Use The One-Two Punch To Plan Your Harp Growth in 2023 - PHH 085

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 attended one professional boxing match in my life. Now realize I attended. I didn't box. The reason I went was that a former harp student of mine was making her professional boxing debut. As you might imagine, I felt a little out of my element in the boxing club, which was actually one of the legendary boxing clubs in Philadelphia. But I'd never been there before and I've never been there since. What surprised me most about the experience was that I could actually relate to it a little. Not because of my martial arts training, but because of my music training. For instance, there was a nervous tension in the air that was not unlike the anticipation before a performance. I felt the same importance of the moment, the fact that each competitor needed to bring his or her best effort right at that moment. There was no second chance. Of course, we musicians are fighting a less visible opponent, right? And we aren't likely to walk away with a bloody lip or a broken nose, thank heavens. I also found the strategy of the boxers interesting to watch. You could see one boxer sense an opening and take advantage of it, or another one elude a poorly thrown punch. And it's the strategy that I want to talk about today. Specifically, the strategy of the one, two punch. Now, full disclosure, I've never delivered an actual one two punch. I did learn similar combinations when I was studying karate years ago, but even then I wasn't very good at fighting. But I understand the concept, and if you don't already, you will too in just a moment. Now, I'll explain this more thoroughly in our discussion today, but the success of the 12 punch is because the first first punch opens the door and the second punch packs the power. Now, there is a lesson for us harpists here, the first action we take, the habit we develop, or the skill we practice is only the first punch. The power, our progress and growth as harpists, the power is in the second step. So thinking about and planning for our growth two steps at a time, and be being very strategic with each of those steps can create those knockout wins for us. So stick with me here. I have a list of five combinations. One, two punches that will inspire you to try this system. Right now. It's a slightly different way to create progress in your playing, and it's easy to do. I will also tell you what one, two punches I'm putting into place for myself here at the start of the new year. The beginning of the new year is always the time I do a little bit of reflection and a little bit of planning, of course, but also looking back and seeing what I had wanted to accomplish in the last year. Did I accomplish it, and what changed along the way. Usually the things I set out at the beginning of the year end up at the end of the year having been accomplished, but often not in precisely the way I expected. I hope that as you look back at 2022, you see those same kinds of wins for yourself. I know there are struggles and challenges along the way, but remember to look for the wins. And I want to create another possible win for you right here at the start of 2023.

I want you to be sure that you have the opportunity to set yourself up for the success that you want by giving yourself a little gift. All right? Not such a little gift. If it's creating heart progress, it's a big gift, right? And so I have, at the time of this recording, still a couple of spots left at our getaway retreat in Florida in. In February. And I would love for you to kick off your progress in 2023 by joining us at the retreat. We have a small group of committed harpists. We'll be spending a few days together in a house that's all ours, just for some warmth, some sun, and definitely some harp happiness. This is the perfect opportunity to set aside some time for yourself and. And your harp to be not only working on the progress, working on the things you want to do, but to be making memories with your harp friends and, of course, making sure that you are lined up in the right direction for 2023. So our retreat begins February 17th and is in the Kissimmee area in Florida. You will find all the details on our website. Um, unfortunately, we have no more harp rentals available for this session, but we'd love to have you come and join us. If you can bring your harp with you. You will want a harp, so don't come to the retreat without one. That's just no fun. You're going to want to play. We have lots of fun stuff for you to do at the retreat. I will be joined by a couple of our certified coaches who will help me teach and just we'll have a great time together. I know that you have spent these last couple of months in the flurry of holiday harping. This is a great time to just retrench a little bit to bring yourself back, find your direction, find your why. Talk about the possibilities and prospects for 2023 and get started with a big jump start on those goals. This is not the time to put off this kind of learning opportunity. Take advantage of this while it's there. So, as I said, we have just a couple of spots left. I'd love for you to join us. You will find all the details about the retreat and the link to Register on the harpmastery.com website or in the show notes here. I would love to see you join us there. Okay. I know it seems funny to be talking about boxing and punches and stuff when we're really talking about heart music, but the theory is in the combination. That's why a one, two punch is successful. All right, so let's get a little bit technical about the punches thing and you'll see what I mean. So a one, two punch is that combination of punches, one from each hand coming right after each other. Okay. So in. And of course we use that one, two punch phrase to refer to anything that is a sequence or a combination of two things that has a quick or an absolutely powerful effect. So when you're talking about punches, people often describe, at least the boxing world tends to describe the 1, 2 punch. This way, the punch 1 is the jab, right? And that's a jab that comes in with the left hand. And then the. The two punch is a cross that comes in with your right hand. And they describe it this way. The jab is the can opener and the cross, the right hand is the spoon. I love that image. The jab is the can opener, the cross is the spoon. So for some reason I always get this picture of Popeye with his can of spinach. Now, this would be before he gets into his little fight with Bluto or whatever, but you know how he just squeezes that can of spinach open, he pops it open and then he downs the spinach right so think about that this way. The first thing you do is that can opener. It makes gets you the spinach, right? Gets you the path that it's put you on. That path gets you moving the right direction. So that's the can opener. But the power comes from that second punch. Popeye never used a spoon that I'm aware of, but that's the idea. So the first punch makes things possible. The second punch gives you the power. So, you know, there's the objectives in boxing. That first punch gets. Gets you sort of gets you in range so that you can get there and get a little bit closer in. And then as you close that distance between you and your opponent, you can deliver that cross, that power punch. That is what you know makes the impact on the other boxer. All right, so we've got the opener, the opportunity, and then the power. Punch one, punch two. Here's how I want to talk about that in harp terms. I know you've been waiting for this, right? Okay, so in harp terms, punch one, that first punch, that range finder, that can opener, that thing that creates the room for the follow up. The punch one things are the things you all ready do. Like you already practice, you already do your exercises or your scales or you already work on pieces. These are the things that you already do, these are the easy things. And without those things, you wouldn't make any progress. We need to do them, but they're opening the door for real progress. That second punch, the two punch, the power punch, these are the additions that you make, the follow ups that you make to that first punch that actually power up the progress. Okay, so we're going to be talking about those things that you already do, which are good. And if there's one of those that you think you aren't already doing and you should, we can start there too. But then we're going to be talking about that second punch, that addition, addition that's going to bring the power to what you do. So let's start this process and you'll see how these things add up in just a second. Let's start the process by talking about this, you know, just sort of working through a set of steps here. So what do you want to do or to learn or to develop in your harp playing? Are you trying to develop a repertoire? Are you trying to speed up your technique? Do you want to make your technique stronger? Do you want to learn how to play four note chords better? Do you want to roll chords better? Do you want to, you know, learn a particular piece? Do you want to be better at sight reading or improvisation. All of those things are terrific. And they're goals. And we often talk about goals here. Don't. Don't I? You know, it's. It's that goals are the place that you want to go, and without that place that you want to go, you can't find a path. So having an objective, if goal is too strong for too strong a word for you, think about it as an objective. Think about it as just something you want to do. So sort of have that as your, as your, you know, the heading on your paper. And then let's talk about what are the key skills you need in order to do that. Well, if you want to be able to play four note chords more quickly, maybe you have to start with three note chords. Maybe that's a key skill. Maybe understanding the chord theory is a part of that. Maybe that's a key skill. Maybe working on your fourth finger technique or that that ability to land all four notes on the strings at the same time, maybe that's one of your key skills. Most likely all of those things and maybe more are the key skills you would need for that. You don't have to make this an exhaustive list and you don't have to overthink this. Just do it quickly. My guess is that if it's something you've been working on or wanted to work on, that you know, that, that big heading at the top of your paper, you'll know pretty much a couple of the key things you need to do to get there. We don't need to plan out every step. Just think of those few that you know you're going to need. Okay. And then below that you can list what you're already doing in that direction. So coming back to our four note chord example, maybe what you're already doing in that direction is practicing chords every day. Good for you. Maybe you're working on your arpeggios, maybe you're working on your placing. Maybe you have etudes that you're working on. All of those things are really, really good. And all of those things that you're already doing, that's your one punch, that's your number one punch, that's your jab, that's the can opener. You're already doing stuff that is putting you in the right direction. We just want to make you travel in that direction a little bit faster, or at least make it possible for you to travel faster. I don't want you to travel faster than you want to. Right, okay. So that cross that second punch is going to be the add on step that's going to take you closer to your goal. So maybe, um, there are specific four note chord exercises that you want to do. Maybe your add on is going to be to take those four note chord exercises you are already doing your number one punch and speed them up, work on them with the metronome, work on them in rhythms, work on them in different patterns. All of those are those add ons, those second punches that are going to bring power so that you're not just doing the same exercise all the time and hoping that it gets better, but you're going to power up whatever it is that you're doing to make that skill happen faster. So, you know, if you, if you want your technique to be faster, you want to be able to play faster, well, let's add a cross to your technique work. You're probably already doing technical work. Let's find a cross that we can add that second punch. You want to have a 30 minute repertoire ready. Okay, let's add a cross to your review practice. You're probably already doing review practice, but let's see how we can power it up. If you're not doing review practice, we can start there. There's a power up, right? Okay. You want to work on sight reading or memorization. Well, we could add across to your spot practice so that you are actually working on those things while you're already doing your spa practice. Ooh. Okay. So sometimes these could be those techniques, practice techniques I refer to as double duty. Working on one thing and something else at the same time. Right. Using that one etude to work on a couple different things.

But the point here is that when you are a little bit more intentional, and it doesn't take much here, but when you're a little bit more intentional about the work that you're already doing, you can get way more out of it. Now that sounds like a good thing right now. Another way to start this process and think about those one, two punches would be to look at those things that you're already doing and think about the directions in which you could power them up. And that's what we're going to do right now. We're going to look at things that you are probably or possibly already doing and think about how we can power those up, how we can add across, add the second punch to make them even more effective and hopefully make them more effective in a particular direction you want to go. So don't discard those sort of goals, those headings that we talked about, but before those things that you really want to do. But what we're going to do is try to bridge that gap, that gap between what you're already doing and where you want to go. And we're going to do that with that second punch, that add on, right? Okay. So we've got the can openers. We're going to be looking for the spoons. Okay, here we go. So let's assume or presume perhaps that you're already doing daily technique work. You're already doing just, you know, scales, arpeggios, chords, you know, all that kind of stuff. You're already doing some of that. And my guess is that you are right. Well, it's great to do that technique work, but what do you want from it? If you just want to just kind of stay the same, then your daily technique work is probably fine just as it is. But if you want to grow in a particular way, your daily technique work could be a terrific first punch. And then we'll add that second punch. For instance. We already talked about this. If you want to have a faster technique, well, then you're going to need to add speed to your daily technique work. Doesn't mean you have to do it all all faster, but it means that you need to add some faster work to your daily technique work. Just doing those same scales and arpeggios and chords, or that same warm up, those same exercises, even at the same speed all the time isn't going to make your fingers faster.

In that phrase that I use all the time. If you don't play fast, you will never play fast, right? So if you want to play faster, you have start that. And adding speed to your daily technique work is a terrific second punch, a terrific spoon, a terrific cross, right? It's that add on that's going to make your technique work pay off at a higher level.

Or perhaps you want to work on your dynamic range. Your daily technique work is a perfect place to do that. You don't have to do all your scales and arpeggios and chords at that same mezzo forte dynamic. You can vary the dynamic you're using to help yourself be more intentional about the difference between your piano and your mezzo forte, or even your piano and your mezzo piano, or your mezzo piano and your pianissimo or any of those dynamics. You can use them to practice or brilliant crescendos or decrescendos, right? All that can be added on to your technique work, and it will help you develop control. I know That I talk with many harpists who have trouble playing their left hand louder than their right hand when the left hand has a melody. You can do that in your technique work if you have some hands together. Technique work that you do. You could practice that there.

If you want to be more comfortable playing low on the harp or high on the harp, move your technique work up or down an octave, right up or down two octaves, or play more octaves of scales and arpeggios. There's no reason you have to stick with a one octave or a two octave scale. Play as many octaves as your harp has to be sure that you're comfortable playing over the entire instrument.

Or if your goal is to learn a little bit more about music theory, about keys, for instance, or just to get more accustomed to your lever and pedal settings, Play your daily technique work in different keys. Absolutely. This is a great way to power this up. So you see that the different add ons that you can use, those different second punches will take you toward different places, will serve different goals. Right? Working on, you know, learning your key signatures versus working on having a faster technique. And certainly you could do all of them, but you don't need to do all of them at once. My recommendation would be to choose one and work on that till you feel like you're really making progress on that. And then you can switch something up and work on a different goal. Doesn't mean you have to do it for an entire year. Maybe a couple of weeks is enough, depending on what it is you're working on, maybe a month.

But choosing that add on strategically is going to help you get where you want to go. Now maybe you're also doing exercises with finger patterns and you're already working on those. Well, you could add on some improvisation based on those finger patterns, add in some chords, add on some, you know, a meter, make it into a little piece. Great way to practice improvisation with your finger patterns. This is where your core for improvisation will come anyway, right. Or you could use it to practice rhythms, or you could use it to develop more speed. You could use that second punch to play those finger patterns faster and work them up. You could also use those exercises to get a little bit more comfortable with lever or pedal changes. You're playing those patterns well, why not on the. The first beat of every measure of your finger pattern? For instance, do a switch a lever or switch a pedal randomly if you like, just to get used to doing that in rhythm. So if your lever or pedal changing accuracy is something that you want to get more comfortable. That's a great cross to add on to your finger pattern exercise.

That's not to say you couldn't add it onto your daily technique work as well. But if, you know, if that's, if the finger patterns work better for that, why not? Right? So there are some examples of crosses you could add on to finger exercises. Don't do all these at once. You're going to pick one.

Maybe, you know, your, your. You want to just sort of power up your practice in general. Well, let's assume that you already have a regular practice habit. That would be your step one. That would be your, your jab, your first punch, right? To make sure you've got a regular practice habit. Every day. I practice these 30 minutes at this time or whatever works for you. Well, so let's make your practice a little bit more powerful, a little bit more energized, a little bit more focused by putting on that second punch, right. You can add some organization, maybe start using a practice journal or create a specific goal or a specific due date for a particular piece or a date when you start the next thing. Right? So that rather than having your practice just be practice, you create a time frame for it, which will give your practice a little bit more intention, a little bit more urgency, a little bit more necessity so that you can give yourself a, you know, okay, at the end of the month, I'm going to start a different focus and you're ready to move on. So that can help power up your practice right there.

What about your repertoire? Say you're already doing a regular repertoire review. Well, what would make it a little bit more powerful? Maybe you want to add more pieces to it. So schedule in adding a new piece each month. Right? Okay. This will give your practice a focus for sure. So there's an extra win right there. But it's going to power up that repertoire review. You're not just playing the same old, same old. You're going to add a new piece every month. Or what if instead of just reviewing your repertoire, you created sets of the pieces you already have and you mixed up those pieces? You could mix them up differently every month, maybe, maybe create a wedding set or a church set or a background music set, or a popular music set or a French music set. Create a set and review it that way to give your review a little bit more punch. Of course, another thing that will really speed up your repertoire review is if you add in a performance date. Right. I have to have this repertoire ready by this day because I'm Going to play it for these people. Nothing like the power of a deadline to make sure that you're adding that up. So you can see how that's definitely a power punch, right? It's not just, oh, I'm reviewing my repertoire and it's kind of good, but, but it's, I'm really moving forward on my repertoire because I have a reason to.

Maybe you're practicing your sight reading regularly or your improvisation or your, or your memorization, right? Well, you can power that up by. You could add the metronome to it so that you're not just sight reading perhaps, but you're sight reading at a particular steady tempo. Or you could add note reading to your sight reading practice or your spot reading, spot practice rather, just to add a little bit more sight reading punch. You could make sure that when you sight read or memorize or improvise, you're doing it at a variety of tempos with different dynamics. And so level up your skill that way.

So it's once again, this one two punch idea is taking things you already do and making sure that you do them at a more powerful level by adding that second punch. Now, of course, you can also stack these things, right, so you might want to do more than one of them. Well, choose one to start with, but think about it in terms of, well, which one will lead to the next so that, well, you know, maybe if you're working, if you're adding those lever and pedal change things to your finger pattern exercises, maybe that will help you develop your repertoire. Or perhaps if you start playing your daily exercises in different keys, that will help you with improvisation. And so you can have different goals and you'll sort of stack them and work on one at a time.

So I did tell you I would share my own.

2023 sort of goals and 1, 2 punches for you, just so you can see how I'm doing this.

2023. For me, I want to be sure that my practice has more focus and energy. You know, like a lot of us, things slid over the last couple of years when there weren't very many places to play. And it's been, you know, we've spent the last, oh, year and a half getting back, right, getting back to, to playing in public, playing live for people. And so I really need to make sure that my practice steps up a little bit. I also want to rev up my technique and it has also sort of suffered from not exactly neglect, but just from lack of demand placed on it. So as I'm doing more playing this needs to step up as well. And I want to get back to where I was a number of years ago and have two complete recital programs memorized. This was something that was important to me to keep up so that I had music I could sort of shuffle around. But I always had something ready to play, and that has definitely slipped in the last couple of years. So I have decided that my first one is going to be to work on that recital program idea because it is going to energize my practice. It is going to require me to step up my technique. So I'll be sort of working on all three of those a little bit at a time.

What I'm already doing right now is preparing music for a program I'm going to be playing in February. And while that's not going to be a memorized program, because I sort of decided a little too late on it, it's not going to be all memorized. But it is a start toward my. My memorized recital programs. And I have chosen my music a little bit intentionally so that I got get some of my core repertoire back. And the cross that I'm adding to this is that I am, as I'm working on that program, going to memorize a couple of those core repeats, those core pieces, core repertoire pieces was, I think, what I was going to say, memorize a couple of those really essential pieces that will come into play in the recitals I'm giving this summer. So by the end of the year, I have hopes that I can get back to those two complete programs. But I'm going to start with working on those core pieces now. And as I said, I was already preparing music for a February recital, so that's going to help me right there. So that's sort of the way I'm working. And I would challenge you to think of one thing that you're already doing now and think of a way you can power that up, how you can add that second punch to really power up what you're already doing to get you closer to where you want to go. Pretty cool idea, I think. So have some fun with this. And you know, if you want to put on some sparring gear just to. To help you get in the mood, go right ahead. But just don't injure yourself in the meantime. So let me remind you once again as we wrap up today, that we still do have, I think, just two spots left at our getaway retreat in February. So that'd be a great time to put some of those one, two punches in place. And Maybe the retreat itself would be that second punch for you, that extra power. It certainly could be, and I think it certainly will be. So we'd love to have you join us, but please register quickly because we will close registration very soon and there are only those two spots left. Next week on the podcast, we're going to be talking a little bit about etudes. I'm sure many of you are doing the harp column Etude Challenge, and if you've listened to me for any period of time, you know that I believe etudes are really, really important. But we're going to talk about how to use those well and the different aspects of etudes that might serve different purposes for you and how exactly to get the best, best use out of those etudes. It's sort of another, you know, getting bang for your buck kind of kind of podcast, but I think it's going to be interesting. Many people don't tell you why an etude is useful or what the point of an etude is and how to practice it, how to incorporate it in your.

In your strategy, but that's what I'm going to talk about with you next week, so be sure to join me for that discussion. In the meantime, 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. Happy New Year, everybody, and I will see you next time right here. Thanks for tuning in to 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.