Learning versus Practice: Which End of the Binoculars Do You Use? - PHH 056

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

Welcome to the show. I'm very excited to be here for this very special episode because I have invited our my Harp Mastery members to participate in this as a live call, which is part of our celebration of the 10th anniversary of Heart Mastery. I can hardly believe it's been 10 years, but 10 years. This week I posted my first blog posts.

I did not have a plan. I did not have any idea what I was going to be doing. I just felt that this would be something interesting to do. I had a bigger mission in mind or a bigger idea that that the Internet was a wonderful place and a wonderful way to reach harpists. As I don't have to tell any of you, as harpists, we can sometimes feel pretty isolated. We can feel pretty much alone in the harp world, right? Because we can be very far from other harpists. So being able to connect with harpists on the Internet is a huge deal. And I saw that as a way to help other harpists gain the kind of knowledge and insight that I got from my own teachers, right? Previous generations, those great teachers could teach a relative handful of students, and that was it.

Now we have the ability to get that knowledge that's been handed down from legendary harpist to legendary harpist to legendary harpist to some of us mere mortals, and get that out to a greater number of harpists than would ever have been able to experience it. So that's kind of where I started, and it's still where I am. It's still where my heart is for this. But Heart Mastery has turned into a lot more. So over 600 blog posts later and a year's worth of podcasts after that. This is episode number 56. So been podcasting for Over a year, Heart Mastery has done a lot and a lot. It's involved.

A lot more harpists of every kind of every kind of harp player and teacher you can imagine. And it's been a terrific journey so far. Can't wait to see where this goes. But right now, I want to give a special welcome to the my Heart Mastery members because they have been this community has been in existence since 2014, so we're not quite up to our 10th anniversary yet as my Harp Mastery, but this is my membership community. We have over 150 harpists from all over the world, all kinds of players, pedal harpists, lever harpists, professionals, teachers, beginners, everybody just gathered into what I believe is the most generous community of harpists anywhere. I am so proud of the people who are in this community. I am just thrilled and I'm so proud to have so many of you on the call with me right now. And I'll talk to you a little bit about my Heart Mastery later on in the call because we are opening membership on June 20. We are opening it for 2010 days. We have a lot of tens this month as we celebrate the 10th anniversary. So I'll tell you more about this community and how you can join a little bit later. But right now, before we even get started with today's podcast, I want to follow up on something, a little assignment that I gave you last week. If you listened to our last podcast episode, episode number 55, that was all about acts of courage. It was about running into the storm. It was about being brave even when you didn't feel brave. So I teased you with a little assignment at the end of that podcast, saying, what's your act of courage and what's the smallest step that you can take or a small step that you can take right now to move you toward the other side of the storm. If you haven't listened to that podcast, you may not understand that imagery, but it's a great story that I learned about Buffalo running into the storm to get the storm over with faster. That's the short version. You can listen to the podcast episode for the longer version for sure. But I wanted to, as part of that assignment, I had asked.

People if they would to just email the podcast, email that's podcastartmastery.com and let me know what their act of courage is and what their small step is. And that just to help support them, I would read those on the podcast, keeping them anonymous. But I think it's important, first of all to give a shout out to the People who are taking those small courageous steps and to do it publicly in a way that just lets people know that other people are doing the same kind of thing and that it's possible for them too. So I'm hoping that I have a few acts of courage to read to you today. And I hope that if these are your acts of courage.

You know that I'm giving you that gold star, right? Gold star right on your forehead. Right from me. So you've earned that gold star. Keep up the great work. And I hope that maybe if you haven't taken that act of courage yet, maybe this will inspire you to do that. So let me read those and then we'll get on with today's topic. So I have four to read to you today.

Here is the first one. Once again, I am withholding names. So there you go. This person wrote in I'd like to play the harp at my church. I have an Amazing Grace medley. I'm practicing for it. My act of courage is that I took steps to contact the church music director to discuss my playing at church. Woo hoo. Congratulations. That is the first step, right? Once you talk to somebody else, once you talk to that music director and say, okay, I have this piece I want to play at church, those wheels start moving and all of a sudden it becomes something that is possible rather than something that's just a dream. So congratulations for that definite gold star moment there.

Next, act of courage. We have an older friend who is confined to his house due to health reasons. He gets lonely and likes for people to come and see him. So I offered to bring my harp over and play for him. He's so excited about the idea that he has invited other guests. So I'm putting together a 30 minute mini concert. Bravo to you. This is a great thing. Look at what's going to happen from that first small step. That first small step was really an act of caring. I can share my music with someone to brighten their day, to help them enjoy things a little bit more. When you're confined and shut in, then all of a sudden it turns into a way not just to brighten his life, but to brighten the lives of his friends. And to give that shut in extra pleasure at being able to spread the happiness that way too. So bravo. Great act of courage.

Next. I have learned to leap out with harp masteries. Many offerings. Well, thank you for that. I'm so glad that we have helped. My leaps of courage don't take nearly as much courage as they did a year or so. Ago today, I created a musical greeting card for a friend that is moving away. I spoke the words of remembrance of our relationship and then played a simple harp song. She. She was delighted. What a memorable way to send her off. I think that that's beautiful. You know.

It'S a handmade gift, right? And those are the gifts that really, really mean something. And to have something that special that she's able to take with her and, you know, replay many times to have that piece of music with her, it's very, very special. So bravo to you. Thank you. And thank you again for saying that Heart Mastery has helped you find more courage. That's what we're here for. And last one for today. In response to your podcast this week, here is my act of courage. My challenge, learn the Pachelbel Canon in D. I've always wanted to learn this piece, but never spent time on it. I've dabbled a few times when it was part of an ensemble piece, but my fears. Well, everyone plays this. Why learn something so common? Every harpist knows how to play this. You still don't know this piece. It's so familiar. Everyone will hear my mistakes. It's so long. I will never learn all of this. I love a little aside here. I love the clarity about the fears. What is she afraid of? It's right here. Right. She's very clear about it.

And then those were the fears. But here's facing the storm. I decided to work on this piece during the Christmas in July challenge. Yay. It's perfect for the Christmas in July challenge. And if you haven't joined our free challenge, please do. You'll find all the information on the website, of course, so. And I'll put it in the show notes for you, too. I have copies of the music, both the Ann Sullivan and the Linda Wood, Suzanne MacDonald versions. I love the Linda Wood Suzanne McDonald version. By way, mine is a real short sampler little version. The Suzanne MacDonald version is much more complete and I like that version a lot. But once again, that's just an aside. Then she says she's going to start with my version as a sampler and see how that goes. Coincidentally, this is the piece for the June My Heart Mastery featured piece, which will help me head into the storm. That's right. She picked a piece where that first step was already taken for her. So. So. And then she says, thanks for the encouragement. Love the podcast. Well, I'm excited. These are wonderful acts of courage. And you can see there.

They don't necessarily take a big first step. So Anyway, I am still ready to hear and celebrate your act of courage. So if you want to take that act of courage this week and let me know this week, that's just, just fine. Just send me@podcastartmastery.com send me your what your active courage is and what your small step is and I will be happy to celebrate it with you here on the podcast. So congratulations to all our all our courageous harpists so far so. And thank you for sharing them.

All right, we have more to talk about today, don't we? We have Big Picture Practice and Little Picture Practice, and that was the topic of my first blog post. So let me start by I'm going to start in a way I don't usually start. I'm going to start with a little joke. And when I start, when I say little silly joke, that's exactly what I mean. And here it is. How do you catch an elephant?

Well, here's how you hide in some tall grass and make a sound like a peanut. Then when the elephant comes by, you look through the wrong end of your binoculars, pick him up with a pair of tweezers and put him in a pickle jar. I told you that was a silly joke. Right? But it's that wrong end of the binoculars. That's what we're going to be talking about today. That's why it's so appropriate. We're going to be talking about how we learn a piece of or how we practice it, which may be slightly different. And then we'll look at our music learning through the lens, hopefully the right end of the binoculars through the lens of Big Picture Practice and Little Picture Practice. Let me ask you a question, those of you who are here joining me live on the call. You can go ahead and type something quickly in the chat if you like. Here's my question. If I asked you to tell me how you practice, what would you say? Don't give me a long description, but.

Is it you sit down and you play it, you drill it, you repeat it. What's the biggest component of your practice?

Maybe you start hands separately. Maybe you start hands together. How many times would you repeat a passage? What would you do if you were going to practice and be like, okay, I spend a lot of my time doing hands separately practice, or I spend a lot of my time doing hands together practice, like count. I use the metronome. What's a big part of your practice? I'll give you a second here and you can type in an answer.

And then while you're thinking about that Think about this. If I asked you, that's how you practice a piece, right? But how would that be different? Or is it different? If I asked you, how do you learn a piece? How do you learn music? How do you practice a piece? How do you learn music? Do they feel different to you? Would you have a different answer if I said, how do you learn music?

I see we've got people saying here. I practice by sections. I put my piece into sections. This is good. Look for the phrase again in the piece. Then add the measures before and after learning to break down a piece into smaller parts, measure by measure. I put my pieces into time sessions, one piece for each session. I play it through once. Then I focus on the problem areas. That's great. Great, great, great. All these are good, you know, right? These are all good. Break down a piece of the smaller sections, measure by measure. Look for repeated sections. Beautiful. Now. But how do you learn music? Would you have a different answer? Do you learn it by playing it? Do you learn it by listening to it? Do you learn it by reading it? How do you learn it? Here's another practice thing. I do hands separately and then hands together. Good. Okay, well, here's the deal. Here's what I believe, okay? I play it through three times, mark all my troubles, then practice sections 10 times slow. And I learn the ending first. Oh, that's one of my favorite tricks. I love learning the ending of a piece first.

But thinking about learning a piece and practicing a piece could be very different. I believe that we think of them as two separate things. Learning somehow sounds more cerebral, more about gaining understanding and knowledge. Practice feels like the physical work of practice, the rote repetition, drilling the notes into our fingers. Now, clearly we need both of these elements if we're going to play our music well. We need to blend them into a single process that's going to allow us to learn the notes and the music beyond the notes. That's what we're going to talk about today, how to blend them. That's where big picture and little picture practice meet. They're like the two ends of the binoculars, if you like. And so that particular big picture, little picture practice topic, that was the topic I chose for my very first Heart Mastery blog post 10 years ago this week after the welcome blog post. That was my first teaching blog post. Big picture practice, Little picture practice. Now, today I'm going to go much deeper into the subject than I did in that first blog post. And we're going to talk about the techniques of each kind of practice. The Reasons you might use them, how they're useful when they aren't. And I'll show you ways to balance them in your practice so that you're not going to find yourself always looking through the wrong end of the binoculars. So, thinking about that, let me just tell you what I talked about in that first blog post ten years ago. Now, some of you here on the call probably had a chance to read that. I think we sent the link to you ahead of time. Oh, wait, I'm coming back to the chat. I said I wouldn't do this, interrupt myself with the chat comments all the time, but here I am doing it anyway. So. So people were talking about how they learn music. We've got mental rehearsal, we've got analyze, placing, singing it. In my head, you can tell these are the. My Heart Mastery members. They've got this.

I like to learn by ear if there's a recording available or through a tutorial that takes it section by section. But I always like to read the notes at the same time. There you go. Okay. As I said, you can tell these are my Heart Mastery members. They. They've got this down. But 10 years ago, when I wrote about this, I was writing about a specific experience I had. At that time, I was teaching at the University of Delaware, teaching harp. And I had a student come in the summer. She was a student visiting her relatives here. She was Italian and had been studying at.

The high school conservatory in Milan. And she was over here staying with relatives and taking some harp lessons with me for the weeks while she was here. A very fine player. But during our time together, we had the opportunity to work on a piece that was new for her. She came with some music she wanted to polish and finish, and we were working on that. But we also started some new things. And so I had the opportunity to watch how. How she learned a piece in a lesson. Now this is something I do with all of my students. You know, when we're starting a new piece, or at least I have done it with. I don't do it with all my adult students, that's for sure. I did it with all my younger students. We would start a piece together.

And it gives me a lot of insight into how they learn. And I loved watching how Sarah learned. She.

She took the piece in very small sections. Where have we heard this before? Right. Some of you were talking about the very same thing. Sections of just two measures or four measures. But she didn't just dive into playing it. She looked at those measures before she started, and she looked for patterns. She looked for chords. She looked for what was going on in the music before she started playing, so that as she started, she already had an idea of what was going to be going on. She might not know exactly how it sounded, and her fingers would sometimes stumble over each other as she was working with an unfamiliar pattern. But she'd take that small section and repeat it a number of times until what she could see and know from the page was translating itself to her fingers. And her fingers could play more or less the notes that were there. And so she was taking that big picture idea of really looking at the piece from a distant perspective where she could see it as a whole and diving into it up close. So that's really what I mean by. By big picture and little picture. Big picture practice is the kind of practice that allows you to see what the music is like. To see what the music is like or hear what the music is like or feel what the music is like. The entire piece, the concept, the atmosphere, the story, the flow, any of those words or all of them. It's sort of, you know, picture a painter who's working on a painting and they step back from the easel to get a better perspective. That's what big picture practice is all about, getting that perspective. Little picture practice is the kind that we spend so much time doing that we often forget to look at the big picture. And that's working on the fingering and the notes and the details of everything that we have to do to put the music together.

This is the contrast here. Big picture practice is more like observation. It's about perspective. It's about seeing what's there. Little picture practice is about doing what's there. Now, my heart mastery members, you can see how this relates to what we're talking about in our studies in the community this month. We're talking about mental practice practice. We're talking about practicing without a harp, right? And you can see how this relates to that topic as well. So if I had to describe big picture practice, I would describe it as stop, look and listen.

Big picture practice requires you to stop doing.

And to really look at the page to see what's there. Not just, oh, that's a thumb, or, oh, that's a fourth finger, or, oh, that's a big chord. But to look and see, look for patterns, look for the structure of the piece, right? Maybe it's got a, you know, that, that A section, the. Then the B section. And then maybe the A section comes back, the basic form. Oh, look, repeated sections and Many of you were typing that into the chat right here on the call. So you're looking for those patterns, chords, arpeggios, scales, anything like that. You're looking for things that repeat. You're looking for sections of the piece. Do you hear it change? Like, it starts this way and then it, you know, then it changes to this, and then it goes to this. These are things that you can find out from looking at the music and seeing what's there. And you want to do this particularly away from the harp or at least when you're not playing. Because when we play, when we're trying to get our fingers on the right strings at the right time, our emphasis is on the doing. And we don't have the additional headspace to really focus on what's happening as opposed to what we're trying to do. So looking away when you're away from the harp, or at least not trying to play it at the same time, is essential for here and then. So is listening. And many of you talked about listening to recordings when you can find them. It's, you know, it's. Fortunately, it's a world of YouTube and, and Spotify and all that. And it's much easier to find things to, to find recordings to listen to, certainly, than when I was growing up back in the dark ages. So if you think about big picture practice as stop, look and listen, stop the doing and use your eyes and your ears to help you see what's there. This is when you become a detective, right? You're looking at the piece for the big kinds of things, like the form of the piece and the smaller things like, oh, look, I didn't realize that those two measures are the same as those two measures, except for maybe that one note and that repeats later in the piece and repeats later in the piece.

This is most useful for learning, for knowing your piece. And this is what my Italian student, Sara, was doing when she was learning. She wasn't just getting in there and playing the notes. She made it a point to see what the notes were trying to tell her before she started playing. She made a point to see the shapes, if nothing else, right? To see chords if possible.

To see patterns if possible, but to see as much as she could about what was there so that she knew the piece or was developing a knowledge of those couple of measures of the piece before she started to play. Now, this isn't just for beginning the piece. It's not just for that. You can use this at any point, any day in your practice just by remembering to practice section by section. Take, you know, find those sections, work on a section, and as you do, remember to listen to what you're playing. Not with an ear, necessarily to critique it, but with an observer's ear. What do you hear? What does that melody sound like? Where is it going? What do the chords sound like? Observe with your eyes what's on the page, and use the knowledge that you have, the musical knowledge that you have to make sense of these things. You know, it's one thing to say, oh, I see, it's a bunch of chords. It's another thing to say, oh, that's a one chord, and that's a four chord. Oh, this whole measure has actually the same chord, but it's in different inversions. Whatever, you know, and maybe you don't know anything about inversions, that's fine. But if you do bring that knowledge to what you're practicing, don't, you know, keep it in a separate compartment?

I would suggest something really valuable here for big picture practice is to make a short list. You know, you could do that after we're done here. Make a short list of things you might want to look for or listen for as part of big picture practice and make them things that, you know, that you think you can observe, like where the big sections are in the piece, what, where the phrases are, if anything repeats in the piece. Well, you know, does this section come back later? Does this phrase, the first four bars, is it really the same as the second four bars, except for maybe the last one? You know, how. How much can you see or can you hear.

Little patterns that happen in your fingers? Oh, look, those two chords are the same, except for where my second finger goes.

That's an observation that can be worth it, right? To save you a ton of practice time, because you're not reading two separate chords. You're reading one chord and then a change. So think about your observation, the things that you can look for, make a little list and then sit down with your music and see if you can find them.

The point of this is that the more you practice looking for things, observing things, the more you will see, the better you'll get at it. You might not see very much the first couple times you try this, but you're going to see more. The more you learn to look, the more you'll see. Now, this isn't the only kind of practice to do, obviously, because if you only do big picture practice, you might be glossing over some of those important details, like the right notes and the right rhythm and the right fingering. And that's where little picture practice comes in.

You might define little picture practice very well as one more time with focus.

I am not a believer in rote repetition. I do believe, just because I don't think there's another way to do it. Practice is essentially repetitive. We want to be able to become enough accustomed to what we have to do that we can do it essentially on demand and with as few flubs as possible. So that's where the repetition comes in. The rote part is.

Where I disagree. Doing something 10 times is great, but if you're just doing it 10 times, even if you focus on doing it 10 times correctly.

That'S not as valuable as it could be. And I am a firm believer in using every moment of my practice to its fullest. I don't want to be mindlessly repeating something. I don't want to be just doing it again because I have to play it 10 times.

Those 10 times. You know, getting. Getting something right. Getting. There's the key, right? Getting something right 10 times is valuable. But what if on every repetition you had a specific focus? Like one time you repeat it? It could be, I want to make sure my thumb closes, or another focus, another on another repetition. I want to really make a good crescendo. I want to make more of a crescendo. Another focus might be, I want to play my left hand a little bit more delicately, or I want to play my left hand a little more strongly, or I would like to make my tone warmer this time.

Whatever it is that's going to serve that piece.

Find a specific focus. Don't just play it again for the sake of playing it again. Play it again with a specific goal in mind. This is what will help you save yourself from that sort of sinkhole of, I'm just going to play it again and play it again and play it again. It's going to help you keep your mind on what you're doing, which will help you use all that stuff you've observed and bring it to the table. It will also help you learn a little bit more about what it is you really need to do there. That's a connection between the knowledge part that is more big picture practice and the doing part, which is more little picture practice. Little picture practice by itself can really lead you just to sort of stay down in the weeds, right? Where all you're doing is worrying about notes and fingering and, you know, getting things right. But if you can bring that big picture focus to it, that idea that you're going to make it more musical in some way or you're going to focus on a specific.

Thing in that little section that you want to improve. A specific focus will help you get more out of your practice for that moment. Now, I will talk a little bit about how to balance your practice, but I'm going to come back over here and look at the chat because you guys have been typing away here. You've been very restrained. For you, usually our chat on the My Heart Mastery calls goes pretty quickly.

But let's see here what we've got.

Ah, I love, I love this comment. She says sections that I have trouble putting hands together, I take the section out of the piece, make an exercise size out of it so that. So that you're playing hands together, the right hand and the left hand slow with the metronome. And that way you're not tempted to keep playing on in the music. And then you can add the measure before or after so it fits too. Exactly. Good. So, so tell me a little bit. Do you tend more toward big picture practice or little picture practice? You can just type that one in real fast.

And also, if you have questions or thoughts about what I've said so far, feel free to type those in because big picture practice, she says, okay, big picture practice is kind of fun. That's where the music is. I, I love big picture practice myself. Can't get away without little picture practice. But anybody else? Is anybody else here on the call a big picture practice person?

Yes, there's a big picture. She starts with big picture, then focusing on counting the troubles. Since starting coaching, she says, I've learned to start on the big picture first now. So she was a little picture person who is finding out the value of the big picture. I love that it swings to one side till I realize I've swung too far. Then I go back. Yeah, that's a pendulum strategy. Right. And that's not a bad thing.

As long as you remember to swing that pendulum back to the other side. You're doing really well with it. So that's great. Play through once, focusing on flow, then difficult sections. Start with the big picture once, then little picture. A nice balanced way to do it, for sure. Excellent. So there are some ways. A bit of both. Love it. Both is what you need. Right? Both is where this is. And that's why the key to success with this is balancing your practice. And so there are a number of ways to do this. A lot of people seem to start with the big picture and then go to little Picture, which is something I love because when you're starting with big picture, you're starting with the end in mind, right? You're starting with that idea of where you want to go. This is what it's going to be when it grows up. And then you can help it grow up. And you can keep comparing that, keep working back toward you. Review that big picture again, see what's happened, see where you're growing and going. So I love that. So as long as you're balancing your practice, you're doing it right. And you can take that, that pendulum approach. Oh, I've got a lot of big picture, I better do some more little picture. And you can let that swing back and forth. An easy way to do it without having to wait for the pendulum to swing so far in one direction would be to remember, if you're a person that feels most comfortable doing little picture practice, then remember to play your music every day, right? Never get up from the harp without having played it. Whatever it happens to be, whether it's a whole piece or a half a piece, whatever you've been working on, play it all the way through. And let me just backtrack for one second. Most of us have a preferred way. We love to work on the details. We love to get in there and do little picture practice or we really resonate with big picture practice and that's what we love to do. Whichever one we're doing, whichever one we love is great, but we have to do some of the other. So if you're a little picture practice person, if you're a little picture practice person, then remember to do some of that big picture practice every day. Listen to it while you're reading through the music and observe something or play through it every day.

If you like organizing things and you want to be a little bit more organized about it, you can alternate days where today my practice is going to be 70% and I'm using made up numbers. So don't take me too literally on this. Make it work for you. I'm going to do 70% of my practice is going to be little picture practice and 30% big picture. And then the next day reverse it. And that is another way to do that. Or you know, just remember to have focused time for all that. Or if you're doing section work, this is a great way. If you're working on small sections in your piece, which you should be when you know at most of the learning stages you're going to be working in small sections. So take that section, be sure, you're doing your little picture practice on it, getting all those details right, but at the same time, do big picture practice with it the way my student Sara did, so that you're looking at the patterns, looking at the meaning of that section. How does it fit in? What is it part of? Is it part of the melody? Is it part of part of the main theme, part of a secondary theme? Is it a transition section, an introduction, an ending? Does it do something in there? Does it have many chords or one chord? You know, anything that you can observe will add to your knowledge of the piece. So you can do big picture and little picture at the same time. Doing those repetitions that are so essential to little picture practice with a big picture focus as you work through them, having some of them be big picture focus anyway is going to be really, really helpful. So that's my take on. It's my ten years later take on big picture practice versus little picture practice. Do you guys have any questions about that? Any comments, any thoughts about how this is going to work in your practice? As I said, I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here because you guys, we talk about this kind of thing often on our My Heart Mastery calls. And so I know that this is not new to most of you, but I also think, at least for me, it's one of those things I need to keep reminding myself about. Remember that? Oh, yeah. Okay. I've been working on these notes so hard. Maybe I need to back up a little bit, turn those binoculars around and remember what the whole piece is like. She says it reminds me of left brain versus right brain. Oh, very much. Very, very much where you can get totally into that left brain detail kind of work. And we need to, you know, remember to. Or whatever it is. We get into the. Into the detail work. And then we need to switch brain hemispheres. Right. I was. I always forget which one is which. So. But it's very much like that. But we have to use both. Obviously. We have to use both halves of our brain, but we have to use both. Both visions for practice. So, yeah. So much fun.

Anything else we want to talk about today? You guys are unusually quiet.

She says, oh, I do need to remind myself. She says here, I do need to remind myself. I do a lot of little picture. Yeah, I. I know you. Yes, you do a lot of little picture work. This one said, I think I spend more time on little picture practice. Need to spend some more time looking at the big picture, what the piece will sound like when I play it. Through. Yes, good, good, good. Yes. Left is detail, right is holistic. Yeah, that's kind of what I thought. Thank you. She's.

Correcting my brain hemispheres. Apparently mine aren't working today. I use Big picture to save on what I have to display in front of me. Oh, there you go. If a piece repeats one octave higher. Yes. Then I don't need that page in front of me. I can turn a three or four page piece into two pages. Well, now there's a very practical use for big picture practice. I actually have done the same thing trying to save page turns on multi page pieces myself, so. Excellent. She says, love your idea of focusing on a different element for each repetition technique, flow, dynamics, etc. Yes, absolutely. I. It works wonders to keep your thoughts involved and to. You'll find that when you have a different focus for each repetition, or at least every couple of repetitions, your fingers respond differently. Somehow the section becomes something just a little bit different. And actually it's excellent for pre, pre, pre performance preparation because this is very similar to what happens as you take a piece from practicing to performing. You need to shift your focus. So practicing this focus shift while you're learning the piece is very powerful. A great shortcut for that. So.

This one, Harping is like living on a roller coaster. That is a statement that I could. Okay, so let me read the rest of it. Harping, I love that. Harping is like living on a roller coaster. Every day is a little win and a little frustration. Love the podcast. My private teacher also.

Loves it. That's great. I'm so glad. Let's see.

Great. Oh, we have somebody who's new to the heart. Played for two years, but not successfully. Okay, great. We are going to, we're going to do everything we can in that community to change it. Trust me.

As a matter of fact, in the my heart mastery community, we have some people, they tend to hang out in the background for a while and then all of a sudden we hear from them. But they're relatively new to the harp. And one of the things that we have, which is I think great for people who need to organize their approach to those things, you might find this helpful too is we have a scale of success curriculum. It's a very open ended curriculum in that people of just about any level can find things in it that will help them work through it. But if you look at the scale of success and start working through those levels, you may find that helps fill in some of the holes for you. And of course, in my heart Mastery. We've got over 60 courses that are, you know, some of them are shorter, some of them are long, longer, but you can essentially go through and.

Learn a lot about what you want to learn. And. And here we go. One of our members says scale of Success has helped me fill in the holes. Yeah, I think it does. That we work through. It works through five. Five elements of your playing, your technique, your musicianship, your practice, your repertoire, and sharing. Sharing your music. So another one helped me to organize what to learn when. Yeah, that's. That's really the point. That's a very good way to put that better than I just did. It's organizing what to learn when. Yeah, very nice. I like that. Thank you. So. But more than anything, I think that my Heart Mastery is about the community. It's about our Monday night calls. It's about the sounding boards, which are small, small groups of members who get together just to play for each other. It. It's about.

It's a personal kind of a thing. Right. There's a lot of stuff that you can do by yourself online, but it's really about the connection within the group and certainly with me and my coaches who take some of the calls now too. So it's about. Somebody's there to answer your questions. You're not just watching the video. So we're there. We're there for you. So that's what that's about. And for those of you who aren't yet members, but you're listening to the podcast, you have this window of opportunity to join. So we'll put that link in the show notes for you, and you can hop in and do that. Oh, she says here it's a great support group. Yes, it is. Uh oh, uh oh. You guys always give me homework. And here's. Here's. So here we have somebody who says it's a good thing. I love her too, but she says it's just an idea. It would be great to see one of your own practice sessions, meaning one of my practice sessions. You know, I've often wondered if it would be helpful. I'm not sure if it would.

I mean, maybe a fly on the wall thing would be interesting for you.

My practice is probably very different from what you do. Oh, look at this. She says it's a wonderful community. Everyone welcome from all levels and all types of heart. So, yeah, thank you. Oh, yeah. No. So some of you are already saying that. That you want to see me practice. I don't know that you do, but I will think about it. I think if we're going to do something like that, you may have to tell me what you want to see me practice. I mean, not necessarily what piece, but what kind of a thing you want to see me practice. This one says Love Heart Mastery, the soundboard. That's our small member groups. Soundboard is very helpful, and each month the focus is different. Yeah, these are groups that we usually facilitate. You don't have to belong to one, but we facilitate them every once in a while and then some of them stick around. And we. At this point, we have three groups that are meeting monthly and just to play for each other and, you know, just to be heart buddies, which is cool. Meeting online, so. Oh, you enjoy watching me play. Very encouraging. Well, thank you. Thank you. Somebody else likes the Facebook Live sessions. Yeah, they're fun. On Monday, maybe show a practice session. That would be one size fits all. Yeah, that almost doesn't work. So. But we'll see.

I have to think about watching me practice. I mean, it's a good thing. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't use bad language when I practice. I'm not worried about that, but.

Oh, oh, my gosh. This one says, we are a group. You won't be able to leave. We love and help each other and develop lasting friendships, and Ann is amazing. Well, I don't know about that, but I surely enjoy being with all of you, and thank you so much. So, all right, so.

Before, you know, force turns into group hug session.

Let me wrap this up for the podcast people. Next week on the podcast, we will talk a little bit about success and about making success a habit. You guys are so good. The number of resources of all sorts on my heart mastery is astounding. Oh, what a great group to be a part of. Well, I'm so glad that you are a part of it. So.

But back to podcasts. So, yes, next week on the podcast, we are talking back to regular format, and we'll be talking about making success a habit. And.

I think that that'll be something that's of benefit for a lot of you. So certainly a benefit for me when I start thinking about it, thinking, okay, what am I doing that is getting in the way of my achieving what I want to achieve? And don't think that this is only for super harp achievers. Success is for all of us every day. Right? Every little win is a success. So don't think we're talking about climbing mountains, just getting through one day's practice session and being ready to face the next one can be a big win. So that's part of what we're talking about next week.

Do remember to.

If you have acts of courage you want to share. There you go. Then please email them to podcastartmastery.com I will keep them anonymous when I read them, but we want to cheer you on, so be sure to do that. And I will look forward to seeing you on the podcast or at least talking with you on the podcast next week. And in the meantime, remember that every day is a day that you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. All right, all right, everybody, I'll see you next time. 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.