What a Harp Newbie Needs to Know (and the rest of us need to remember) - PHH 192

And when you expect that. In fact, when you embrace it as part of what is wonderful about music, the fact that it is new and different every time, this can give you the mindset you need to accept the challenges that come along with playing the harp.

Welcome to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I'm Ann Sullivan, a harpist on a mission to empower every harpist to experience more harp happiness. Over my decades long harp journey, I've had lots of successes and more than a few failures. And I know firsthand what it's like to feel that playing the harp the way you want may not be possible for you. Now, I play and teach all over the world and I know what most harpists are never taught. The secrets to gaining the skills and confidence you need to play the harp with beauty, freedom and joy. That's what the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast is all about. Showing you simple steps to help you play the music you want the way you want. If you're an experienced harpist looking for that next level, or a harp newbie anxious to avoid the pitfalls, or a harpist who just wants more fulfillment and a little encouragement, you're in the right place, my friend. So let's get started.

First, I want to let you in on something special. I think the most important thing you can do for your harp playing is to develop the habits that lead to success. Whatever that looks like for you. All of us want to learn how to play the harp beautifully, how to play with confidence and enjoy making music. And if you really want to learn those things, videos are great. But live learning is essential. You need to be able to ask questions and and get answers. You can't do that with just a video, which is what makes the My Harp Mastery community so special. My Harp Mastery membership is for those who really want an online experience that lets them learn at their own pace and learn what they want and be able to learn live from expert coaches every single week. Plus, you get to connect with other harpists in the community who have the same desires for their playing. This is not only a powerful learning platform, but it's also the most generous community of harpists anywhere on the planet. They're harpists with a positive outlook, a growth mindset and a spirit of support for their fellow harpists on the journey with them. We're ready for you. Join us. Just go to harpmastery.com join now. That's harpmastery.com joinharp hyphen now. Welcome to the show. Do you remember when you were a harp newbie? Well, maybe you still are. Or maybe you've been playing for a long time and the time you were a beginner is a distant memory. That's me, of course. I was a harp newbie a very long time ago. However, I can remember clearly the excitement I felt in my early days of harp playing. You may have heard my harp story, but here's the short version in case you don't remember. Apparently I heard the harp on the radio when I was two years old, asked my mother what it was and told her that was what I wanted to do. I don't remember that part, of course, but I do remember my first harp. My parents had gotten some very good advice and started me with piano lessons when I was four. With the understanding that I could start harp lessons when I was eight. It was I still wanted to play the harp by then, so no surprise. When I was 8, I got my first harp. It was a Lion Healey Troubadour harp. I had a very high stool to sit on too, and that was the beginning for me of a very long love affair with the harp. Now, that's not to say it hasn't had its ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade any moment of it. In the decades of harp teaching that I've done, I've seen many students start their harp studies with that same love of the harp and a passion for learning how to play. Some of them maintain that energy and some do not. Not because they're doing anything wrong, but often they find that learning the harp just isn't for them. If you're just starting your harp journey, I'd like to offer you my thoughts on the most important things you can do to speed harp journey, to maintain your enthusiasm, and to find even more harp happiness along the way. Now, if you're not a harp newbie, I think you may find these things helpful for you too. These are basics that we tend to lose sight of when the music gets more complicated and we involve ourselves more and more in the details of playing. So don't stop listening. This may be confirmation that you're on the right path, or it may be the refresh you need to get you to that next level. I had a lot of fun preparing this show, boiling down the myriad details of playing the harp to just four key concepts that are powerful enough to make big changes for you, and I'm excited to share those with you. Now, whether you're a harp newbie or not, there are a couple of key areas where you do need to keep working all the time, and we've got a couple events coming up at Harp Mastery that may be just the ticket for you. One is our February seminar series, which is not open yet, but we will be opening probably later this week. So, my Heart Mastery members, this of course is your monthly theme, what we'll be working on in the month of February. And our seminar series is a way for those of you who aren't my Heart Mastery members to come in and experience the live calls that our membership gets. Of course, you don't get all the, all the perks of my Heart Mastery membership, but you do get to experience those calls. We are spending the month of February talking about scales and arpeggios. Now, I realize that doesn't sound very sexy. It doesn't sound like it's going to be super interesting. But remember, these are the building blocks. Just not the building blocks for your technique alone, but they're the building blocks of all music. Our harp music is filled with little things that are scales, little things that arpeggios, and when our fingers know how to maneuver around them, they play better. But this isn't just about technique. What we're working on, we're going to be working on rhythms, we're going to be working on speed, we're going to be working on flexibility, all those things that go into your technique and your scales and arpeggios at any level of heart playing. So that's what's coming up and in our February seminar series. So be on the lookout. You'll be able to sign up for that series either on our website under Upcoming Events or right in the app. You'll see it advertised in the app as well. And remember, my Harp Mastery members, this is already part of your your membership. So you don't have to get in there and purchase the seminar series. You get it for free. Also, I'm really excited about a new offering, something I'm doing that tackles sort of the other end of your heart playing. It's about finishing pieces. I want you to get unstuck and actually play the pieces that you start. And if you've been playing for a while, you know that's not always easy. So I am hosting what I'm calling a Finish It Clinic. It is a one night, 90 minute live workshop and I'm going to be working with you on that call to actually get your pieces finished to show you how to do it. I'm going to give you strategies, the things you need to know in order to get past that point where it's kind of there. But not quite. So we'll be talking about how to get past that, you know, 80% sort of stage, how to break the chain of fixing your piece over and over again. You're just fixing it and fixing it and fixing it, and you never get to play it. And just how to make your pieces flow along instead of just kind of stumble along. And of course, we'll be talking about how those things happen and how you can start working on the flow of your piece from the very moment you start so that you know you're going to be able to finish it. So this is more than just a webinar, because I want you to show up to this clinic for prepared to work, so you can be at your harp. I promise nobody's going to listen to you, but I'm going to give you strategies that you can try. Right then I don't want this call just to be about talking about solutions. I really want to help you finish your pieces and figure out how to do that. So we're going to talk about those solutions, and then we're going to try them out. And in fact, you'll have the opportunity to ask me for my specific recommendations for you and the pieces that you're working on right now, because I want you to leave that call knowing exactly what you to do, what you need to do, and how to do it. So we're going to be putting all that together. There is, of course, a guide that will go along with the clinic, and I'm going to be giving you, after the clinic, a little PDF booklet. It's not long, but it's a little booklet called the Quick Start Guide to Learning Like a Pro. And this guide is going to help you remember what to do when you start the next piece, or as you're working on a piece to help propel you toward that finish all the time you're practicing it. Now, one of the things that's different about this clinic from the usual webinars that I host is that I'm asking you to pay for it. Now, once again, my Harp Mastery members, this is included in your membership, so you do not need to pay. We just will automatically include you in the clinic. But if you're not a My Heart Mastery member, I want you to be sure that you're going to show up. And that's one of the reasons we're charging for this. Now, obviously, there's a lot of value here, too, but I know that value isn't always enough. And I know that once I've made an investment in something like that, I tend to show up for it. You know, if somebody asks me to pay for a webinar, you know, I'm going to be there. And that's partly why I'm asking you to make this little investment in your heart plank. $49, because I want you to show up. Also, I know the kind of value you're going to get, and I want you to be able to take that information and really use it. And I want you to ask me the questions that you need answers to in that clinic. Now, if you can't attend live, that's okay. You'll still get all the resources and you'll get the replay and all that good stuff. But that's what we're going to be doing. And the clinic is coming up soon. It's coming up just one week from tomorrow when this podcast goes live. It's coming up on Tuesday, January 28th at 7:30pm Eastern. Once again, it's a 90 minute live clinic. And we're going to be talking about how you can finish it. We're not going to be just talking about it. We're going to do it. You might not actually finish your piece on that webinar, but you're going to know exactly what you need to do in order to finish it when we finish our call. So two things coming up, whether you're a harp newbie or not, that these things are going to be really valuable for you. Our February seminar series, look for that coming out next week, and it starts, of course, in February. And the Finish it clinic, which is happening on Tuesday, January 28th. Wow. Lots of stuff going on. There's a lot going on in harp playing too. So if you're new to the harp, you may be experiencing some overwhelm. Right? Well, let's see. I have to do this and I have to know this, and I have to know this and I have to do this. Now, if you're a new music student on top of that, then you've got note reading, you've got all the stuff that goes just with general musicianship. But even if you're an experienced musician on another instrument, when you first come to the harp, and maybe you remembered this, if this was you when you first come to the harp, there's a lot that goes into playing because playing the harp is different than playing anything else. You won't just make an easy transfer. Even if you're a pianist coming to the harp, the technique is so different that it's really going to slow you down for A while. So because there's so much to do, it's very easy to sort of get caught up in that frenzy of doing and forget what's really important and lose sight of how you can move forward. There's so much to take care of. On the flip side, when you're a beginner, you also don't necessarily expect super duper fast progress. So if it's slow going at the beginning, you tend to say, okay, well, that's fine, and eventually I'll move a little faster. And sometimes you do move faster and sometimes you get in the habit of moving slowly. So we're going to look at this little four concept framework that I've put together and hopefully we can get you moving faster now.

But set you up in a way that you actually can count on the kind of progression that your harp journey is going to take, at least in, in part, for sure. And while you more experienced players will have heard all of these concepts before, this is the kind of reminder that we all need from time to time about what's important about what we do on a day to day basis. So get out that pencil and paper. We're going to talk about these four P's that I think are important concepts for every harp newbie to think about and certainly actually for every harpist, no matter where you are in your journey. So let's get started with the first of those P words and you might have guessed what it's going to be already. That first word is practice. Practice is the key to everything, isn't it? If it weren't the key to everything, then we could just sort of sit down and we'd play something and that would be fine. But that's not the way it works, and we know that. So practice is where we need to start. I mean, just imagine, could you learn to play the harp well, if you didn't have a harp that you could play on? And maybe the only time you played on a harp was when you went to your teacher's house. No, that's not going to work. So it's those daily touches, and I literally mean touch on the harp. I mean, not just touch, of course, but those daily practice sessions are, are the key to your progress. It's about developing the right habit. But more than that, it's about familiarity. It's about getting comfortable with the instrument and with all the idioms of the instrument, what kind of things we play and how your fingers have to work to play them, what they look like on the page, what they sound like. How we count them and all of that stuff goes into our heart playing and we work on it in our practice. So here's something I want you to start with. Remember that practice is about consistency. And that means see, if you can't practice five days in a week, and if you can't practice maybe at least 20 minutes a day, I mean, that's pretty bare bones, pretty minimal. I certainly do more than that and I think a lot of people do. But sometimes your schedule doesn't allow it. But practice isn't something you can just relegate to a weekend. You really need to find time in your day to sit at the harp, even if it's for that 15 or 20 minute period. It's going to not only help your harp playing immensely, but it's going to keep you feeling like you're moving ahead instead of just, well, this is kind of where it was last week. Think about consistency in your practice. Sort of more like the Grand Canyon then a flash flood, right? A flash flood makes a big change and it's huge and it's significant and then, you know, it stops and people repair the devastation and things go on. The Grand Canyon, that amazing hole in the ground, was created over a long, long time. I promise you won't have to wait that long for results from your practice. But that kind of consistency, just doing it and doing it and doing it, is what's going to make the difference here for you. Starting with the idea of consistency, is the best beginning for any harpist or the best refresher, if that's what you need. Now when you are practicing, here is something that's very important to think about. Practice is about progress, not about perfection. You don't have to get it absolutely right and you certainly don't have to get it absolutely right today.

Any harpist who's been doing this for a while will tell you that there are things that you need to fix over and over and over again. You'll always be working at your technique. It's a lifelong pursuit. Trust me, I know. And what you can do in your daily practice is think about it and work at it and do your best to stretch it. But remember that this is a process. It's going to happen over time. Don't expect that you need to get it exactly right today because you're going to need to get it pretty much right again tomorrow and pretty much right again the next day. Same with fixing notes. And I think this is another key factor. I want you to, as you approach things that you're working on in your practice, don't expect it to stick. So that that passage that you've worked so hard on today, and you really worked on that right hand, and it had all the right fingering and everything was really good. And you put it with the left hand and you worked really hard, and everything worked. And when you finished your practice session, it was really great. When you come back tomorrow, you may have to do all that work or most of it over again. It's not that you didn't do the work correctly. It's just that this is a Grand Canyon moment. Again, we have to remember that we're developing familiarity and we're developing that over time so that you can replicate it. When you play the piece, you can't expect that you're going to practice it and get it correct once, and that will forever be correct. After that, it's always a work in progress. So this isn't like checking a box and moving on. Right. I always envy visual artists who, you know, they've done that painting. Now, I know that painters love to tweak, and I'm just picking on painters because it's there. But at some point it gets hung on the wall and it's done, and there it is. And even if they want to go back and add some more brush strokes or redo it or whatever, and it's on the wall, it's finished. We never get that, because our finished product is something we create fresh every time. You know, you'll play it on Tuesday, and you'll play it again on Wednesday, and you'll play it again on Thursday, and it will be different.

And when you expect that, in fact, when you embrace it as part of what is wonderful about music, the fact that it is new and different every time, this can give you the mindset you need to accept the challenges that come along with playing the harp. And if you have gotten yourself into a rut where you think you're not making progress, consider what would happen if you turned your thought process about this around and remembered that it's not going to stick. It's just about progress, not perfection. That's why we start with practice. But now we're going to do a little bit of planning. That's our second P word plan. Now, this month, the My Heart Mastery members have been working hard on planning and planning for their progress and creating goals. And we've been talking about how all of those things boil down to how you plan your practice. But that's not exactly the plan I'm talking About today, those kinds of plans are very detailed, and they're great whether you're a beginner or not. And you've probably done that kind of goal work in another field in your life, and that all translates to the harp. So if you want to think about goals and achievement, that's great. But what I really want to talk about right now is the plan that's going to make a difference more than anything else for your playing, and it's not what you're going to do, particularly in a practice session. After all, there's a lot of stuff that you could do, right? But what I want you to think about as you approach your practice is what it is you're really trying to do, and I want you to think further ahead. So if you're practicing a piece, for instance, I want you to think about what you want that finished piece to sound like. Let me take this and explain it just a little bit more. There's student A. Student A goes to the harp. And student A and student B, by the way, are both working on the same piece. So student A goes to the harp and they say, okay, I'm going to do this hand separately and I'm going to do. Then I'm going to do it hands together. I'm going to do it this many times and I'm going to work on this section. I'm going to do this, this, this, this. And they've got it all planned out. Student B goes to the harp and says, okay, well, this is a really lovely piece. And I know that it's got to go faster than I'm playing it, and I know that it needs to sound like this eventually. And they just do stuff in their practice that gets them toward the way the piece sounds. Two very different approaches to the piece. Now, each one has its advantages. Student A is step by step, by step by step, so that it's very clear. I need to do hands separately, I need to do hands together, I need to do the tempo pyramid, maybe all those things. Student B, the path isn't perhaps quite so clear, but the destination is very clear. They know what they want the piece to sound like, and so they're trying to make it sound that way. They're both headed in the same direction, but they're going to get there through slightly different methods. And the step by step person. That requires a little bit of knowledge about what those steps are. And if you're fairly new to the harp, or especially if you're new to music study, you might not have a clear plan for what those steps are. So I would suggest that you think about planning in a different way. I want you to think about what it is you're trying to do. For instance, what do you want that finished piece to sound like? How fast should it be? What kind of mood should it set? What is it going to sound like when it grows up? Or if you're working on a particular exercise, what's the point? What is it that you're trying to do? This will help get you away from the idea of I need to do this, this, this, and this. I want you to think about the results you want, not necessarily the steps. Steps can sometimes bog you down. You think, okay, I need to do step one, step two, step three, step four. And often we can get lost in those steps if one of those isn't working, right? Or maybe we get lost because we're not sure what those steps are. Of course, if you need to know the steps and you don't, that's where a coach or a teach in, right? Because they probably know. But if you know the destination, the steps matter less. Because after all, a step is an action, right? And so they're taking action. But just taking action isn't effective if you're not directed to where you want to go. And if you are directed toward where you want to go, the steps necessarily matter. I mean, think about how many ways there are to get to a destination. If you're driving from point A to point B, you could go this way or this way or this way. And maybe Google Maps is going to route you a different way than you usually go because they think it's more effective that day. But that's fine. There are plenty of different ways to get there as long as you know where you're going. So that's why I want you to think about results, not necessarily steps. It's a different kind of plan, for sure, but it's one that can work for you. And if you are in a place where you're feeling stuck, like you can't move forward from where you are, look for those results. Look beyond your sticking point right here and look for that destination. Figure out where you're going, and you'll find a way to get there. Okay, we've talked about practice, and we've talked about having a plan. The third word that starts with P is peace. Like, you need to play a piece. In fact, you need to have a piece that you can play any day. You can play it every day, and whatever piece you choose is fine, but you need to have something you can play. A piece you can play is comforting because you can play it and you can sit down at your harp. You're just walking by, you can sit down and you can play that piece and feel good about it. It's something you can play for somebody who comes over and they say, oh, you play the harp. Wow, would you play something for me? And it'll save you from muttering, oh, well, I really just started. I. I don't have anything that I can play, or I'm in the middle of practicing a lot of things, but I don't really have anything ready. No, you should have something that you can play because it gives you a way to share your excitement about the harp with somebody else who is perhaps just as excited but doesn't know anything about it. You need a piece you can play, and it can be a baby piece. It can be the first piece you've ever learned. It's okay if it's hot cross buns. It doesn't make any, any difference what the piece is as long as you like it and you can play it and it makes you happy to play it often. That's what you need. Now you can up that piece, right? You can always trade up and say, okay, well, you know, I've played hot cross buns long enough. Look at this. I can now play lightly row. Oh, wait, I've got another piece I can play. And so now you have a repertoire. Hot cross buns and lightly row. It doesn't matter what the piece is. It doesn't have to be a big concert etude or something, just something that you can play that you enjoy. That's it. That one's an easy one, isn't it? And our last P word is not as easy because it's patience. Oh, gosh. Doesn't that just make you irritated to think that, yes, here she is, she's going to talk about patience. I don't want to be patient. I want to get this done. Well, here's what you need to have patience for. For. And I give you these things you need to have patience for in the total understanding. And by the way, I sympathize, but with the total understanding that you know these and you don't want to be patient anyway. Okay, so here's my list of things you need to be patient about. Realize that you're having patience with yourself, right? The person we get most irritated with when we're practicing is usually. So this is the person you're having patience for. But you have to have Patience for your mistakes. Mistakes are part of the learning process. This is how we find ways that we can strengthen, ways that we can improve the mistakes. Show that we're trying. If we never made mistakes, we wouldn't be trying hard enough. So we need to make mistakes. Be patient with them. And referring back to where we started this discussion in, in practice, remember that you're going to make the same mistakes today that you made yesterday, but in another couple days, you'll find different mistakes. Those mistakes will iron themselves out and there will be other ones. So don't worry about the mistakes. Accept them, fix them, and keep on moving. Move beyond them. Be patient when the going is slow. Sometimes there are times when we make progress very quickly. Just rip those pieces out and, oh, they're going really fast. And then all of a sudden we hit a plateau where the going is a little bit slower and we're, we don't feel like we're making progress. Be patient. Persist. Oh, listen to all these words that start with P, right? So just be patient with the slow going. As long as you're consistent with your practice, you're going to get past it. Be patient with yourself for those things that you don't know. There are things you don't know. Ask. Ask for help and you'll find what you don't know. You can't always ask for help. Just tell me what I. What I don't know. But when a teacher works with you, it can be very clear. Oh, you need to do this, you need to try this, you need to learn this. Those things that you don't know, they'll crop up throughout your entire harp journey. So practice your patience with them. Now, remember, no perfectionism. Perfectionism is not helpful. In fact, it is very detrimental. Give up the idea of perfection and have patience with all those things we just talked about, like the mistakes. So don't try to be perfect. Don't wait for it to be perfect before you go on.

Allow the imperfections. They're part of what makes music a living art. I want you to maintain your openness and enthusiasm for what we do. And your patience should help you do that. It should also help you maintain, even if you're not a harp newbie, it should help you maintain your beginner mindset where you have that sense of adventure, you have that energy, you have all that opportunity still ahead of you. Those are some of the big wins that come as a reward for your patience. I mean, yes, you'll play your pieces, yes, you'll progress in your harp playing. But you'll maintain that wonderful.

Sense of pleasure in the harp and that sense of joy, the energy around discovery and experimentation. And when everything is new, you'll maintain that as long as you can maintain your patience with all the rest of it. Because it's not an easy journey and it's a long, continuous journey. You never exactly get to the end, which is a good thing. Because if I felt that I had learned everything there was to learn about playing the harp, it makes me sad just to think that, well, there wouldn't be any more pieces to learn, there wouldn't be anything more to try. I would be sad. So we don't want an end to the journey. We just want to keep our energy along the way. And I think that's where I'd like to wrap things up for today. The most important thing for any harpist, newbie or otherwise, is to keep that spirit and that love of the harp strong within these four Ps. The practice, the plan, the peace and the patience are all directed to that. Having reward in your practice, having a destination to work toward, having music you can play and be patient with yourself as you go. That is truly the road to harp happiness. Whether you're at day one or at your year 50, these are all the things that you need. When you have those, you know you're going to be on the right path and stay there.

Okay, well, if you have energy left for something else, I want to encourage you again to sign up for the Finish it clinic. This is all about getting over that hump and getting these pieces done. If you get your pieces to 80% and they never really finished, let's figure out how to get them over that hump, how to get unstuck and get them done. So that's what this Clinic is. It's $49. If you're a My Heart Mastery member, it's free. So if you're, if you're not a member, then it's $49. It's a 90 minute class, comes with a guide that we'll work through as we do the clinic itself. And then of course, following the clinic, I'll give you that little PDF on the a quick start guide to practicing like the pros do, to starting a piece the way the pros do. So we'll be doing all of that, and that's coming up real quickly in just over a week, January 28th. So you'll find the link in today's show notes and on the page@heartmastery.com you can go there and register for that. I certainly hope you take advantage of this because it's going to be a really good, good clinic. I'm really excited about it. Remember, the thing about a clinic is that you get to fix stuff, right? You go to the clinic because you need it fixed and they fix it. That's what I'm here for. So that's coming up soon. Next week on the podcast, we'll be talking about the harpist and composer Sophia Dusek. I love talking about her. I love her story and her music, and we'll be sharing those with you next week on the podcast. Remember, every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your, 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.

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.