play the harp better in a way that makes them happy. They don't have to play music that I want to play. They don't have to play the next hardest piece. They just need to be happy with their heart playing, and I'm happy to show them how to do that. So designing your own path is definitely the thing that differentiates adults from kids. And it's the thing that I want to address right now, because when you're designing your own path, you're designing your own heart path, and you don't know exactly where it's going to go.

When as a teacher I work with a young person, I can see their heart path even if they can't. And when I'm working with an adult, I can see lots of different heart paths for them. But the adult gets to choose in a way that a very young student isn't choosing. They're just learning.

Adults get to choose. And because of that, there are some shoulds that I want to share with you. These are the things that will make your harp journey wherever it's going to take you, and however you choose to get there, just a little bit easier, a little bit more fun, and a lot less uncertain. Of course, just quickly, I definitely would have practiced more. It would have made a difference for me. And it will make a difference for you, too. If you're a person that isn't all about practicing and doesn't love to practice, think about it as staying connected to your harp. Any day that I don't practice now is a day when I don't quite feel right because I don't just haven't connected myself to my harp, which is part of how I stay grounded and centered in this world. And it might work that way for you, too. So practicing is probably one of those first shoulds. But after that.

I would put much more time into practicing technique right from the very start. Those technical skills are just so critical. I mean, yes, we want to play music because that's the fun part, but your technique is what supports your musicality. So I would definitely be doing more technical practice. If I were starting over right from the very beginning of my studies.

What else would I do if I were starting over? I would always have something ready to play. Now, I was a kid who hated playing for the grown ups. You know, my parents would have friends over and say, oh, play something for dinner. And then I'd grumble, grumble, grumble. And I always used the excuse, oh, well, I'm just, I just have everything in progress. It's all, you know, I'm just learning and I don't have anything ready.

But having something ready to play is a great feeling. I mean, I was, you know, as a kid, I just didn't want to play for the grownups. So. But having a piece that you can always play that you love doesn't have to be hard, but just something that you can share right on the spot that feels good. It's what it's part of anyway, what makes us feel accomplished. So I would always have something ready to play. What else would I do?

I would Spend less time worrying about how well I was playing and more time actually playing. Because I have found that the more I play, the better I play. Remember, playing is different from practice. It's a different skill. And the more you play, the better you get at it. That was one of the strengths that I had when I was a kid. I was playing everywhere and playing everything I possibly could and it was what made me a better player. Feeling a little bit uncertain about putting yourself out there or not being sure or not, you know, worrying if you're going to be good enough, that's so debilitating and it just holds you back unnecessarily. And yes, we want to play well, but spending your energy being a critic of yourself or a critic of others too is not going to help your playing. Get out there, just do it. And at the same time, you can be a sponge and just, you know, listen and learn and try everything, just take it all in. But remember to play. That is something you definitely should be doing every day. Play something.

And then the corollary to that or the next step is that, you know, if I were doing it again, I would play everything anywhere, for anyone. That was pretty much what I did. If they asked me to play, I was there to do it. And that's how we learn. That's how we gain experience, it's how we gain confidence. And truly being able to share your music with more people.

Makes you want to share your music with more people. So don't hide your music under a bushel. Playing is a chance to grow and to learn. It's an opportunity to give a gift that only you can give.

So if I had to say so far the most important shoulds on this list, this would be it for me. Play everything anywhere, anyone, for any time. Whenever you can play, just play. You'll learn to love it.

And lastly.

I would remember that enjoying the journey is the point. The point isn't being the best harpist or playing perfectly or making someone else proud, not even making your teacher proud. We play the harp for ourselves. We play because it's an essential part of our self expression. Our creative inner core needs it. We react, respond and reflect the music in a particular personal and individual way. It's important to us. That gift of music that we can give to another person or to the world is so important not just for the way it affects someone else, but for the wonderful feeling that comes back from it. The energy that comes back from sharing your music, that's part of it. But what I really mean is that our music is important to us because it fulfills us. Not because it's better than somebody else's or as good as somebody else's, or good enough for the audience or making our family or our teacher or our best friend or our child proud. We do it for ourselves. Being a harpist, being a musician isn't something you achieve. It's a process of becoming one day at a time. We are always becoming. We're not where we want to go, but every day. Every day we practice, every day we play, every time we share our music with somebody else, we're that much closer, that much further along the path.

So to sum up, if I were starting over, what would I do? Well, I think it sums up in one word, and you can probably guess what that word is, But I would play.

I would play, just play the harp. That's what we started this for. That's what we started this harp journey for. And so every day we don't play is a day we're not fulfilling our ambition, our goal, working toward our dream. And it doesn't matter where you are right now. Wherever you are is good enough.

All you have to do is play.

Gosh, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, that might sound kind of familiar. Huh? Well, let me lighten things up just a little bit. Next week on the podcast, we'll be talking about how to play any piece more musically. Any piece can be more musical. And I'll give you some exact steps to do to make your music more musical. Don't forget, take a look at those resources in the show notes and be sure to join us in the Heart Mastery Hub. If you're not a member there already. It's totally free, so you can check out that link and join us and you'll be able to participate completely in our live Monday warmups each week. We're on hiatus now, but we'll be back with those Monday warmups starting October 9th, and I look forward to seeing you there. In the meantime, 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. Go ahead, say it with me. All you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next week.

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.