Masterclass: Making an Etude Out Of Your Piece - PHH 250

What if playing the harp felt easier the way you thought it would be? Not because you practiced more, but because you finally understood what was getting in your way? I'm Anne Sullivan and welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness. Here we tackled the real challenges harpists struggle with. The sticky passages, the tricky fingerings, prepping for performance, and and all the ingredients that go into making music sound the way you want it to. I've studied with world class harpists, taught at a top conservatory for 20 years, and I love playing the harp. But what I love just as much is breaking down the real challenges harpists face and turning them into clear, step by step solutions. The same ones I teach my students and use myself. So if you're ready to play the music you love with more confidence, clarity and joy, you're in the right place. So let's get started. Welcome to the show. Today's show is a masterclass. A show where I get to dig in to show you how to do something. We aren't just talking big picture concepts. We're going to get down to the nitty gritty today. Now, I have to say this is my favorite kind of show to do because it feels like teaching. Almost like we're right here together in the same room, and I'm sharing what I've learned to help you learn, too. I love that and I really enjoy this topic, too. Our topic today is how to make an etude from a piece you're trying to learn. So let's say you're working on a piece and most of the piece is ready to go, but there's one part that just won't come together. You could take that section and make an etude out of it. Or perhaps the piece you're learning is really a little above your head and you're not really stuck. But the going is very slow. There are etude possibilities there, too. Now, I'm sure many of you already do something like this, whether it's playing that section in different rhythms or just keeping the tempo slow while your fingers get used to the patterns. But today I'm going to show you a different way of doing it. A way that I have found to be more effective and one that will help you get to the music faster. We're going to look behind the notes to see what's really going on so that we can find the key to unlocking that passage or that technique for you. So grab a pen and paper so you can take some notes and we'll get ready to get started with our masterclass in just a Moment. First, I wanted to share some important links and resources with you. The piece I'm going to be working on in today's masterclass is Au Borde Rousseau at the Edge of the Stream by Henriette Renier. And I have put a link in the show notes to a copy of that piece. It's on IM slp, which is a website you might know that has so many public domain pieces of music available for you. And in my country in the United States, this piece is in the public domain as it is in Canada. It may not be in the public domain in your country. So I urge you to check your copyright laws. But if you are able to use this piece of music legally, you can use it to follow along to see what I'm doing. And you'll have all that in front of you that you need. So that's a resource you may want for today's show. And if you want to go ahead and pause this and download that so you can follow along, that's terrific. Or if it's not convenient for you to do that right now, you can download that later. And, and you can take your time going through this podcast again with the music in front of you. Also, I have linked to a blog post that I did quite a while back, so it's in our archives and it's called Etudes the Case for and Against. And it just has some more information about what I think should be the role that Etudes play in your harp study. And so that may give you some more information too. Quick read. And there's a link to that in the show notes. And of course, no list of resources for talking about music and how to learn. It would be complete if I did not mention that you could decide to study with one of our wonderful Heart Mastery certified coaches. We have a wonderful coaching program. We have an incredible roster of coaches who love to work with you and are really experts at the kind of thing we're talking about today, at seeing what, what issues are really holding you back and making the plans with you and helping you take the steps to break through those roadblocks and play the music you want to play the way you want to play it. So I've put a link and you could just take a look at what our coaching program offers and at our certified coaches and you can start your coaching journey today. All you have to do is click that link. So some resources there in the show notes for you today. And I want to to be sure you had those before we got started on our masterclass. As we get started. I did want to be clear about some terminology. We all know that the pieces are those things that we're playing. That's the music. We've got that. But I wanted to be clear about what I mean when I'm talking about an etude and when I'm talking about exercises. Exercises are those things that are drills. They're the things that you could look at and say, gosh, these are really boring because it's one thing, and it's very repetitive and the notes don't change, or they don't change much. Maybe they work up the scale. But it's incredibly repetitive dealing with one skill, and usually dealing with it one hand at a time. You know those books of exercises, I don't have to remind you, and they're wonderful for really honing in on a particular skill and learning it and mastering it. That's what eight exercises are really good for. You can call them exercises, drills, whatever you like, but that's what those are, at least in my vocabulary. And then there are etudes. Etudes are that middle stage, that link between the exercises and the real music. Now, etudes kind of come in a couple different versions. There are concert etudes, which are etudes, like La Source, which is a fabulous piece. It is an etude, but it's meant to be played as a piece of music, not just as a practice piece. But etudes that are practice pieces are a little bit different. Those are the ones that come in books, like the Pozzoli Etudes or any kind of collection like that. The Costner Etudes, the Alfred Holy Etudes. These are study pieces, and they generally focus on one particular skill, like an exercise does, but they put it in a more or less musical context. You may know the Boxe Etudes. So those are the kinds of etudes I'm talking about. They're more interesting than just a plain exercise. But some of them are not much more interesting. Some of them are really quite lovely. But the idea here is that you're going to have worked on that skill and then you put it in, into this kind of semi music thing where it's a little bit more predictable than a real piece, but it's got more variety than an exercise. And that's why I call it the middle stage or the middle ground, because it's going to help prepare your technique for the challenge of real music. Think about what's different with real music. It's got notes, it's got rhythms, it's got tempo stuff, it's got dynamics, it's got a lot of variables. Compare that to an exercise which has one little static set of notes done over and over and over. So it's a big leap from an exercise to a piece. And etudes help sort of smooth that over. They kind of give you a step up to that piece of music. Now, today I'm talking about if you have that piece of music and you need to somehow work on something in the piece of music, how do you do that? How do you really effectively turn that piece or that part of the piece into an etude so you can improve your skill? Please understand that's not the way I prefer to teach. I believe that it is really helpful if you learn the technique first and work that technique up to a certain level where a certain level of comfort and the exercises and the etudes are great for that. And then you can learn the piece without having to fight to learn the skill at the same time. I think that if you have the technique developed and then you learn the piece with that technique, but perhaps the technique isn't quite as strenuously drilled as it was in your drills and your etudes. It's a little bit of a step down. Then you're able to learn that piece with so much more confidence and security, you can concentrate on the music of it and you'll learn it so much faster. So that's the way I prefer to teach. And ideally, I think that's the way a lot of us would like to learn. To know that we were approaching the music we wanted to learn in total confidence and security of, you know, with our ability to be able to play it. But sometimes you dig into a piece and after you've already started, you encounter challenges that you just didn't expect. It could be around tempo, it could be around rhythms or counting or special effects like harmonics. And it could just be the coordination of your hands and the notes. So there are times when you get into the piece and then you discover that you're missing a skill that you absolutely need to be able to play this piece well. So when you're in those places, what do you do? Well, you reverse the order. I just told you the order was exercise, etude, piece, at least my preferred order. We're going to reverse that so that we've got the piece. We're going to look for the skill that we need to drill, and we're going to drill that skill and then work back into sort of an etude version of the piece so that then you can approach the piece. We're going to create our own little three step system here. So we're Going to have to work backward to find that key skill. The difference here is that if you know that this is a part you have to practice in the piece, you could practice it a million times. But without really digging into what the issue is for you with that particular part of the piece, you're not going to be very successful. It's not going to move as fast as you would like, because we have to actually solve the underlying problem. And the trick I know is finding that underlying problem and then figuring out how to work on it. So that's what I would like to show you. And so if you want to look at your copy of a Borde de Rousseau, we're going to look right at the top of that piece and we're going get started. Aubord de Rousseau is a lovely piece, and it's only two pages, and it doesn't look, at first glance, particularly complicated. Yeah, there are a lot of notes, but it doesn't seem too terribly hard. And it's not. But you do have to know how to approach it. And of course, it's about a stream, a little brook. And it starts with this beautiful right hand burbling, kind of a. Kind of a feature like this. It sounds so watery. It sounds just like the stream. But you can imagine that there's a technical issue here. Your right hand has to be able to play lightly and quickly and then, of course, go on to the melody. Now, the thing is, the left hand has a melody at the same time. This is not always easy if you're not used to playing melody in your left hand while your right hand stays nice and quiet. This could be a balance issue, this could be a coordination issue. But I find that most people just have trouble trying to get their right hand around the notes lightly enough and quickly enough. It should sound like this at the beginning. Now, all that melody is in the left hand, And then the left hand has a high chord and the left hand goes back down here. So the left hand is doing its own work. And that whole time the right hand is supposed to be underneath. All that. Right hand is supposed to be beautifully smooth and calm. And so what often happens with this piece is people will try to put it hands together and it'll work okay, slowly. But when they try to put it hands together faster, then the right hand maybe takes over and they can't find the left hand and it doesn't come out right. Or it could be that they can't keep the right hand going while they're trying to focus on making the Left hand melody, nice and smooth. So I thought this would be an excellent passage to talk about finding the key skill, working on it. In this particular passage, the key skill is probably in two parts. So two key skills, if you like. One is the right hand being able to play quickly, smoothly and pretty much automatically, because we don't want to be thinking about every note in the right hand. We want to be thinking about that left hand melody that moves at a much slower pace than the right hand. So the first thing we're going to have to do is break that down and say, well, I need to practice the right hand doing this pattern. And the pattern is pretty much the same fingering. 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 1. You know, it's nothing very complicated. There are a few different shapes to do and there are different notes. But here's what I would do. I'd say, well, the first thing I need to do is get my right hand to. To do that 1 and 2 and 3 and. And so I'm going to take that and I'm going to make that into an exercise. It's not going to be an etude yet. It's going to be just an exercise that goes all the way maybe up the scale, perhaps. I'm going to just be here in F major, which is the key of the piece, and I'm going to take those notes and do them a few times, and then I'm going to move up to the next. The next scale step. These are not the next notes on the page. I'm just going to take this as if it were. I mean, it's a triad that I'm arpeggiating and I'm going to move it right up the scale. And so I'm going to play this one. Then I'll move up a step, then move up a step, move up a step, move up a step and maybe finish all the way this. All the way this. The whole scale. I could do that. So that's the first thing. Get that moving. Then I'm going to look at some of those other shapes that I have to play. I have to play this other shape that has a fourth on the top and then a third. So it's a triad and first inversion. I have a few of those in here. So once again, I've looked at the music and found what I need to do. So I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to take that shape and I'm going to turn it into a little exercise that just goes right up the scale. And I'm going to work that exercise until I can play it at the speed I just played it for you. You might not be able to start at that speed, right? You may be starting at a slower speed and you may need to work up to that faster speed. But it's much easier to do that in the context of an exercise, a drill, than it is in just working on the piece because the notes change and there's left hand and there are complications, right? So you're going to take this, those skills, the right hand chord shapes, and you're going to turn those into a little exercise where I'm just going to do those and I'm going to work up the scale and I'm going to play those until I can play them faster. Now, this arpeggiated pattern comes back later in the piece too. It comes back on the second page. And some of those arpeggios are just a little bit different. Different note shapes, those are pretty much the same. There are a couple that are a little bit different as you go through. So I would check on those shapes too. And at the very end of the piece, you have the same thing, but up, way high up near the top of the harp. Check those two. Turn that into the exercise first. So we haven't turned it into an etude yet. We've just taken the skill that we need to develop and turned it into a drill. A no nonsense, nothing interesting about it, just get the notes out kind of drill. Notice how different this is again from just taking the notes in the piece and trying to play them over and over again. What we're doing is not only separating out the right hand, this isn't just hands separately playing, because we're taking the pattern and we're practicing the pattern of notes for one measure, for that one pattern of the chord and playing a bunch of those so that we can play them not in the music, not looking at trying to struggle to get from one chord to the next, but just making sure that we can get our fingers around that shape and then around the other shapes as well, separately. So it's not just hands separately playing. It's totally out of context and looking at the separate skill, the separate pattern that we need to have our right hand be able to play. Now we're going to make a little etude out of it. So we have that very basic exercise where we took the first chord and we just went up the scale and we're going to still do that, but now we're going to add the Left hand, because our left hand has to play with it, right? In real life, our left hand's going to have to play with it, and we're going to have the left hand play on every beat. It's going to play the same note as the right hand thumb, and we're just going to move up the scale, playing hands together now like this, Etcetera. So that's the very first level etude, isn't it? Because now we've got both hands going, and we can do that not only with the first pattern, but with the other arpeggio patterns that we identified. And now we get to go to what I'll call a second level etude. Surprise, surprise, there's another level. You aren't surprised, are you? We're going to have our left hand do something a little bit closer to what it has to do in the piece. So there's a place where you have to have your right hand doing its little pattern, and your left hand has to play the eighth notes with it. So. So that has to be a part of it. We have to get our left hand to be able to do that while we're doing the right hand. So we'll make an etude out of that as well. So you can get your right hand going. And now add your left hand with it. Now move up the scale. So you're working on the patterns that you're going to have to play. But once again, we've limited the. The notes and the difficulty, the complexity of it. We're not really making a lot of the note changes. But I will tell you, once you get to that second level etude that I just did for you, you're going to be able to come back to a Bordeu Rousseau, and it's going to have very many fewer complications. Now, there is one more drill that you might want to try, and we're going to do a particular moment in this right hand, and we're going to drill it, and then we're going to turn it into a little etude. So one of the more difficult things is going right from the end of the first measure to the beginning of the second measure. It's just this pattern then moving up to that note. So you're leaping from this C A, F, a C A up to the F. You can connect it, but if you're not ready for it, it can be awkward, and it happens in a few different places. So if this was part of the skill that was giving you trouble, or part of the piece that was giving you trouble, rather, we can turn this into a drill as well, where you play the pattern at the end of the first measure and then the pattern at the beginning of the second measure. Then we're going to work our way up the scale the same way we did before. So you're going to play the pattern on the original notes, go up to the next measure, go back down, but a step higher, and then up, back down. So our right hand starting on C here and going to F. Now, instead of C and F, we're going to go to D and G. So here the C and the F. Now the D and G. Now E and A. So now we're drilling the skill of changing from the one arpeggio group to the next arpeggio group. There's our drill. And then we can etude it by adding the left hand at that moment as well. So we're going to imitate what the piece does, but we're going to take just that, that little chunk, second half of the first measure, first half of the second measure, and just walk it right up the scale, but with both hands. And that can be really, really helpful. When you can do that, you're going to be able to do the beginning of this piece with confidence, because now you've got the skill to do it. Be sure that you're working these drills up to the tempo. You want to play the piece maybe even a little bit faster to give you that headroom that I mentioned before. You want to be able to develop the skills so that you can play the piece comfortably, and that means making sure that you have just a little bit more technique than you really need. Now, this piece, actually just the beginning of this piece that we worked on, I think, is a great example because you can identify the skill, and it was a really easy one to have you listen to, I think, on the podcast. But whatever piece you're playing, you can do the same thing. If you find that you're stuck working on this piece and. And your technique just isn't there, this is what you can do. And remember, let me walk you through those steps one more time. What you're going to do is, well, identify the place where you're having a difficulty, right? And then step one is, what is the issue? Is it my fingering? Is it my coordination? Is it the pedals or levers? Right. Look for the thing that's keeping you from playing it the way you need to play it, and then look for what that particular skill requires of you. If it's harmonics, we'll practice finding the harmonics and do some harmonic exercises that are totally separate from your piece. Then take the harmonics in your piece and see how you can make them an exercise. Remember, the key components of the exercise are repetition on those same notes. Moving up or down the scale is a great way to do it because you get those, those patterns, but you don't have to think about changing the notes. And, you know, it doesn't have to be difficult. The notes are just moving up the scale. They're not the same. Right. It'd be boring to just keep playing the same notes. But you don't have to keep finding the difficult notes that the piece is giving to you. You get to just control them a little bit more so the exercise is more under your control. Doesn't that sound nice? So you make the exercise that you need and then add back one little element that you're going to have to contend with in the piece when you play that particular skill in the Rene. What I did was after we worked on the little arpeggio skill in the right hand, I added back the left hand notes so that the left hand had to play along with the right hand and I had to track them both. And then I made the left hand just a little bit more complicated to see if I could track it even more. So that was kind of a second level etude, wasn't it? And then I found the one other key place that I could have gotten stuck on. Going from the end of the first measure to the beginning of the second measure, where the right hand has an arpeggio that's not just right up by step, it's not right under your fingers. You have to really stretch for it. And I drilled that separately, then added the left hand the same way it would be in the piece. But I think you can see how this is more than just hands separately practice. It's taking the skill and isolating the skill so that you can absolutely work on just that without having to deal with everything else that goes with the piece. Put it in the simplest, most boring drill, like exercise form, you've got master it. There's then add in some of those etude elements and then you're ready for the piece. You will find this to be a revelation if you haven't worked on it quite this way. I still think the best way in general to work with any piece is to work on those techniques. First. Drill the skills you're going to need, get them to the level you're going to need them, or maybe even Just a little bit better and then learn the piece, drill the skills, find the etude level and then do the piece. But if you're working on that piece and you get stuck, this is how to back into it. I hope this is helpful for you and I hope that you can see where this can really move things forward for you so you don't get stuck in the land of endless repetition and slow playing. Just trying to make it better. Just a little bit better, please. We want it to be a lot better and we want it to be better, faster, because we want to play the music, don't we? I do, and I know you do, too. I love to teach this material and as I mentioned earlier, our coaches love to teach this way, too. So that if you are in need of just a little support, maybe a lot of support, or you have a project that you're working on a piece you're trying to learn, a repertoire you're trying to put together, don't try to do it by yourself. Work with a Heart Mastery certified coach. Use the link in in the show notes. Go to heartmastery.com and look under programs and you'll see coaching and you can learn all about it there. We have a very flexible program and you're able to really tailor it to your speed of learning and what you want to accomplish. Our coaches love to help you meet your heart goals, that's for sure. And next week on the podcast, we're going to be talking to one of those fabulous certified coaches, Dr. Christina Fisher Finch. You might know Christina from her work at Harp Mastery and on our my Harp Mastery calls and with our coaching students. But you might know her as one of the co owners, along with her husband, of the Harp Centers, the Atlanta Harp Center, Virginia Harp center, and the Harp center, of course, in Haddonfield, New Jersey. So this is a new venture for them. And I spent some time talking with Christina and asking her about the change that this has made for her, going from busy freelance harpist and teacher, of course, to only somewhat less busy freelance harpist because now she's a co owner of one of the most important harp stores in the country. So I would urge you to listen to that podcast. She is such a lovely person and I love her energy and, and she needs a lot of it at the moment, that's for sure. But she's got some wonderful things to say and particularly some interesting things about creating a life, a harp life and a personal life at the same time. So it's a lovely interview and I really want to be sure you hear it. So that is next week on the podcast, and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you. In the meantime, remember that every day is a day you can add more Harp Happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time. Enjoyed today's episode? Then share it with a harpist friend. Subscribe for your weekly Harp Happiness Boost and check out harpmastery.com or the harp Mastery app in your app store for more resources and ways to connect. I'll see you next time.