Your Guide to Perfect Octaves - PHH 062

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. You know, in harp music, octaves are everywhere. There are very few harp pieces that don't include octaves somewhere, and with good reason. Octaves add richness to a left hand accompaniment or to a right hand melody. The added resonance of the string played an octave lower or higher makes the entire harp come alive with sound. We harpists love octaves and we play them all the time. So why are they often the hardest intervals to play? Well, you know what I mean. Maybe your thumb plays two strings at once or your fourth finger brushes the surrounding strings, making your octave sound like a cluster of sound rather than a clear, clean interval. Sometimes octaves are hard to place accurately and our fingers buzz or just play the wrong notes. Well, it's time to go back to basics, my friends. Now don't feel discouraged. This is what we all do from time to time. When a fundamental part of our technique isn't working, it's not a failure. It's merely a coordination we need to refresh. Often, giving our fingers a gentle reminder of the proper technique is all we need to fix the problem. Of course, this raises some questions, like what exactly is the proper technique for octaves? Is it the same for right hand and left hand? What are the best practice strategies for octaves? How can you be more consistently accurate with your placing? I've struggled with those questions myself over my years of harp playing, and I do have some valuable insights to share, including the one tip that all by itself will help your octaves sound 100% better almost immediately. Well, so if that one tip works so well, why have I devoted an entire podcast episode to octaves? Because there are some other key things you will want to understand about octaves Octaves are too important to just skip the finer points. You'll want to know those too. Now, if the. If you're interested in building your technique and refreshing it all, not just when it comes to octaves, but in all kinds of fundamental foundational skills, can I recommend our Build, Extend, advance course? That's exactly what this course was designed to do. We ran it for the first time as a live challenge last year, and then it was so successful and people liked it so much, we created a course from it. And what it is, is it's about 15 lessons. You've got PDFs for each lesson. You've got videos, you've got seminars that you know, video replays of seminars that go along with the course so that you know exactly what to do. But it's tiered in three levels. So the first third of the course is about building your technique. Now, trust me, even if you know your technique is not a beginner technique anymore, this is a great place to start because it's going to really refresh your fingers so that they know exactly what they should be doing when you're doing really basic things like scales and intervals and chords and patterns and that kind of thing. Arpeggios, of course. So all of those sorts of things are built into the very first few lessons, which are called the build level. Then in the second week, we extend those techniques and you're still working with those fundamentals, but at a different level level. And the third week, we move up to Advance. So you are pushing your skills and making them better. Now, all of these lessons are short, all the PDFs are short. We could go way more into depth with these skills. And I know that you're going to want to, but the beauty of this particular course is that you can touch on everything that you need in just a few minutes a day, so that you know that you're. You're hitting the fine points and you know the big things rather. And then you can go back and sort of fill in the holes and work on whatever you need to work on in a little bit more depth. But this will be sure that you're really covering all the bases and making sure that you haven't left an important skill behind. So that is our Build, Extend, advance course. And I know we're talking about octaves today, which are just one of those all important intervals we need to play, but if you want to take this a step further and you're ready to just move in and make sure that you've got everything working Properly, then the Build extend advanced course is a great course for you. And we'll put the link in the show notes so, you know, you have that. But for right now, for today, we're talking all about octaves. Octaves are interesting. They're the most basic interval of all the intervals we have after the unison. Right. A unison is an interval that doesn't sound like an interval. It would be two of the same sounding notes played at once, like two of the same D or two of the same G. And of course, that's, you know, it doesn't usually sound like an interval. We're used to intervals sounding like two different notes. The octaves are the same as a unison, except that one of those notes is displaced and is played in a different register, right. In the octave higher or lower. So it's a very basic interval. It's exactly the same pitch but with a different register. So it's important that we learn to play these because they come up all the time. And composers have added octaves to music because when a melody or a bass line is doubled at the octave, it sounds richer, it adds depth, it adds just a different sonority. Now, on the harp, we're lucky because we get to have all that richness to ourselves. With other single line instruments, like the violin, it would take two instruments to do very many octaves in a row, right? This is why we have string quartets and orchestras and choirs and all those things, because that richness is added by adding more instruments because they can play more notes. We get to play a lot of notes all by ourselves. But today we're only talking about two notes at once, that octave. And of course, if you want to really see and hear what octaves do, try playing a melody just on its own and then try adding the octave below it and just listen to how much more richness is there, how much depth is added. Or a bass line, right. A bass line can sound so much more impressive when you play the octave lower as well. I know my piano teacher when I was young, she would always add extra octaves to the left hand of especially sort of arrangements of popular pieces we were doing. It was like, ah, this will sound so much better with an extra note on it. And it does. It just sounds cool, right? So octaves show up and we have to know how to play them. But they can be a little bit tricky and they feel like a stretch. They can be hard to place accurately, they can be hard to play beautifully and sometimes there's a little bit of finesse that's required. So let's see how much of all of that sort of stuff we can cover today. But first, I want you to understand that it's really important to learn to play octaves well, because this is key to playing four note chords, right? You might have just gotten to. Or maybe you're just beyond. Or maybe you're well beyond the point in your harp study where all of a sudden you're tackling four note chords. You know, three note chords aren't so hard to play. It's a jump up from just playing two notes at once for sure. But all of a sudden playing four notes at once is much harder. And if your octaves aren't secure, those four notes are going to be even harder to find. And the principles that you want to learn to place and play four note chords well all start with octaves. So don't just think that this is only for playing those two notes at a time. This is key for playing your chords as well. So with that in mind, let's talk about how to place those octaves. The most important thing you can do for your octaves is to be sure that your hand is centered. Now what do I mean by that? Well, it's whether you're used to playing four note chords or not. Let's get your hand on the strings and placed for a four note chord. Now for demonstration purposes here, I'm going to put my fingers on C, e, G&C4321. And so there's a nice four note chord, a regular old spacing, a good one to try. So I've got my right hand on the strings here, but you'll want to do this with both hands, trust me. So put all four of those notes on. But we're not going to play all four. What we're going to do is just look at your hand as those four notes are on your palm. The center of your palm should be centered between the top note and the bottom note. I mean, look at it carefully for a second. Your hand shouldn't be pulled back toward your thumb so that your fourth finger is stretched way out. And it shouldn't be pointed so much or directed so much towards your fourth finger that your thumb can't reach. It needs to be centered. And when you have all four fingers on the strings, it's really easy to see how your hand can center. If you're not sure if you're doing it right, then just put your fingers on those strings and move your hand back and forth a little bit. Back, sort of hold on to the strings, and then pull your hand back toward your thumb a little bit, and then push it up toward the column a little bit. And see the amount of play that's there? Well, that's the amount of play we want to remove. We want to have your hand centered. So when you feel pretty comfortable and you can see that your thumb has room to play and that your fourth finger isn't stretched out or straight, but that everything's curved, your palm is curved, your hand is relaxed, then take 2 and 3 off the string and keep your hand in the same place. So now you're looking at an octave, right? Just the four and one. And that's what your octave should look like when you're ready to play it with your hand centered. So put 2 and 3 back on the strings. Then take 2 and 3 off and see what a centered hand looks like. Then go ahead and play that octave, boom. And see what it feels like playing it with your hand centered. Then I would, you know, use this as a little, Little experiment for a while. Try just placing an octave and seeing if your hand is centered when you place it. And if you want to check, put 2 and 3 on those. On those middle strings and see if the position of your hand changes. Now, what 2 and 3 are doing, of course, is helping you find that balance point and keeping you from stretching your hand too much one way or the other. But you can do it just by looking. If your fourth finger is too straight and stretched out, your hand is too far back towards your thumb, and I doubt that it's going to be pushed too far forward. But if your fourth finger is curved and your thumb can't reach the top note, then it's pushed too far forward. So I will tell you that usually we cheat by bringing our hand back toward our thumb instead of letting our thumb be nice and tall and long. That's one of the things to think about to help keep your hand centered, that your thumb is tall and long and that there's a nice space between your thumb and your second finger. And that will keep your hand centered. Be sure to check both hands, because both hands need to do this right? So centering your hand is really key. This, by the way, will also help you solve the problem. If you think you have a small hand and a small reach, you need to have your hand centered or your fourth finger won't be able to get to that bottom string. If your hand is at all pulled back towards you, your fourth finger has no shot at it. So Try placing that four note chord. If you can reach the four note chord, then you know you can reach the octave when you don't have two and three on the string at the same time. So that's the first thing you need to do when you're thinking about placing an octave. And can you see how important this is going to be for playing those four note chords? Right? You want to be able to think about your hand as being centered not too far to the bottom, not too far to the top. Now let's get back to the octaves for a second. When you place an octave as part of an exercise or a piece, you want to be sure to have both notes get to the string at the same time. You don't want to get in the habit of placing your thumb, then your fourth finger or your fourth finger and then your thumb. So try the sort of, you know, drop in rule, right? This is the sort of, you know, have your hand poised near the strings, open your thumb and fourth finger to the approximate distance of an octave and then drop them onto the strings and see how close you come to just hitting the right strings. You want your hand to learn the spacing of an octave as well as placing both notes at the same time. Placing both notes at the time at the same time is obviously efficient. It's once again going to help those chord placements. It's going to make all that placing easier in your real music. And the more your 1 and 4 learn to play that octave and learn what that octave feels like, the more they're used to it, the easier it will be for you to place the octaves accurately. So we're going to center your hand, we're going to place both notes at once, and you should be ready to play octaves. Now there's one thing we need to address about your left hand octaves in particular. While your right hand always plays octaves, you the same way it plays everything else, your left hand does not. Your left hand can play octaves with a closed hand just the way your right hand usually plays them, or it can play them with an open hand. And if you were to play your left hand octaves with an open hand, you would be playing them still with 1 and 4, but 3 and 2 would also be open. In other words, you know, think about your hand being flat, right? All your fingers are open, and then you bend with one and four into the strings that you want to play for the Octave and leave 2 and 3 pointing essentially straight up so that your hand is open. Now this is a useful position for playing octaves. It's a very strong way to play them. And of course, your left hand has to play lots of big strings. So it's a nice strong way to play them. It also helps keep your hand open if you want to muffle the sound in between octaves or to just clean out extra notes. VIBRATING so what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to play some left hand octaves and I'll play them with an open, with my closed hand first. So this would be sort of normal, you know, the normal way your right hand would play octaves. So listen to this scale of octaves for just a moment.

It's precise, it's clean, it's fine. Except that there's a lot of reverberation, isn't there? Now, while that's what the harp is all about, we love that resonance. We don't love it all the time in every circumstance. So playing those octaves with a flat hand allows you to clear out the sound by sort of doing a quick little muffle as you're placing the next octave. And you can have a sound that sounds much more clear and distinct like this.

Now, I did that a little slower and I did sort of some extra, extra placing so you could hear what it sounds like. But my hand is open and 2 and 3 are up, are sort of pointing, you know, I don't know, toward the column of the harp, not straight up. And then my hand pulls away with 1 and 4 and flattens out on the strings before I play the next octave. Now that muffle is a really nice technique, but you can still use an open hand muffle for an open hand octave rather for your left hand without the muffle. It's just a convenient way to play the octave.

And it can help with some left hand passages. But. But your left hand needs a little bit of versatility here too, because playing your left hand octaves with the regular closed hand position can help you move back and forth between octaves and other note patterns more quickly. So your left hand needs to be able to do both. How about that left hand versatile placing for those octaves? All right, so we've got your fingers on the strings, everything's working well. So how do you play octaves well? And is there really a problem with playing octaves? Well, there are some things to consider, and maybe you haven't thought about this before, but with an octave, as with any interval, sometimes we want both notes to have the same kind of sound, the same volume we want them to sound equal. And sometimes we might want one to sound louder than the other. For instance, we might want one of those notes to be the melody note in the right hand if you're playing right hand octaves. Or we may want it one note in the left hand to sound more like the bass note. So we need a certain level of control whether to have them play with the same sound or with different sounds. Right. With different dynamics more particularly. So the key. Of course, you probably guessed I was going to come back to this, but when your hand is placed and centered properly, then it's easier to play those notes with the same dynamic because your hand is balanced and your sound will be balanced as well. If your hand is pulled to one direction or the other, you're going to lose some control and you will be less in charge of the dynamic that your fingers play. So you want to keep your hand centered for sure. That's going to keep the sound balanced without you thinking about it much. But you do want to be able to think about how you can add more weight to your thumb or more weight to your fourth finger so that you have choices about those notes. Now, there are exercises that you could do that will help you think about it in addition to just playing the octaves together and doing some experimenting. Playing those octave notes rather right thinking. Okay, well, let's see. Can I make my thumb louder? Yes, I can. Can I make my fourth finger louder? Yep. A little bit tougher in my right hand to make my fourth finger louder, but it's something to think about. There's my thumb louder, right. And my fourth finger louder. The notes are still sounding at the same time, but one is louder than the other. You can do that in series, you know, like in a scale. Or you could do an alternating pattern and just see what happens. What if you do octaves like this back and forth and think about four being louder, getting the accent that will help tune your ear and make your ear aware of what you're doing. Or the other way around, a thumb being louder, which you will not find difficult, I guarantee it. Our thumbs like being louder.

And then once you've gotten that in your ear about you know, how to and how those sounds sound different from each other, and you've started to feel the. The difference in weight and pressure it will take to make one of those notes sou louder than the other, then go back to playing them together and seeing what you can do. But do think about this and be intentional with it, because there are times you're Going to want to make that a conscious choice. And it's nice to be able to have that in your tonal repertoire. But however you want to balance those notes, the key to playing your octaves well is to close your fingers. Don't let yourself be tempted to just sort of close halfway to have your fourth finger play from that middle knuckle instead of closing from the back knuckle of your hand. You want your fourth finger to close all the way into your palm, all the way into your palm, not to pull away from the string. It's very tempting. I have worked with students over the years enough to know that it's very tempting to want to pull your hand away and to just sort of close your finger halfway instead of all the way. But your sound is going to always come from the closing of your fingers, fully closing. And you need to practice this with octaves. And it may take just a little bit more attention, just because it feels more difficult with octaves. It isn't, but it just takes a little bit more attention, especially when you're concerned that as you close your fingers, you might brush against another string, something like that, right? You will learn that when your palm is curved, right, Your hand is curved, not flat and not tense, but you're. But curved nicely, just rounded gently the way we want it to be. Your fingers can close without hitting those other strings. Here's how to work at that. If you're having trouble with it, do the centering drill we talked about before. Put all your fingers on the strings, then remove 2 and 3 to be sure your hand is centered. Then alternate your fingers, closing four, closing one, and making sure that each finger is playing cleanly and closing all the way.

And that your hand isn't moving. It's not moving back and forth, but it's staying centered where you want it. Then just play those notes together without moving your hand. I don't mean that you can't, you know, move your hand after you've played. But don't recenter it. Don't try to adapt your hand. Just have it where it. Where it was when you were playing those fingers evenly and individually. And then close them. You will stop that extra, you know, hitting extra strings. And it's a very simple little drill, very effective. But it starts with centering your hand and then closing properly.

It may seem to you like if you close properly, you're going to brush on those strings, check the position of your hand and make sure that that is correct. That should fix most of those issues. Now, one last Question and observation about octaves because I know I get this one all the time. Why do we play octaves with 1 and 4? And should we ever play octaves with 1 and 3?

There are times you might play octaves with 1 and 3 if the chord itself is larger than an octave and you need to reach that span between I and III. But on the whole you're going to use 1 and 4. It keeps your hand centered, uses your hand well, and is a better, better for your hand physically to play with 1 and 4. Left hand sometimes might play with 1 and 3. You, a lot of people feel that they get extra strength from their third finger on those big left hand octaves. But be very careful because it's easy to sort of stretch that third finger in a way that is uncomfortable or might cause long term discomfort. So 1 and 4 are really the best, best fingering to use. But you know, don't be afraid to to experiment with three. If you have a chord that requires four notes and an extra big stretch.

You may want to do that. As always, a big stretch can be not so good for your hands, especially if your hands aren't used to that kind of a stretch. So be very gentle and remember there are lots of accommodations to make. You don't have to play all those notes if you can't reach them. Nobody wants you to hurt yourself trying to reach that many notes, so please make accommodations. You know, leave out a bottom note or a middle note or something if the stretch feels too big for you. A regular octave by itself shouldn't do it, but that's why we recommend 1 and 4 for octaves and not 1 and 3. Well, that's certainly a lot of information about octaves, perhaps more than you wanted to think about with octaves, but they're so important and it's important to play them well. I also think know that you will find that when you start thinking about centering your hand and closing it, you're going to find that there are a lot of other situations that will be will become less problematic as you think about that with your octaves. So do go ahead and do that. I also want you to work on them because I want your four note chords to be lush and rich and beautiful and not difficult for you to play. So do try these things with octaves and let me know if you have questions about it. Right. You can always email me at the podcast just podcastarpmastery.com and we can talk more about.

More about octaves if we need to next week. Here on the podcast, we're going to talk about something different. We're going to talk about what to do when nothing is working. If you feel like you're in a little slump or you've been working hard on a piece and it seems to be going backward instead of forwards, what do you do? Well, I'll have some some really great, tried and true strategies for you that will help you avoid a practice slump or get out of one. And because we don't want you stuck there, we're all about Harp Happiness here. Do remember, you can check out our Build Extend advance course and you can fill in some of those holes in your technique and make sure that that they're filled in. So more than just octaves, you can work on a whole bunch of things and push your technique a little bit further. The link to the Build Extend Advanced course so you can read more about it is in the show notes and I look forward to seeing you or talking with you on the podcast next week. 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. I'll talk to 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.