The Adult Harpist - PHH 029

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. On today's show, we're going to be talking about the advantages of being an older harp student. Yes, that's right. I said advantages.

Frankly, there are things that you might be considering a liability in your harp study that I believe and I have seen can be turned to great advantage to help you learn music faster, to retain it longer, and to enjoy playing it more. So if you're one of those that subscribes to the idea that youth is wasted on the young.

I'm going to tell you that you are wrong. I know it's easy to look at those young harp students and envy their flying fingers and their facile learning and their quick brains and all those things that just seem to vanish as we age. But that's okay, because there are compensations. As Maurice Chevalier sang in one of my very favorite movies, Gigi, I'm glad I'm not young anymore. Now, he was talking about the. The. The peace, the calm, the lack of drama, the wisdom, the understanding that comes with age. But I'm going to tell you that even in harp playing, you have advantages over your younger harp student counterparts. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So hang in there because I have a lot of good stuff to share with you now. Also, I wanted to tell you that in the next couple of days, we are going to be opening registration for our next coaching trimester. So with all the stuff we're talking about today, if you don't want to figure it out on your own, that's what a coach is for. If you're unfamiliar with our coaching program, we have several Harp Mastery certified coaches who work with students on a one on one basis. And we offer these this coaching in a 90 day program. In that 90 days you can either have five lessons or 10 lessons. There's also a workshop for all the students in the coaching program as well as an opportunity to share what you've learned at the end of the program too. But what's different about the coaching from regular harp lessons is that these are very goal oriented. Before your lessons start, you and your coach work together to settle on some very specific, specific goals for those 90 days. And then your coach directs you carefully all the way through the process to help you achieve those goals. So it's not just a couple of lessons. It's a real program for progress. And our coaches are so talented and they're wonderful at working with all kinds of students. So I urge you to head on over and you can sign up now, I believe for our first to know list. Or depending on when you're listening to this, you might find that coaching registration for this trimester is open. The trimester starts the first full week of January with the first lesson happening sometime after January 7th. And we'll get you on board before then. Registration will close before Christmas. So you want to get in there and and get that done quickly and save your spot and we'll get you up and running so that you can hit the new with a real great plan for progress for you. So please do check out the coaching program. But right now I know that you're interested in finding out what those advantages that I talked about are. Now, if you are an older student or if you're a teacher of older students, this information is really important for you. If you are a younger harpist, I want you to keep listening too, because there's a lot that you can learn from your elders. So let's get started and dive right in. Now, when I'm talking about advantages of being an older student, they're the same kind of advantages that come to you as an adult in any other area of life, right? You know which foods agree with you and which don't. You know, what kind of a lifestyle you want, you know, how late you want to stay up or how early you want to get up. There's a lot that you know about yourself and that you are in a position to determine.

What always astounds me is when I run into an adult student who comes to me for the first time and I realized that they are prepared to totally abandon all their information that they have about themselves from their life experiences and just from knowing themselves, they're prepared to Abandon all of that to whatever I tell them is the right thing to do. They want to put themselves completely in a teacher's hands, be told what to do as if they were children again. Maybe this is the way they learned. When they learned music for the first time as a child, you know, you took lessons on the piano, and this was what your piano teacher did. You went to your lesson and your parents made sure you paid attention to the teacher, and the teacher told you what to do and you went home and did it. That's not what music study as an adult is needs to be. Your big advantage here is that you know how you learn. It's funny to me when I will be working with a student and they need help figuring out a practice plan or figuring out how to align practice with goals. And I'll talk them through the process. And there's this light bulb moment where they say, oh, well, but I've been doing this for years. This was what I did in my job as a fill in the blank. All that you know from other areas of your life, it all applies to music study. So let's bring those skills over, shall we? You know what works for you. You know how to plan. You know how to create success. So I don't like my older students trying to learn the same way that a young person would learn, where the young person needs very firm and clear direction to take them through all the stages.

Adults don't need or require that. It slows them down.

What you as an adult student need to know is, is you want to know why we're doing something. You want to know what this is going to do for you, why it's important, what results you should expect, what time frame you should expect them in, because then you know what to do and you can direct your work. It's brilliant, isn't it, to use the wisdom you have to bring to your music lessons.

And little tip here, if you want to get the most bang for your practice buck, particularly as a beginning student, focus on technique. You have the learning discipline to do the tough work. And technique sometimes is the tough work, isn't it? Because it's, it's not pretty music. It's paying attention to your fingers and all that sort of stuff. But if we can get your fingers moving.

Early in the process, if we can focus on technique at the beginning of your learning stage or wherever you happen to be right now will work, then we get your. All those pieces in place so you can play the music that you want to play. That's why technique is such an important part of the what I call the Scale of Success curriculum. It's part of the My Heart Mastery membership, but it's one of the big folks. Five things you need to be doing in your harp study. You need to be working on technique. You need to be working on musicianship skills. You need to be learning music that would be working on your repertoire, developing your practice skills, and remembering to practice, of course, and remembering to share the music that you've learned with other people. Because practicing music is one thing. Playing it, even if it's just playing it for yourself, is something different. And that's where the reward is. So don't wait for a teacher to tell you what to do. And you can't really be looking around for the next right step, because the next right step is up to you. What is it that you want to do? What do you need to get to that next place? I bet you know it. And if you don't, there are teachers and coaches who can help you get there. But you know how you learn.

And you get to choose. Ha. Big advantage of being an adult student. You get to choose. So where does this get you? Well, here's your next big advantage. Your next big advantage, and it's even more powerful than the last one, is that time is on your side.

I know that sounds totally backward, doesn't it? You think the young person has all this time in front of them, they've got the advantage of time. But the very fact that it feels like we have less time in front of us to accomplish actually makes our time more valuable and gives it more power. If you think you have all the time in the world, you might as well have no time at all. Because all the time in the world doesn't spur us on to accomplish. It doesn't give us the sense of urgency that we want to get this done.

When your time frame is compressed, this increases the necessity of you getting things done. It clarifies your actions, or should, because with less time in which to accomplish what you want to get done, you need to be choosing the right things to do and not wasting time.

So time really is on your side here. And how can you use it? Well, I would suggest that you use it to work a little faster. This doesn't mean that you need to put in more practice time. It doesn't mean that you need to start playing at a faster tempo. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that I'd like you to spend less time.

Doing detail work and more Time, practicing, playing your pieces, getting to the good part. We tend to be a little bit too focused on details. My good friend MJ always says that, you know, harpists are by definition, overachievers. And we probably are. We're probably all type A personalities, and we love diving into the details and getting everything right.

But there's a time for that, and there is a time to get things done. We learn so much by experiencing a variety of music, so that by doing more, even if we don't do all of it with the same level of attention to detail, experiencing more music, trying more music, more learning through variety.

Gives us a much richer and broader base of knowledge on which to draw and gives us a lot of knowledge that we can bring to everything that we practice.

So if I had to boil this down to one sort of little rule.

To help you balance these things in your playing, I would say it's this. I want you to finish something fast and then let yourself absorb it over the long haul. Now think about how this is different from what you're probably doing in your practice. Now, we often practice, practice, practice, practice, practice with the idea that one day it will get good enough that we can finish it.

But what if we finished it to that sort of 75 or 80% mark where it was kind of okay, you know, it was a B or a B minus on this, on, you know, some imaginary scale, right? So that it was okay, but it clearly wasn't done.

If we get it to that point as quickly as we can and then let ourselves absorb it over a long time, keep playing it, not digging into details all the time, but playing it and playing it and playing it and working on those details. You know, getting the. The. All those I's dotted and T's crossed and, you know, all the. The fingerings, right? And getting all those things done over a long period of time while we're working on something else, but we're playing and playing and playing.

That'S how we're going to learn it as adults. We need a long time to get used to the piece, to really have it absorb into our bones.

But I want you to get it to that point quickly. Think about what happens with young students. They work at something for a long time. I remember when I was very young, as a piano student, I would have one piece that was my big piece for the year, and my teacher would assign it in small sections, and we'd be, you know, I'd be working on this and working on hands separately and this and this, and it Took a long time for that piece to come together. But at the end of the year, it was memorized and, you know, next to perfect. And I, at least for whatever worked for that age, I suppose, and I played it on the recital and I was done with it.

Let's take the other view. We're at the other end of life. Let's take a different view. What if we get it to that almost, but not quite good enough stage and we let it stay there and we start absorbing it over the long haul, not learning it in little tiny bits, but learning a lot of it at once and then getting used to it and getting used to it. That's letting us, as older people use the skills that we have to learn something over the long haul, and it will improve. But we don't have to get every detail right first because we want this piece to be hanging around. We don't want to just play it once and let it go. So let's use the time that we have. Well, time is on our side if we know what to do with it. Which brings me to the third big advantage. I'm going to start here with a story which might illustrate this point and help you understand it a little bit better.

I remember being a teenager. I was studying. I was in my first year at the Curtis Institute of Music and studying, and my harp teacher was not thrilled with me. And I couldn't figure out exactly what was going on. And I was very frustrated. And at one point, I remember talking to my mother and just in frustration, saying, you know, I don't even know why I'm doing this.

And she said, you don't know why you're playing the harp? I said, no, I have. I don't even know why I'm doing this. And truthfully, I don't remember not playing the harp or not wanting to play the harp. It was always part of me. And so I really didn't have an answer for that. And my mother said, well, let me tell you. And this is what she said. She said, when you were two, you heard it on the radio. You heard a harp playing on the radio, asked what it was, and said that that was what you wanted to do when you grew up.

Well, that made me stop and think. First of all, it was incredibly reassuring to know that at one point in my life, I had chosen the harp. I heard it, which was another fact of importance. I heard it and I chose it. The hearing part was important for me because I was glad to know that I didn't choose the harp. Because I saw a gold harp and it was pretty, or I saw a lady's beautiful gown and thought that that was wonderful, but that I chose it because of how it sounded. That was important to me and that was powerful.

And that choice had happened so early that I really didn't even remember making it.

But you, as an older student coming to the harp, you know why you're doing this, you know why you started it, and you know what you want to do with it. Took me a long time to figure mine out. Took me until I was an adult to figure that out. But you know why you're doing this, you know what's important. You have goals. You want to play for these people, or play in this place, or do this with your harp music, or.

Learn a particular kind of music, whatever it is, you know what you want to do. And knowing that gives you a lot of power. First of all, because you know why you're doing it and what you want to do, it gives you a clear process that can be directed to the outcome, right? If you know that you want to play therapeutic harp music, well, then that's the kind of stuff that you can study. And you can study the specific techniques and the specific skills and the specific musical understanding, the stuff that you're going to need for that kind of harp playing, or if you are going to play a particular style of folk music because that's what appeals to you, then those are the things you're going to be studying. So we're not wasting time learning stuff you're not going to need. You don't have to spend that extra time, that extra energy, that extra effort to give you a whole well rounded set of skills. If that's not what you want to do, you know why you're doing this. Now it also that knowledge that that clarity about your purpose and your intention gives you the ability and the energy and the desire to do the work that's required of you in order to get that done.

My adult students are wonderful to work with because once they know what they want to do and what they're going to have to do in order to make that happen, they'll do it. If I give them exercises because that's what they need, they'll do it. If we need to work up to a particular piece that they want to play and we can demonstrate the path that they're on that will make that happen, they'll do what they need to do to get there. And it's a straight line, and the straight line is the short Route right.

Now. Also, when you know why you're playing the harp, what you want to do with it, perhaps who you want to serve, perhaps the kind of music that touches you, that you feel you need to play just for your soul, when you know that you have the ability to enjoy what you're doing, to reach a level of personal reward.

That is frankly, probably why you started this in the first place.

But it helps you accomplish a purpose.

Whether it's a purpose that serves other people, a purpose that just serves yourself.

That'S wonderful. But it becomes a purpose, not just a performance.

And that is power.

That is an advantage.

But I would challenge you with this, too.

If you know why you started the harp. Well, let me back up. If you don't know why you're playing the harp, let's figure that out. What's your most meaningful harp goal? That's a question I ask all my Gold Circle students. And it's a question that I ask all the coaching students in their planning calls as well. What is your most meaningful harp goal? Why are you doing this? Because. And then once we know that, what is it you want to do with your harp playing?

I urge you to do it now. For instance, if your goal is to play the harp at church, if that's what you would like to do, because that's a meaningful thing to you, then let's do it now. We don't have to wait until, you know, some magical, good enough moment. We can make that happen. Now.

If you want to play the harp for nursing home patients, or if you want to study therapeutic harp or healing harp of some sort, or if you want to start playing background music or playing for weddings or whatever it is you want to do, we can do that now. Let's put that in motion. You don't have to wait. Unlike a younger student, whose path is less certain.

At least early on, for sure, you know, they're. They're taking harp lessons and they're perhaps really enjoying it, and maybe they're really dedicated. Maybe it's just that their parents won't let them quit yet. I don't know. But, you know, they're enjoying. If they're enjoying the lessons and they're making progress.

Most harp students don't have a particular goal. A particular. This is really what I want to do for the small percentage that does have that kind of goal. Oh, it's easy to teach them because you can help them to that goal faster. But for most young people, it's, well, let's give you all the tools that you need to give you enough of a foundation that you can choose a path. But as an adult student, you can choose the foundation that you need based on what you're going to build on top of it. Right. We don't have to build just a general slab of harp skills that's going to allow us to build any kind of building on the top of it. Sure, there are some foundational skills that we need no matter what kind of playing we're going to be doing, and it's important to work at those. But if there are specific skills that are going to be required to do what you want to do. You want to play jazz? All right, well, then we can work at those right away. We don't have to wait until some, you know, time in the future to start working at those. We can incorporate those now. So working with that end in mind right from the get go is so powerful. We don't have to wait until you grow up. You're grown up. We can make that happen now.

Now, I've given you a few different advantages that are definitely part of an adult student experience.

Let me give you one major disadvantage and hopefully help you overcome that right away. That disadvantage is this.

As we age, as we mature and gain wisdom, not just years, we often lose that beautiful recklessness that is part of youth. We don't ride the fast rides at the amusement park. We don't throw caution to the wind because we know what can happen when we do.

So we go the safe route. We take smaller steps. We worry more about how we're taking each step and whether that's, you know, stepping carefully with our feet or taking small steps in things that we learn, like the harp, for instance. But there are some times when attempting the impossible, when taking those big leaps opens possibilities for us. Those big leaps can be shortcuts that we don't expect to success. They can be the shortcuts to doing what we want to do. We don't always need small steps. Playing the harp isn't scary, it's not life threatening.

So why not take those big leaps, a big leap? Playing something that's over your head, either in terms of numbers of notes or the tempo or anything else, it's not going to destroy your good habits. You, it's actually going to put those good habits to the test. If you are worried about your fingering or your technique or your position, this is what you've built those skills for. Give them a chance to show what they can do. And if they fall down, if you, you know, Fall down, go boom. Not a big deal. It's heart playing. That's all it is. It was an experiment, but I would urge you to be more fearless, to be more reckless, to try the things that you want to do, not to think that they're above you or that you'll never accomplish them. If there's a piece you want to learn, then let's learn it. And if it takes you a year to learn it, where it might take a younger student, just a couple of months, you know what? That's okay. You have the time, you have the skills, you have the desire, and you're going to get the reward.

But don't be afraid to attempt what you want to do. The harp will take you a million places. All you have to do is tell it where you want to go. I hope that this little podcast has given you some inspiration, some encouragement to pursue what you can do, to not limit your thinking, and to recognize that you have some pretty decent skills to bring to the table. You just need to not be afraid to do it. I want you to enjoy your heart playing and to explore all the possibilities that you want to with it.

Because it's wonderful. I know you think so, too. All right, so now next week on the podcast, we have sort of a Christmas musical, sort of a podcast. We're going to be looking at the famous Cantique de Noel, also known as O Holy Night, because it's always a study in arpeggios. And so we're going to be talking about how to make your arpeggios smooth and fluid and even, and looking at that through a few different arrangements of oh Holy Night and helping you through that as well. So that's next week on the podcast. Remember, do think seriously about working with one of our Heart Mastery certified coaches. The trimester registration is open or nearly open, and we'll be starting right after the first of the year. So this is the time to register and this is the time to have a coach work with you to help those harp dreams come true, to make sure that you are learning at an appropriate, appropriate pace for you and that you're getting everything you want to out of your harp journey. So. So keep up the good harp happiness this week. Check out the coaching, and I've also put a link in the show notes to a blog post that might be inspirational on this topic as well. So I look forward to talking with you again next week. In the meantime, do something fun and experimental with your harp playing this week. All right, I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your Harp happiness every day. See you next time.