Why You Need to Have a Harp Role Model (or Be One) - PHH 172

When we're adults, I think role model takes on a different sort of aspect. It's not the idealized person that we want to be like when we grow up, perhaps, but it's more like a lighthouse, just the way a lighthouse is a beacon for ships that are traveling on the sea. I think the role model is a lighthouse for us. It should shows us the path.

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 get answers. You can't do that with just a video, which is what makes the Miharp 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 and 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.comjoinnow. that's harpmastery.com join now. Welcome to the show.

We are the product of our influencers. The current wisdom says that if you want to know what a person is really like, look at their circle of friends. Of course, this thinking goes further to posit that if you want to elevate yourself, whether in your income, your fitness, your intellect, your spirituality, you need to associate with those who have the attributes you would like to develop. It's not just that you adopt the habits and thoughts of the people you associate with. Your brain patterns actually change. In the 1950s, a Swarthmore College psychologist named Solomon Asch observed an interesting phenomenon. A group of volunteer subjects was asked to estimate the length of a straight black line drawn on a white card. What Asch discovered was that each person's estimate was dependent on the estimation of everyone else in the group. People actually saw the line differently based on the opinion of the people with them. See, physiologically, the brain craves reward, which it receives when we have our own ideas or thoughts confirmed by the people around us. When our ideas are opposed to those around us, though the pain center of the brain, the anterior insula, is activated. Now, we could choose to remain silent and not express our different ideas. Our brain, however, is wired to change our ideas to conform with those around us. A network formed of the anterior insula and the medial frontal cortex registers the difference between our ideas and those of others as an error, and it becomes active to try to eliminate that difference. That's fascinating. It's just a little scary because our brain is more active in adjusting our choices and our attitudes than we are aware. This is why it is so important to choose your circle of friends wisely. This is also why it is important to choose your circle of harp friends and your harp role models with wisely. So today I will share the qualities that I think are important in a harp role model, starting with the qualities I admired in the harp role models I had early in my harp life and how they influenced me in ways I am only just beginning to realize. My hope is that this will help you discover more harp role models to inspire your harp life and maybe even help you be a role model for other harpists yourself. Now, I promise the rest of our discussion isn't going to be quite as scientific as this first part of our discussion, but I think it's going to be very important for you, so do stay tuned. One of the reasons I'm talking about role models today is because I think they help us focus on what's important. There is so much stressful Stuff going on in the world right now. So much chaos, so much noise. And I worry that we harpists can lose our harp playing dreams just because everything around us is so noisy. I mean, most of the time that noise is outside us, right? But sometimes the noise is inside us too. The I should have, I ought to. If only these things are taking up our time and our energy, whether they really fit with what we want or not. You know, I should be on this committee even though I had planned to be home those evenings with my family. I should vacuum the floor even though this was my time to practice. This noise, the. The static is so loud that it drowns out our plans and our intentions. Sure, there are things we need to respond to, but a lot of the time the noise around us is only that, just noise. And it's preventing us from doing what's really important to us. This is how our heart playing falls behind, how it gets in a rut, how it doesn't seem to move forward. It's not that you can't do it, it's only that everything else is louder and putting itself forward. It's just too much noise. So this is what I want you to think about. For your heart plane to grow, your harp goals have to override their noise, right? Your harp goals have to be stronger than the noise outside.

And it's really hard to stay true to your focus when the chaos is all happening around you. But your harp playing needs your focus. Not 24 7, but just enough to bring you that richness and that satisfaction that the harp adds to your life.

That's what you will find at a harp mastery retreat. I started these retreats to give harpists a noise free static, free time to just reconnect with your harp and re center yourself. In fact, that's why I call it a retreat and not, you know, a seminar or a conference or something. This is time for you and your harp playing. Well, yeah, and you know, some companionship with some other like minded harpists. But I want to take this time to invite you to, to our October retreat. I know I've talked about it before, but we still have a few spots left and I don't want those spots to go unused when there are empty spots like that at a retreat. I think there are harpists who could benefit from this and I want to make sure that they are there. And if you are one of those harpists, if you're fighting the static, you're fighting the noise and you're thinking, oh, I don't know, can I take the time in October to go for a few days just for my harp playing. I'm here to tell you that you can. I mean, I realize you might have other stuff going on and you think you can't, but those few days could be so important to your heart playing. So consider that value to yourself of taking that time, that time to close off everything else, have that noise free few days just to get back on track, to get your heart playing ready for these last couple of months of the year that, you know, just me and my harp kind of time. It's so valuable. And I want to be sure that this retreat has that same value for you. As I said, we still have a couple of spots open and I don't want to let them stay empty because I know that you're out there, that you're listening to this and you've been putting off the decision and wondering if this is right for you. And I want to tell you that this is the time. This is the right thing. You need this. So please take a look at the retreat page. You can go to the link in the show notes heartmastery.com, but take a look at it and consider the difference that it could make for you. Now, I don't know if it's the same for you, but the term role models always sort of conjures up for me the Olympic athlete on the cereal box or the sports figure that is being held up as a role model for something or community leaders or church leaders. And they're always the things that showing to our children. And we think about role models in terms of, you know, yes, child, mold your life after this person, this kind of thing. And of course, sometimes, particularly with some of the athletes that start out as role models, we find out that they have feet of clay, right? That they are all too human. And maybe not exactly what we want to the person we want to put forth as a role model for our child. But the thing that's important, I think about role models for children is that it's encouraging them to envision their future, right? It's that, what do you want to be when you grow up? Question. And we like to encourage that because it promotes forward thinking. It helps them imagine, it helps them aspire to maturity, right? So that's, you know, it's kind of like trying on your mom's high heel shoes, right? It's like, ooh, okay, I want to be grown up. And we want to encourage that. So with young people and very young children, role model is One thing. But when we're adults, I think role model takes on a different sort of aspect. It's not the idealized person that we want to be like when we grow up, perhaps, but it's more like a lighthouse, just the way a lighthouse is a beacon for ships that are traveling on the sea. I think the role model is a lighthouse for us. It shows us the path, right? It can show us the way between those reefs of distraction and shipwreck, right? Or those rocks of, you know, wasted effort and frustration, whatever it happens to be. But that role model is showing us a lot of things, but it's showing us the path. And if we don't have a role model, if we don't have somebody that we can look at as somebody that we want to emulate in one way or another, then our direction is a little unclear. We don't know exactly what kind of results we want or if we're going to get them, and we become uncertain. Our whole intention about what we're doing wavers. So you can see that as a harpist, a role model could be very powerful, and definitely not just for kids. But a role model can show you the way to go. A role model can show you different ways to go. And that's where I want to explore a little bit today. I want to explore three qualities, characteristics, or important things about role models that I want you to consider as you choose or identify a harp role model for yourself. First of all, understand that a role model isn't just who you want to be, right? We may encourage that for youngsters, right? Like, you know, you want to be like this person. It's not just who you want to be, but it's really more how you want to be. And that's what we want to bring into our discussion today. So I think a role model is important in three ways for us as adults, and particularly for our heart. Playing a role model shows you possibilities. It shows you. A role model will show you a path, and a role model can be a prompt to action, okay? So think about those possibilities. Path and prompt to action. And now let's look at each one of those in turn. The first thing we want to think about with a role model is that a role model can show you what possibilities.

There's a wonderful world of harp playing out there. And as you look at all the different playing that all the different harpists in the world are doing, all those possibilities are laid out there for you. I mean, this is the essential. Ooh, I wonder if I could do that what if I could do that kind of question, that all of a sudden those people are showing you possibilities. Now, back when I was young, we didn't have the Internet, so it was a lot different finding those role models and finding those possibilities. My goal as a young harpist was pretty much to do exactly what my teacher did. I wanted to grow up, I wanted to go to Curtis. I wanted to play in the Philadelphia Orchestra. That's what my teacher did. She was my role model. And boom, that's what I wanted to do. As I went along in my career, I met other harpists and discovered other paths and found out more possibilities. But my early harp playing was really inspired by the possibilities that not only my teacher presented, but watching her students at Curtis in recital. My parents used to take me to those recitals every time they happened. I would go to the harp class recitals and I would see harpists who were then students and later became important harpists in their student recitals. And I remember being awed by the different kinds of harps they had, the different music that they played, the different dresses that they wore. But just thinking about, oh, that piece, that's the piece I want to play when I grow up. That. That's the way I want to play when I grow up. Those possibilities were key to my development as a young harpist. Without having attended those recitals and heard that harp playing, I never would have even considered what my harp playing could be like. Sure, I would have progressed piece by piece by piece as my teacher gave it to me, but. But I didn't have those possibilities of this is what harp playing could be like laid out in front of me until I went to those recitals. Those recitals, that was what opened my eyes. Now today, the world is very different. You get to go to a recital any day you want just by going to YouTube, right? All over social media, all over the Internet, you can hear people. People play. And you will, and I'm sure you already have. As you listen to people play, you'll find people whose playing is particularly attractive to you or particularly inspiring the people that you hear or the music that you hear that you think, oh, wow, I could do that. And that's what possibilities are all about here. The idea that, oh, I could do that. Listen to that. This is new to me, but I could do that. What's so important about those possibilities is that they fuel our desire to achieve. That idea of I could do that is the energy behind your drive to practice every day, right? We don't just Go to the harp to practice, because we're going to practice. We go to the harp because we want to do something. And those possibilities are there in one sense, of course, the entire Internet is filled with role models for you. There's so much harp playing out there and every harp performance could be showing you possibilities. But you know that the more you listen to on the Internet, the more concerts you go to, you'll find specific harpists whose music attracts you in a different way, whose music draws you in, who you begin to trust. That if they've written a new piece or they have a new video, that's one you want to watch. Because that's going to help you in a particular way. It's going to help you discover something new. And they're the people that you trust. So there is a way to sort of winnow the possibilities down to a small set of harpists that you trust. But the basic idea is this. The possibilities are everywhere, but only if you see them or hear them. But the possibilities are there for you and you get to go experience them and choose. When I had high school age harp students who wanted to go to college to take their harp playing more seriously, maybe become professional harpists, possibilities were always a problem that we had to deal with. They wanted to know, how do I pick a music school, how do I decide where I want to go to study? Now I could have made just simple recommendations, well, go here, here or here. But I really wanted them to explore, to explore the possibilities. Because looking at those possibilities and evaluating them can be very educational and can teach you more about yourself. So this was when we started looking at path, at the path of harpist that you admire. So go back to those possibilities and those harpists whose playing you always go to. Right? The people that, oh, okay, I love to listen to this person on YouTube. So those are the people I would ask my students. Go find six of them. More if you want. But go find six of them and read a little bit about them, find out what their path was. Because if their harpist that you admire, who's playing you admire harpists who are doing what you think you might want to do, we can look at the path they followed to help you create your own path. This is a really specific use of the path, but we'll talk about how it could apply to any of us in a moment. So when these college bound harpists were looking at their favorite harpists and discovering the path that they took, I wanted them to look at specific things. Where did they start from? When did they start the harp? What can you find out about their harp story? Where did they go to school? Where did they go to college? Who did they study with? Who were their teachers? And to look into as much of that history of that person as they could find out and where it was possible, even send them a little email and say, you know, I'm trying to find out about this. I admire what you're doing, and can you help me by telling me a little bit about this? But the point was this. If that person is doing what you want to do, they got there. Now, their path might not be identical to yours. You may not be able to follow exactly the same path. But let's just see if somebody taught them to do what they're doing, maybe that person could teach you, too. So we wanted to find out where they went to school, who they studied with. That was where we started. And then once they had their harpist picked out and they had mapped out some things, they had a list of schools to investigate, a list of teachers to talk to, and then generally we would supplement it with a few others that they may have come across or heard about. But we'd start there, looking for the path. These are people they admired, harpists they admired, they're role models, and they looked for the path.

When you have a harpist that you admire, their path should be or could be very informative, inspirational for you. Where did they start from? What did they do? Why did they choose that path? How did they get where they are now? Thinking about what led them to where they are can help you find a direction. It could be simply an inspiring story. This person overcame these obstacles or these odds, and this person taught themselves this sort of thing. It could be that kind of a path. It could be a very straightforward path. Where we went, I did this, I started, I went to school, I studied with this person. And that may not be the path that you want to take at this particular time, but it may give you some ideas for how to get where you want to go. Which brings us to the third and most important role that a role model should fill for you, and that's that their inspiration should prompt you to action. Right? It's one thing to see somebody else do something and to imagine yourself doing it, but it's another thing to actually do it yourself. So when you look at your role model, it's. Well, you know, based on where they are and the example they set. For me, what can I do from where I am right now? If this is the direction that I want to go, even if it isn't maybe exactly where I want to end up. What do I need to do? What do I need to learn? Who can I learn it from? What habits do I need to develop? What mindset do I need to adopt? What can I do to get where I want to go? You see, in my mind, a role model is, is not a powerful figure if there's not action tied to your envisioning of your filling that role model's shoes, right? So it's not that you're going to be that role model, maybe not do exactly what they're doing, but the way they're inspiring you has to cause you to act, to follow that path, right? Once you've seen the possibilities that path is set for you, least there's kind of a direction, then you actually need to do it. And that's where the hard work comes in for you because you need to know what that next step is. But hopefully you've been able to discern that. Now, granted, it's possible and maybe even likely that the harpist who is going to be one of your role models and isn't actually somebody that you know might be somebody you've only seen on the Internet or somebody that you've just talked to once or read about in a book. But there's a way to do that too. Read everything you can about them, watch all their videos, find out what made them who they are. Think about the books they recommend, make them your, you know, your friend in your head, right? And think about, okay, how does that person's legacy inspire me to act today? Inspire me to practice or play or use my harp in this new way. Now, for me, that kind of a long distance, if you will, role model was. Carlos Salzado, still is a role model. And there were particular things that, that inspire me to act. Qualities that I saw, and I'm using the term loosely because I never met him, but that I have imagined him to have based on the information that I've gotten from my teachers who did study with him. I mean, he was a person who dug deep into his art, right? I mean, he was, he was experimenting, he was exploring, he was innovating. His harp playing was at the deepest level for him and he made something very personal and very new out of it. Now, I'm not a great innovator in that sense. I'm not going to come up with a new harp method, but his way of expressing himself through the instrument is something that is very inspiring to me and has caused me to make choices in my practice and playing.

So that I can feel like I'm digging in at something reminiscent of Salzato's level. I don't pretend to be at his level of mastery in any way, but that's the example that I have in front of me. His example of excellence is something that inspires me to strive for that in my practice. So it's not just the possibilities in his music, and I can't exactly follow the path he did, for sure, but his attitude, his commitment to his harp playing in all different kinds of areas is something that has meant quite a bit to me in my playing. Of course, my own teachers have been role models. From them, I was inspired to teach and to teach in a particular way, to find my own way to connect with my students, but to do it with the generosity and commitment that they did for me.

So there were all different places to look for your role models. But when you are looking for a harp role model, these are the things you're looking for. You want someone who opens your mind to possibilities, who can show you a path to achieve those possibilities, and who can inspire you to not just dream, but to act. That's the real power of a role model, and that's why I think it's important to have one. A role model turns into a person who walks with you on your heart path, whether they know it or not. But they're there to inspire you, to guide you, to remind you why you're on this journey. Role models help you dream your harp dreams, and without those dreams, our music dies. I would also invite you to think about the ways in which you could be a harp role model for others.

Even if you feel like, oh, I'm not a good harpist, that doesn't matter. You're just a beginning harpist. That doesn't matter. You're someone who is following their harp dream, and that's enough to inspire someone else to follow theirs. Some of my students, younger ones and older ones, have been role models for me, have been inspirational. When I see what they're able to do and the path that they have followed to get there, that has inspired me to act. So it's not about ability. It's not how long you've been playing, it's not how well you've been playing. The very fact that you are following your harp dream and acting on it every day is enough to inspire someone else. Once again, I invite you to join me at the retreat, if you possibly can, in October. It's October 9th to 13th in Kissimmee Flow, Florida. We'd love to have you there. My certified coach, Candice Lark and I will be teaching and we'd love to have the chance to work with you Next week on the podcast we'll be talking about counteracting chaos. Not the necessarily the chaos in the world around you, but chaos when you perform. If you've ever been in a situation where you just feel like you're on stage or you're in front of people and you're playing and everything is swirling around you and it's feeling chaotic instead of calm, that's what I'll be talking about on the podcast next week, how to counteract that. So that is next week, and I certainly hope you join me for that. In the meantime, remember that every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit, and all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

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.