Refresh, Reset or Reconnect: Which One Is Right for You? - PHH 277

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 tackle the real challenges harpists struggle with: the sticky passages, the tricky fingerings, prepping for performance, 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 are in the right place. So let's get started.

Welcome to the show. Right now we are approaching one of those dividing lines in the year. The season is changing, and in many ways it feels like a time we can make a fresh start. When I was young, I always looked forward to the new school year. New clothes, new classes, new books. The possibilities seemed limitless. and exciting. The energy that the new school year created was almost automatic. The date of the first day of school was on the calendar. All we had to do was to get ready and show up. Finding that same level of energy for a new year of harp playing may not be so simple. Of course, there are ways to create it. A first lesson of the year with new plans and goals is a great one, in part because it enlists the support of your teacher. But I think there are more things to consider. So I went back into the podcast archives and found a very early episode— episode 82, first aired in December of 2022— that talks about ways to refresh your harp playing at another obvious reset point: the beginning of a new calendar year. That episode was all about opening new possibilities for your harp playing By thinking different, as the old Apple computer commercial put it. So I'd like to replay that episode for you now and then come back and talk about another way to look at possibilities, not as something new to you, but as something more you. I'd like to explore the ideas which sound more similar than they really are, the ideas of refreshing, resetting, and reconnecting. I know that sounds a little enigmatic, but I promise to explain when we get there. But first, a rewind of episode 82.

Do you remember that famous Apple computer advertising campaign, the one that urged us all to think different? Well, that ad campaign was created just after Steve Jobs had returned to the Apple company And Apple desperately needed a new start. The year was 1997, and Apple was on the rocks. Their stock was trading at a 12-year low, and the company that had been known for its creativity and innovation was stagnant and dying. So when Steve Jobs returned to Apple after having left in the mid-1980s, customers, if not Apple's board of directors, were expecting something new and exciting. And they got it with interest. In fact, during Jobs' tenure after his return, Apple launched the iMac, the iBook, the iPod, Mac OS X, the iPhone, the iPad, and more. Now you may have forgotten that shaky period in Apple's history, but I bet the ad campaign is still fresh in your mind. Now there were 2 television advertisements that were shown most often. There was a, a 1-minute version That featured black and white images of 17 iconic 20th century difference makers, including Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon with Yoko Ono, Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson along with Kermit the Frog, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Pablo Picasso. There was also a 30-second version of the ad which showed only 11 of those 17 innovators. Now, for Apple, the ads proved to be more than a montage of people who influenced the future of humanity. These ads also ignited the spark of change within Apple itself, leading to its recovery and resurgence as the tech giant it has become. And also, to the company's emergence as a leader in marketing and promotions. Apple became different. So what does this have to do with your heart playing? Well, on today's show, we are going to talk about how you can harness the power of thinking differently to transform your heart playing, maybe in a huge game-changing way, or maybe in small but significant ways. As we come to the end of this calendar year, we can consider closing the door on what is feeling stale or unrewarding and opening the window to let in some fresh air. We can recharge, reinvigorate, and redirect our musical energies to enable us to go where our harps may lead us. I have some very specific action steps— what a surprise— to share with you too, ones that you're going to enjoy doing, I promise. Now, this isn't about goal setting or practice habits or that usual nitty-gritty kind of stuff. This is really about doing something different with your harp playing. I think most of us get excited as we think about the new year, as we think about new opportunities, we think about resolutions, we think about turning a new leaf. All those things that come about as we gear up for the holidays and then think about what will happen beyond them. It's a chance to break out of where we are, to do something new. And that New Year's, that blank calendar page, right? It's like a blank slate. And all that energy that we're investing in thinking about that can be channeled and harnessed, and we can put that to good use. I know that if you're like me, you've had the experience where you get all excited about the beginning of the year, and then the beginning of the year comes and all of a sudden you're swamped with things, or, or you start out with some resolutions and then stuff just doesn't happen the way you think, and we lose that energy that we have. So we're going to talk about how to keep that energy alive by actually harnessing the energy of something new, the energy of discovery. And I want you to consider, as we start our discussion, to consider this quote by the poet E.E. Cummings. He says this: Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk Curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. Now, just so you don't have to do a quick, a quick rewind, I will say that again for you. Here it is. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals The human spirit. So that's where we're going to start. We're going to start with just the quick understanding that we can believe in ourselves and in our abilities to find the wonder and the delight that we want in our heart playing. And after all, curiosity is a great thing, isn't it? Curiosity itself is a motivator. I mean, think about how many times you've gotten on the internet to search for something and you end up sort of going down that Google rabbit hole, right? Where one search leads to another and you've got all this interesting information, not sure what you're gonna do with it, but it's all there. Curiosity itself is a motivator. So let's get just a little bit curious. But in order to do that, we're gonna start by thinking about what doesn't feel good about where we are right now. What might feel stale or unproductive or just plain old dull as you think about what's been happening musically for you or in your heart playing in the last, I don't know, any number of months, right? Whatever that is. Now, maybe you've had a great 2022 and a great few months and you're not feeling stale or unproductive or Dull or boring in your musical life. I love that, and we'll talk about how to keep that going too. But there are some dangers in just kind of going along with the same old same old. First of all, we stop being challenged, right? Work, our our daily routine, even our daily practice routine, sort of gets us into a life that feels more automated than. Purposeful or intentional. We start doing the same things over and over, and oftentimes this kind of routine will lead us to feel unmotivated, unstimulated, unproductive. So maybe thinking about feeling challenged or challenging ourselves would be something to think about. But another thing that is so damaging about that same old, same old routine is that we get too comfortable. Getting caught in our own comfort zone, complacent in what we're doing, just, you know, going along with the usual, is one of those inertia things. It not only doesn't lead us to change, but it actually leads us to resist change because familiarity is, after all, pretty safe and comfy. So if we don't have any drive— We don't have any motivation. So we may need to get a little uncomfortable. Same old, same old also reduces our interest in what we're doing.

Right.

If you are involved in something that has a decent balance of, of, of, you know, playing and performing and learning and practicing and all that good stuff, but it still doesn't feel rewarding to you, Then it's easy to lose interest. Over the past couple of years, it certainly has been difficult to sustain motivation just because we haven't had the kind of stimulation of outside performances, in-person musical events, hanging out in person with our musical buddies. That's been difficult. It's been hard to maintain interest in what we're doing. And there's a danger factor as well. Perhaps the only thing that's missing is that you're just not feeling it. You just lack a little bit of, of that, that joy, that spark, and yet you really can't tell why. So any of these things can cause us to just feel restless, uneasy, unfulfilled. And can make our musical lives unrewarding. But that's okay because that's what change is about. And being able to step into change is actually very good for us, not just because we're going to feel better, but when we initiate change for ourselves, we're increasing our adaptability and we're actually developing our ability to acquire new skills. Change exercises your brain just as playing different kinds of music, different pieces, increases your ability to learn music faster and play it better. So when we change things up, we actually stimulate all our learning processes. And this is scientific fact. Studies have shown that people who engage in a variety of new experiences are more likely to retain positive emotions. emotions and minimize negative ones. There's actually an area in your brain called the novelty center of the brain, and it responds to new stimuli. So this part of the brain is linked both to the hippocampus and the amygdala, that famous lizard brain. But both of those parts of the brain play large roles in learning and memory. So when you do or see something new, you actually activate this whole learning system And this can trigger those dopamine pathways, right? Dopamine is that brain chemical that makes us feel good and rewarded and happy. So, you know, you've probably experienced this at some point or another every time you, you know, take a leap of faith and you try something new.

And in our harp world, this may, this may be starting a new piece.

It may be playing for someone in a situation where you haven't done that before, right? Anything, maybe taking a lesson, right? Any kind of leap of faith like that, when you try something new, you're actually training your brain to remember the positive rewards associated with any new or exciting experience. So there's that little adrenaline rush, those endorphins, and that little sense of pride that comes into this. All of that gets stored in your memory, right? It could be that the same kind of thing as when you, when you go to a new place or you explore something new or you make a new discovery. And that happens or can happen in your music too. And when you start feeling that good feeling, right, that little adrenaline rush that's like, oh yeah, I made it, I did it, I discovered this new thing, I did this new thing, I did this hard thing, that's your reward. And that great feeling, that's your brain releasing the dopamine and creating new neural connections. And so that mere experience of trying something new actually provides us with a reward that is reinforcing our choice for something new. It's building strength for experimentation. It's building our ability to enjoy change. To try something new? It's a very powerful thought when you think that trying something new will encourage you and enable you to try other new things. You can see how this is really a pyramid sort of skill, isn't it? Taking that first step into the unknown, into that world of discovery and trying something new, is going to make it easier and more fun to take other steps into the unknown as well. So, all right, this is great information, but how can we apply it to your heart playing? Well, I'm about to give you some ideas, but in order to make those ideas powerful for you, I want you to start your quest for something new by considering Something that you probably haven't thought about. Now, I'm going to ask you to consider what your most meaningful HAARP goal is. Now, if you've participated in our coaching program, or if you've been one of my Gold Circle students, you know that your most meaningful HAARP goal is where we start. But if you haven't been in one of those programs, maybe you haven't even thought about this before. Your most meaningful HAARP goal is almost certainly not learning a particular piece. It's not becoming a better sight reader or learning to flip your levers or push your pedals more quietly. It's not about being able to play faster or memorize more quickly. It has nothing to do with those superhuman, super harpist sort of skills. Your most meaningful harp goal is likely something that might not have to do with actually practicing the harp at all. What might your most meaningful harp goal be? Well, let's look just a little bit into what that could be. What is important to you about your playing? Is it Just the ability to learn a new skill? And by just, I don't mean that that's a small thing. That's a big task, right? Do you want to learn to play the harp for its own sake? Is the harp a way that you want to share more of yourself and your creativity with others? Is it important to you to learn to play the harp so that you can play in a healing setting, perhaps? Is it important to you to play the harp because of the joy that you could bring to someone else? Is it because you just want to explore the, the music of the harp?

What is it?

That is most meaningful to you. Now, that's something that I can't determine for you. And all I can say is that the most reliable way to come across this is to start with that— what you think might be your most meaningful HAARP goal— and then try digging just a little bit deeper. Give it time. This isn't something you can come up with in five minutes. It's either something that you know immediately, or it's something you may need to to dig a little bit for. After all, it's really easy to get so caught up in the activity of learning the harp and playing the harp that we forget exactly why we're doing it. And your why. That most meaningful HAARP goal is your why, correct? And that why might change over time. The reason you started might not be the reason you continue. You might have found a different meaning at this point in your HAARP journey from where you are when you started. So it's allowed to change. It doesn't, you know, it's, it's not etched in stone forever. So it's worth thinking about at the beginning of this year, the end of, of 2022, the beginning of 2023. It's worth thinking about right now because it will help you shape your choices in the months ahead. Because once you know why you're doing this, then it's much easier to figure out where you need to go and what your next steps are going to be. And that's where all the power comes from. That's where you will be able to figure out what is something new you can do to take you further toward your most meaningful HAARP goal. Because maybe what you've been doing is exactly right. It's, it's the path to get there, but that doesn't mean that you still can't initiate some change, that you still can't tweak something or introduce a new element that just brings more interest, more wonder, more enjoyment, more discovery to that meaningful HAARP goal, to your journey toward your more meaningful HAARP goal. I mean, maybe this is the time to, to work at a new kind of repertoire for yourself. Maybe you haven't looked at a particular kind of music and you've always been interested. Perhaps you've always been interested in playing, oh, jazz on the harp, but it's never been part of your plan. Well, maybe it's time to make it part of your plan. Maybe this is time to try a new practice routine. Do something different. Shake it up. You don't know what you might discover when you do that, right? Maybe this is time to try playing for others in a setting that you haven't done before. Maybe it's time to put some, some, you know, performance dates on the calendar. Maybe this is the time to reach out to those senior centers or nursing homes where you sort of always thought you wanted to play, and you thought that that was a meaningful experience that you'd like to have, and, and that this is a way you would like to bring music to others, but you haven't done that yet. Well, it's time to try something new to do that. There are so many things that you could do. So here's a little exercise. Don't worry, it's not going to tax your fingers. And I suggest that you start with your most meaningful harp goal. But even if you're not settled on that yet, you can still do this little exercise. We're going to think about a few key areas in your harp playing and just sort of give them a, a quick mental checkup. So think first of all about Your practice. What— I know I told you we weren't gonna get into practice routines and all that kind of stuff, and we're not, but I want you to think about your practice and think about what change you could make. What could you do differently in your practice? Would it be thinking of practice themes for a week or for a month? Would it be working through a Different technique book? Would it be arranging your practice differently in your day? What would be different in your practice? Just about anything, by the way, in your practice routine is an element that you could change because there are many, many ways to practice and still make the progress you want. So you can think about that a little bit. Now maybe there's nothing in your practice routine that you want to change. You're settled with it, you're comfortable with it, and comfortable is okay. So let's consider a different area of your harp playing, or just consider it anyway. We'll consider it, and maybe it's an additional change for you. What about the music you're playing? What could be different about it? As I mentioned before, is there a different kind of music you'd like to explore? Or maybe there's a dream piece that you haven't started that you would love to tackle. Well, maybe this is the time to start that. Or maybe you want to develop more of a repertoire. Maybe you have specific repertoire you want to develop, like you want to come up with a repertoire for playing at weddings or playing at church or Playing for St. Patrick's Day, right? This is a great time to plan ahead. We're about 90 days out from St. Patrick's Day, so this is a terrific goal. Maybe you want to start with something like that, or playing music that, you know, is part of your heritage that you maybe haven't played yet. Lots of different kinds of music, and think about what you want to do, what would be meaningful to you. And then create a little plan for it. Okay, so we've talked about maybe a change in your practice, maybe a change in your music. And what about a change in the way you're sharing your music with others? Sharing your music, remember, is, is the term we use instead of performing, because not all sharing your music feels like a performance, right? I mean, if someone comes into your house and they say, oh, I didn't know you played the harp, would you play something for me? That doesn't really feel like a formal performance, but it certainly is sharing your music. So what sharing experience would you like to add in the next few months? Would you like to have that piece or 2 that, that's just ready to play if somebody comes over to your house that you just want to play for them? Just Because they asked. Or maybe there's a place where you want to play, or maybe another harpist or another musician you want to play with. This is a great time to think about, oh, all right, if I want to play with my, my friend who plays the recorder, well, this is what— this is some music that we can play. And so I'm going to have to learn that, but we're going to set a date to get together and play together, and then we're going to set a date to play for somebody else. Play for our neighborhood, you know, bridge club or book club or whatever it happens to be. So there are so many ways that you can think about sharing your music. And I will let you in on this little statistic that is certainly not numerically accurate, but I will tell you this: most harpists I talk to At some level, we sometimes have to dig a little bit for it, but they really want to share their music, whether they're afraid or they think they're not good enough or they're not ready. They don't just want to hide their little harp light under a rock. They want their music to go out into the world and to make someone else Make someone else's day, right? To bring that joy to somebody else. And that's probably part of your HAARP goal too, but you haven't figured out how to do that yet. Well, if it's part of yours, let's look for that next step and let's get it in there. Let's figure it out. Easy to do when you take that first step. And So full of energy and joy and wonder and awe and all that, all that amazing stuff. And the dopamine too, right? All those physical, physical things, the endorphins that go along with it. It's exciting, it's new, it's invigorating. And what a perfect time to be thinking about it. By the way, thinking about it and planning it Is where you need to be right now. It's the holidays, it's busy. I don't expect you to be able to act on it right away, although maybe you can. Maybe your excitement around what you discover, particularly when you come up with that most meaningful HAARP goal— particular— perhaps your excitement will just lead you to act on it right away in spite of all the holiday rush. But it's okay. If you put off the action As long as you have the plan to take action as soon as you can, because that's where the fun is. Trust me, it's fun. I'd like to inspire you with a quote from Steve Jobs, to go back to Apple for just a moment. This is an excerpt from an interview that he gave in 1994, an interview to the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. Not quite sure how this came into the purview of the historical association. I think they just asked him to speak, but part of what he had to say is so appropriate for our conversation today. And so here's the portion of that speech. He said this: When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your job is just To live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know, if you push it, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just going to live it versus Embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that's very important. And however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it better because it's kind of messed up in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again. Now all that was Steve Jobs, and it's a powerful, powerful quote. But it works for our heart playing too, because all that heart playing that's out in the world, that's just played by people just like you. And you can change the world, change your world, maybe in little ways, maybe in big ways with your heart playing. But every time you get to the HAARP, you can change you.

So that was episode 82, and it's all about change, isn't it? About refreshing. And of course, we have ways to help you find change or create change in your HAARP life. We have coaching, we have My HAARP Mastery membership, we have the Chrysalis Workshop that's coming up at the end of September.

So we have plenty of ways to help you find that change and create that energy.

If that's what you need. But for just a moment, I want to think about this a little differently. I was on a trip this summer and met some new friends, and one of them had just the most wonderful response to many things that came up as we were deciding what we were going to do each day on the trip. And it was just this: Be yourself. Now, of course, you know, that's sort of a version of you do you, but be yourself, I think, is pretty compelling because it makes you ask that question, who are you? I mean, all of these ideas that I talked about in the podcast might sound very intriguing, and there might be some, maybe even all of them, that you want to try, but are they really you? Are they really the direction that you want to go? Do they fit your why? So I want to suggest that you evaluate and consider your new opportunities or ideas through this 3-part lens. First is refresh, kind of like a new can of paint on your walls, right? New goals, new exercises, new practice routines, new music, all that kind of stuff. It's a refresh.

But maybe you'd like a reset.

That's more like going through the clutter in your house and really figuring stuff out, thinking about what you need What you don't need, getting back on track with the goals that you have already set and doing more of what's going to take you toward them and doing less of what won't. So that's a reset. But the third one is reconnect. Reconnect isn't just about the new. It's not just about spicing stuff up. It's about you. It's about being yourself as a harpist, getting back to your own why, reconnecting with what is meaningful to you about playing the harp. It's about being the harpist you want to be. So what is most meaningful to you in your harp playing?

What do you need to do more of? What excites you deep down when you think about doing it?

Now hold that question, because I've been asking myself a version of it too, and it's led me somewhere. It led me to look at some habits that have crept gradually into my harp life and caused a subtle shift in my priorities. So I need to take a little time to reconnect. Which means that I'm taking Practicing Harp Happiness, this podcast, on hiatus for a little while. Some new and exciting projects have pulled me in, including some performance opportunities that I care about deeply. And I can't share specifics with you yet, but I wanted you to hear it from me directly, not just notice the gaping silence in your podcast app. So if episode 82 that you just heard is about anything, it's about this: staying comfortable Is costly, quietly costly. Boredom, complacency, going through the motions— they're all just about avoiding change. And the flip side is real too. New experiences light up the brain, build our resilience, and remind us why we started to play the harp in the first place. Now, I've spent years, years on this podcast for sure, telling you to become the harpist you want to be, to break out of limiting habits, to choose Curiosity over the same old, same old. And this little hiatus from the podcast is me doing exactly that out loud here in front of you for once, instead of just coaching you through it. So this isn't goodbye. This is a blank slate for both of us. I'll be back, I promise. Until then, know that I'll be busy being myself, and I want you to go look for your own version of you. You be your own harpist. And remember, every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening. Be sure to stay in touch, and we'll talk again soon, I promise. 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.