Knowing When You Get There - PHH 018

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 today's show. Today is the third in our goal setting series, and I think today's show will be the show that you've been waiting for. We've been talking a lot about how to set goals, about the theory of goal setting, why it's important, how to set goals that are achievable, how to know when you've achieved them. But today we're going to get very practical. I know it can be really confusing when you're talking about how to do something and you don't really understand how to take the concepts and apply them to your own situation. Granted, in the scope of a podcast, it's really hard for me to individualize this kind of information. But I'm going to do the next best thing. Today's episode is going to be essentially a case study. This is a plan that I created for one of my students. It was a 90 day plan. We had the 30 day progress goals, we had the seven day benchmarks, we had the daily practice goals, all those things that I mention in the progress planner. So we set up all those goals, the big ones, the interim ones, and then we worked together to make them happen. And so I thought that this would be a particularly good case study for you because it was a goal based around sight reading. And I know that that's something a lot of people, a lot of harpists particularly, want to understand how to do better and how to work on it. So we'll talk about that particular goal, how we chose it, why we chose it, how we divided it up, and how it worked for her. So it's a case study today and one that I think you'll really enjoy walking through. So that's Today. Next week we'll finish up our goal setting series and I'll tell you a little bit more about that at the end of today's show. But for right now, I want to tell you about something that we have coming up in a couple weeks that's a special event for us. It's a webinar I will be presenting called Two Steps Chord Theory for Harpists. Yes, I know. We never stop talking about chords, do we? They're so important to everything that we play and understanding the theory behind them can be just as complex as anything else that we do. So this is going to be a way, a very practical way to approach what you need to know, what every harpist needs to know about chords and how to not spend your time just studying it, but to put the principles of chord theory.

In your practice right away. That's coming up on October 6th and we will put the link for you to register for that webinar in the show notes for today's episode. It's totally free, but I think you're going to learn a lot. So please join me on October 6th at 8:00pm Eastern Time for our two step chord theory for harpist. I mean, two steps. How much easier can it get, right? Okay, that's coming up. And I'll tell you more about finishing up our goal setting series when we get to the end of today. But for right now, let's dive into our case study.

So here's the thing. If you've been trying to set a goal for yourself, one of the first places you might be stuck is really determining what that goal is. And so that's where we'll start with our case study. So my student came to me ready to dive into a program and we needed to choose a goal, a 90 day goal. And she said, well, let's see, I want to do this and this and this and this. I need to improve my technique. I want to play these pieces. I'm learning really slowly. I'm having trouble putting things hands together, but I really want to be able to sight read. And I know reading seems slow. It just takes me so long to approach a piece. So we talked for a while.

And I asked her, well, let's identify your biggest domino. And naturally she said, well, domino, what are we talking about? And I said, well, think of all those challenges and desires, all the things that you want to do with your heart playing. Think of them like a big row of dominoes. And if we put one domino at the end and we do that one thing, that's going to be the domino that pushes over all the other dominoes and they all fall. So we're looking for that biggest domino skill or whatever it is that we want to do. We're looking for that biggest domino that if we improve that, if we fix that, whatever it turns out to be, everything else will be easier. What is that biggest domino? Well, this was a topic for some discussion, obviously, but what it really came down to was the thing that was frustrating her the most was that the learning stages, especially the early ones for working on a piece, were just so slow and it took her forever to get things hands together. And we were sort of torn, I guess is the right word, between whether this was a hands together issue and she just needed more work on hands together skills or, or whether it was a note reading issue. So we talked for a little while longer and decided that we really needed to start working on hands together skills. But we also decided that working on hands together skills was not really a big enough goal for 90 days. She wasn't going to need that much work on hands together skills. It needed to have a reason, it needed to have a purpose. And I think this is important. What whenever you have a skill you want to develop.

I would suggest that you don't necessarily make that the end goal, your 90 day goal. Don't make that your only goal perhaps, but make it part of another goal that would be more satisfying. For instance, when we improve her hands together skills, the next question becomes, well, okay, what do we do with it? Well, what we decided to do with it was to work on the hands together skills. So that that not the issue any longer or was something that we were addressing certainly over time, but that we could use it to help her sight reading and her music learning speed. So to work on both of those things, the hands together and the sight reading really gave us a pretty good biggest domino. So we decided that, all right, the 90 day goal was going to be really based around sight reading, but we were going to incorporate a hands together skills work Sounds pretty good, but it's very general. So that's where you start. You always want to start from that big picture. But the next thing you need to do is once you've decided what you're going to work on, you need to know exactly what that achievement line is going to be. How will you know you've achieved your goal? It has to be measurable, it has to be quantifiable somehow. So to just get better at sight reading, it's a great improvement goal, but it's hard to measure. So we needed to create a measurement for it. And we decided that there were, that we would pick a certain kind of piece or a certain length of piece or a certain level of piece. And being able to sight read a piece of that level, hands together was going to be our finish line. So we looked through her books and chose a couple of books that had pieces of an appropriate length. We thought two pages was pretty good and they had to be a little bit lower than her skill ability. I don't advocate doing sight reading tests at the very top of your ability because they're hard to read. But they don't have to be baby pieces either. And certainly for our purposes, we didn't want them to be baby pieces. We wanted her to be moving along. So we chose pieces that were appropriate for her. We looked through the books and we took a book and we said, great, that book and maybe that one. They're the ones that we're going to use for our ultimate tests so that we can, you know, work on that sight reading goal. They will be our measurement, our yardstick. So we've got that, we've got our goal, we've got the skills that are going to go with the goal. We're working on sight reading enhanced together. Now it's time to create the timeline.

Once you've got that 90 day goal in place, the timeline should be clearer, but it isn't always so let me talk you through that as well. Our 90 day goal, as I mentioned, is going to be to sight read this two page piece from this specific book and we need to sight read it hands together at a steady tempo and with some dynamics. Now that's very specific. Remember that the more specific you make your 90 day goal, the better, better your chance of achieving it. Specific does not mean difficult. It just means that there's a lot less room for you to say yes, but which is, by the way, I think the biggest killer of goals and of achievement and of harp happiness. When you can say, well, yes, I did that, but it wasn't very good, but I didn't do this. When your goal is very specific and as you'll see in a minute, when your plan is very specific too, it's harder to discredit and discount your own accomplishment. So when we make that 90 day goal, we want it to be specific. We found our two page, our book of two page pieces. We had that all selected and we decided that we would know we had achieved the sight reading goal when she could sight read one of the pieces from that book, hands together at a steady tempo and with some of the dynamics included a great goal. Love that. So there's 90 days now, we have to break that down. We already had a pretty good idea of how this was going to break down because we knew that we had specific skills to work on. We had the hands together thing and we had the sight reading thing which was probably going to involve some note reading. So breaking that 90 day goal down into two progress goals, a 30 day goal and a 60 day goal, wasn't really too difficult. We decided that for the first 30 days we were really going to work on the technical part of it. We were going to work on the hands together skills and we don't, I don't think for the progress goal you have to have, I don't think you have to have a really strong achievement component to it that doesn't have to be as specific in terms of where you're going to get. It might be. I mean, if there's a specific piece you're trying to learn and that's your 90 day goal, you might want to be very specific about that 30 day goal and say, okay, by the end of 30 days I need to have this much of the piece learned at this kind of tempo and you know, that sort of thing that might be very specific for this particular goal. We knew what we were going to work on and that's how we broke this down. So our 30 day progress goal was going to be to improve the hands together skills. So we were going to be working on everything that goes with that. Then the 60 day progress goal was going to be more directed toward sight reading and that was going to be sight reading short pieces and working on the note reading skills, the sticking to a steady tempo skill, the incorporation of other elements like dynamics. So putting all those things together, but in a smaller context, a very short, very easy piece, that's what we were working on. So you can see how these skills are going to build up. Right? We're going to work on the hands together part, which we think is the most important technical component. Then we're going to take that and we'll continually continue to work on that, of course. But we're going to start working on the part that's really going to get us toward our 90 day goal and that's working on the sight reading skills. Then in between day 60 and day 90, we're going to be working on taking that to the next level so that at the end of 90 days she's going to be sight reading that two page piece. That's much closer to the level of things she wants to sight read. So there are our progress goals, the 30 day goal, 60 day goal, and of course our 90 day overall goal. @ this stage, I don't think it's critical to have every single benchmark for every single week mapped out. I think that what is important is that you identify very clearly the first three benchmarks. Right. In other words, you don't have to see all the way down the path. We know where the destination is.

But it doesn't mean we have to see it step by step from here. I will tell you that the more practiced you get at setting goals and figuring out how you work best to achieve them, the more you practice that and the better you get at it, the farther along the path you will be able to see. At the same time, I think it's really important that you remember that you are a real person with a real life. So that when you're creating your plan, give yourself some wiggle room. Allow for the week that you have to take the dog to the vet and you lose a lot of practice time. Allow for the week when you, your, you know, the roof leaks and you have to call the contractor and you don't have time to practice. You know, allow for real life. So when I'm devising that first 30 days and thinking about four weeks of benchmarks for that 30 days, I usually only do the first three, figuring that the fourth one will either be catch up time if we didn't get all the way through our first three, or perhaps we will be able to start on the next 60 days a little bit early. Or perhaps we found another thing that we need to work on. It's not unusual that as you work on these goals, something else comes up and you think, oh gosh, I thought the problem was in this case my hands together playing. But as it turns out, my left hand just needs a lot more technical work to catch up to my right hand. All right, well, by only allowing or by allowing for that extra week in our first 30 days, we've given ourselves the wiggle room to do that. We can say, okay, well, we've worked the first weekly benchmark, but you know what? We're going to insert a week two benchmark that is more devoted to our left hand. And then our former week two benchmark moves to week three. Our former week three benchmark moves to week four. So we're not off track.

We just filled in where we had to. I mean, if you get to work ahead, that's great.

If you need the catch up time, it's built in. So that's why I want you to make the plan. Not too hard line, not too cut and dried, give yourself some wiggle room. You just don't know what's going to happen. This is the voice of experience talking. So.

Take my advice, it's a good idea. So what we're going to do then for our first 30 days is map out the three most important steps to get us to our 60 days. Not the four most important steps. Right. That would be four weekly benchmarks. We're making three weekly benchmarks. So the three most important steps. And in this particular case, we identified our three steps this way. Week one, our first step is going to be working on drills, hands together drills, drills that worked on the independence of the hands. And these drills were going to be focused around scales and scale patterns. So that's week one. In addition, in that week.

Well over the course of the whole 30 days actually. But we were going to be weaning her off her habit of doing a lot of hands separately practice and minimal hands together practice. So we were making the plan that in her regular practice, not only was she going to work on these extra drills to get her hands together skills up to snuff, but she would also not play anything hands separately until she had played it hands together. This included spot practice and it included everything she would do hands together playing. First. We decided that she just needed more experience hands together. And this was the way to get it. So week one drills, hands together drills, drills working on the independence of the hands using scale patterns. Then of course, the new practice rule. Don't play anything hands separately until you've already played it hands together. Week two, our second benchmark. Assuming that that worked as planned, week two was going to be hands together drills, more drills on the independence of the hands. But these were going to be based around arpeggios and chords.

So we've done. We were doing two different kinds of drills. We started in week one with scale and scale pattern drills. This second week, the independence drills were focused on arpeggios and chord patterns. And she was still persisting in not playing hands separately until she had played hands together. So that was week two. Now, as it turned out.

Week one went brilliantly. Week two, we decided we needed a little bit more time. There were a lot of arpeggio and chord patterns we wanted to go through and she was not quite as confident feeling about the chords. So we ended up with an extra week on week two. So we just extended that.

And as I said, we didn't know that that was going to happen until we got there. But this is a perfect example of why I don't plan everything out without a little bit of wiggle room. Now, our third benchmark, which was supposed to be week three, but ended up being week four, was that when she did her spot practice in her pieces, she was going to be called upon to use the hands together techniques that we worked on in our drills in the earlier weeks. But her spot practice was not to be hands separately at all. Her spot practice. And that, by that I mean, you know, there's difficult parts in a piece that you're trying to work on. We just took the hands separately out of that mix and said, no, you've got to figure these out. Working hands together, you don't get to figure them out. Hands separately for this week. It doesn't mean she had to persist with this forever and ever. But her task for that week was anything she needed to practice had to be done, had to be fixed, had to be corrected. Hands together. And I had to explain to her my reasoning for this because it's a little bit different and it feels a little bit uncomfortable. And of course she understood by this time that we're trying to get rid of hands separately as being her only learning method. It may, I. Well, it may always be her primary learning method. I want, I wanted to get her away from using it as her go to learning method. I wanted hands together to be more of.

To be confident enough for her, to be familiar enough for her that she was going to be able to use that even to fix difficult things. So for that one week, her challenge was not to do any hands separately practice. Whatever needed to be fixed needed to be fixed. Hands together. I can tell you she did not like it going into the week, but boy, did she feel empowered coming out of that week. So that was our first four weeks of this session. And as you recall, our 30 day progress goal wasn't necessarily built around achievement as much as it was built around the improvement of her hands together skills. And that, I mean, that was more than noticeable. I was going to say it was noticeable, but that's kind of an understatement. It was a really big change in not only how skilled she was at hands together playing, but also how much more confident and comfortable she felt with it. So there was our 30 days and that was a success. Now what we had to do was go on to the next 30 days. So in our initial planning.

We had mapped out.

The monthly progress goals, right? The 30 day goal, the 60 day goal, we'd mapped those out and we'd mapped out the first three steps for that 30 day goal. But we did not completely map out the benchmarks for the 60 day goal. What the weeks in between day 30 and day 60 were going to look like, those we had not been specific about. We knew that it was going to involve sight reading, short pieces. We established that right at the beginning. And we knew it was going to be developing the sight reading skills that were going to allow her to get to that next level of sight reading that would be our 90 day goal. So it was going to be sight reading very short, very easy pieces, making sure that her note reading skills were very strong or strengthening them if we needed to, making sure she was sight reading, hands together, making sure she was sight reading at a steady tempo. So we knew before we started at day one that that was generally what the second month was going to look like. But once we got to day 30, it was time to step up and make benchmarks for those next 30 days as well, the ones in between day 30 and day 60. So we did something very similar. We looked for three benchmarks, our first three steps, leaving that one week of wiggle room, which, as it turns out, in this 30 days we did not need. But for each of the those three weeks, we took a different book, easy books. We went back to some of her very easiest repertoire. And we set out the fact that, okay, so week one, we're working from this book. Week two, we're going to work from this book. Week three, we're going to work from this book. And we decided that each of those weeks she would do a certain number of pieces. And we identified, once we got to our 30 day goal, we identified which pieces we were going to start with and how we were going to work on them. She had specific goals for each piece. This one you're going to practice this way. This one you're going to. Because there were some specific note reading drills we were doing like, you know, playing one hand and singing the other. We had some of those we had. We chose pieces that were going to work on sight reading, hands together at a steady tempo. And we had her working on incorporating dynamics. Week two, we did something very similar, but we stepped it up with another book that had slightly more complicated pieces, still very short, still very easy, but they had a little bit more change in them, a little bit more of, a little bit more Of a challenge. And once again, we set out specific pieces that we were going to do that week and how she was supposed to do them. We also set up a practice rotation for those. Then we had a similar thing for week three, Only this book had pieces that involved lever changes. Those lever changes were something that we knew were going to be an important part of her sight reading. And so week three really focused on lever changes.

Now, by the end of week three.

Those were the ones we mapped out. And as I told you, they went fine. They went right on schedule. So as we saw that happening, we had our choice. What do we do with week four? Do we wait before we go on to our last 30 days and start working on the bigger pieces? Do we just start working on the bigger pieces right now? Is there something else that we need to strengthen before we go on? And that was what we decided to do. So week four, in our 60 days was a really solid, thorough review of some of the hands together drills we had done. And we went to a fourth book of sight reading pieces. So we sort of combined these things and we went for some more short sight reading pieces and some more intense hands together drills just to get everything lined up. So she felt really excited and confident going into the third month. So there were our first two progress goals. Now all we had to do was practice in a way that was going to allow us to achieve that final 30 day, 90 day goal. Right? And that was sight reading. A two page piece from the specific book that we'd picked out. Sight reading it hands together at a steady tempo with dynamics. Now, all these pieces were a step up from where we'd been. So it was a challenge and we went through before we started that 90 days, we took a look at the book and we identified some pieces we were going to work on in each of the three weeks. Once again, only going for three because you might, you know, use that fourth week for some wiggle room.

So we identified pieces we would work on in each of three weeks and the specific focus for each piece. How would we work on this? This was for a steady tempo. Do we find a piece that has some lever changes and incorporate those? Can we have some pieces that are more complicated? Meters or keys, different styles, different ideas? So we worked at really stepping up those skills over the next three weeks. And I'll tell you, those three weeks were so much fun. They were fun for me because they were fun for her. I could see her enjoying putting these things together. Y that was work. And there was stuff that was hard about it. But putting the skills that she had developed over those first two months into the kind of music that she wanted to be able to sight read and to see specifically what we still had to address, where her hands together skills still needed to be leveled up. We found some rhythm things that we needed to address, like she wasn't quite as comfortable with some of the more intricate rhythms in these longer pieces. And we talked about some of the musical elements that she was encountering here that she hadn't encountered earlier either. But really what happened was she had prepared so thoroughly in these first two months that by the end of week three, in this last 30 days, she was. She was ready. She was ready. So we decided that our fourth week would just be the test week. And every day for that week.

She had a particular piece and she had to sight read it, meeting our criteria, right. It had to be sight read, hands together at a steady tempo. That doesn't. That did not mean at the given tempo or the printed tempo, just had to be steady hands together at a steady tempo with some, at least of the dynamics. And we chose one piece for each of the five days that she was going to practice that week. And she had to video.

Her sight reading. So this was a big test because we hadn't done video prior to that and we probably should have. I think it would have been smart if we'd been videoing this all along, but we just didn't do that. If I were redoing this plan, I would have have incorporated that from the beginning of the second month, but. And so it threw her for a loop the first couple days, but she was so excited by the results that it really came out fine. And so by the time, you know, that 90 day thing came around, she had completed her goal and she had video evidence of it. So that's how that worked. Obviously, I chose a case study that was successful. Obviously, not every 90 day goal turns out to be smooth sailing. There's a lot of adjustment that you can make. There's a lot of room for give and take. But I think there are some key things to remember here. So one is give yourself wiggle room, right? Always expect just a little bit less than you think you can achieve. At the same time, make sure that you're still pushing yourself and you know how to do that, you know how you work. And that's where the plan becomes individual.

I think. Also.

Remember that you're only identifying the biggest three steps at any one stage, right. And when it comes, once you've got your 90 day goal, you only need two steps. You need your two progress goals. But for each of those monthly progress goals, only the first three steps are the ones that you need to take. So that, yeah, you've got four weeks to do it. But if you could only, if you only had three weeks, what would those three weeks be? And that's going to build in the leeway that you need to help ensure your success. The idea here is to build success into your goal, right? So once you have that plan, there are so many things that can upset your plan. So let's talk about, just briefly, about some of the ways you can safeguard and protect it once you've gone to all this trouble to create it. There are so many things that can get in the way of our achieving our goals. And that's assuming that we've chosen a good goal and practiced properly and all that kind of stuff. I have given you my top secret already, which is to build in that wiggle room, right, so that you have time for real life. You have time to catch up if you need to. So, you know, that should make things a little bit more comfortable and a little bit less daunting when you're looking at working on your goals. But there are three things that are just super important to help create the atmosphere you need for success. And the first one is so obvious that you might just ignore it. And I'm telling you, please don't ignore it. And it's this. Declare your goal. I've told you to be very specific. I've told you to get that 90 day goal very firm in your mind. Well, make it firm on paper too. Write down your goal. Put it on a post it note on top of your music stand or right by your music stand. Make sure that you see it, put it, you know, post it on social media, tell somebody else about your goal, whether it's a family member or a friend, you know, say, this is what I'm working on. Once you declare becomes real.

If you don't write it down, if you don't share it with someone, it's very easy to sort of sneak out of it and say, well, but I haven't really started yet. Or well, I can't do that quite yet. I'm going to have to just wait until I can start or.

It'S going to take me a little bit longer than I thought. We can give ourselves all kinds of excuses, but once you've declared your goal to somebody else, it becomes real. And that's the strongest way that I know to Protect your plan. Declare your goal. Now, going right along with that, I think you need to track it big. You know, put a list on your refrigerator. Put a maybe, maybe just a practice chart. You know, did you practice today? Put a little X in the box, right? Make a. Make a little practice tracker, post it on the refrigerator. I love posting stuff on the refrigerator because I know I'm going to see it.

You could post it on the bathroom mirror. Same kind of thing. And, you know, that might give you some added support, too, because perhaps, you know, you've got a husband who is sharing the same bathroom mirror or something, and he's looking at it, too. And, you know, and this is part of step three, but.

You know, you can give him permission to say, hey, how are you doing with that goal thing? But track it big. I have students who love to use a whiteboard. I love whiteboards, too, because you can erase them, you can change them. It's not written in stone, but it's in front of you. You can make it pretty colors. You can do all that stuff. So using a whiteboard to track things is great, but. But track it big, track it bold, track it visibly. Don't hide your goal someplace where you will never see it, because if you don't see it, you're not going to act on it. You have to remind yourself as well as number three, enlisting support for your goal, Right? If you have that practice tracker on the refrigerator, on the bathroom mirror, and if you give your spouse permission just to ask every once in a while if you're still, you know, keeping up with your goal, that's powerful. I would encourage you to give your spouse the language that you want to hear. Like, you might not want to hear, hey, did you practice today? That might sound like, you know, somebody's. Somebody's holding you to account uncomfortably. But you might want your partner to say to you, I was just checking. I see you're coming to the end of your 30 days. How are you doing with your goal? Or anything else that's positive? Anything that sounds good to you? And in fact, I mean, I have given my husband the language to talk to me for a long time, and it comes out over dishes, recipes that I experiment with. He knows that he is no longer allowed to say, what is the green stuff? He's allowed to say, could this be green pepper or anything else? But he knows what is the green stuff is not acceptable. I have also told him that he's not allowed to say, boy, I hate this. And actually, he's so Good. He likes most things, but his. His wording is supposed to be, I don't think you need to make this one again. I've got that. I don't feel offended by it. It's our inside joke. I get to laugh at it. I can say, all right, I'll cross this one off. And we both like the joke that's intended there. He knows that I'm not going to get mad at him. I know that he's not criticizing me. So it was important for me to give him the language. Like, no, I don't want to hear that you don't like it. Just, you know, I don't want to hear, this tastes terrible. Just tell me you don't want me to make it again. And I'm fine with that. Same thing for your harp goals. Tell your partner exactly what you want them to say. Write that one down and post that on the refrigerator, too. And say, you can ask me that, you know, if you've already asked me once this week, don't ask me again. But you can. You can say that. I have found that it's great to get cooperation that way. And it's so much nicer. The people that I've talked to, when they give their partners the language to use, it becomes very easy for the partner to ask because they're not worried about creating a fence. They know what you want to hear. This is what you want to hear. So here are your three safeguards for protecting your plan. Declare your goal. Write it down. Make it visible. Tell somebody about it. Declare your goal. Number two, track it big. Use that whiteboard. Use that practice chart on the refrigerator. Make it big. Make it bold. Go for it. Don't hide it where you'll never see it. Track it big. And number three, enlist support. Enlist the support of people you love and tell them what that support should look like. They'll be much happier, and you will, too. Whew. That was a lot to cover in one episode. But I hope going through that case study has shown you exactly how you can do the same 90, 37 one kind of planning in your own practice, with your own goals and how you can choose goals and make that happen for yourself. It's not a difficult process. It gets way easier the more you do it. But it will bring that focus to your practice every day that you're looking for. And it's going to get you to achieve what you need to. Don't forget to put those safeguards into play, too. The ones we just talked about. They're going to be so helpful and they're really key to your success. So I do look forward to hearing from any of you who have put this plan into action and find find success with it, because I know that you will. Now, I told you I would mention again a little bit more about the webinar we have coming up on October 6th. It is a free webinar October 6th at 8:00pm Eastern Time and it's called Two Step Chord Theory for Harpists. The simple way to read, place and play chords accurately and confidently without being a music theory genius. That's a long title, I know, but the thing is this music theory is exactly that theory, but it doesn't have any meaning till we make it practical. And I do not believe you need to take an extensive music theory course to be able to take the important points of chord theory and use them to make your harp playing easier. I don't want you to get stuck with chords, but I don't want you to have to spend hours learning about them either. So on this webinar we're going to be talking about why a lot of what you know about chords possibly isn't helpful. Might even be slowing down your playing. We'll talk about how to read them in a way that's practical and makes sense to you. How to use those essential characteristics of a chord so that you can identify it and accurately and place it quickly.

I've got drills for you that are going to go right along with these precepts and that will really help you put them into practice. Plus, if you've ever been confused about learning to play from a lead sheet, I've got some tips for that as well. So that's all coming up just in a couple of weeks on October 6th. I hope that you join me for that webinar. You will find the link to register in the show notes, so be be sure that you sign up to join us at that point. Now, next week we finish our goal setting series with what I think is maybe the most critical element of goal setting. And that's actually your practice, right? A plan is only as good as the work you put into it. And so next week we'll be talking about how to plan your practice like a pro.

So if you want to be sure that now that you've made this terrific plan, you're actually doing what you need to do to make it happen, that's what we'll be talking about next week as we wrap up our goal setting series. So I look forward to talking with you next week. Have a wonderful week. Until then. Bye Bye. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your Harp happiness every day. See you next time.