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  • A Harper Walked into a Bar…

    One of the things that I enjoy about learning by ear is that, from the beginning, you are learning not only the notes, but also what the melody sounds like. When we go to play, that sound is what we’re trying to recreate. It’s a pretty straight line in terms of how it sounds.

    On the other hand, learning the music from paper gives you memory support. All the details are there. The major aspects and the minor features. The demands as well as the suggestions. Everything you need to know all in one place, right?

    Not exactly.

    To be fair, the ink is doing all it can to ensure you know all the things. It’s trying to help by giving you so…many…details! It wants you to have all the information – all of it. The problem can start … when you walk up to a bar(line).

    Bar lines do make the music easier to read. They provide structure in the visual representation of what becomes fairly continuous sound. They can make it easier to keep your place. They encapsulate the rhythm and pitches. Bar lines make little, easy to manage, boxes which is perfect when you’re starting on a piece.

    At the same time, though, if you focus on this very helpful convention, it can obfuscate the movement of the music. If you narrow your work to between the bar lines, you can’t really get up a good head of steam because it’s over before you’ve begun. It is as if the bar lines inject a stutter to your reading (and by extension in your playing). The same thing that makes it easier to read can make it so much harder to play.

    We’ve all done it – we generate kludgy fingering because we’re focused on where we are (rather than where we have come from or where we go from there). We focus between bar lines which may inhibit our taking a wider view. When we work measure by measure, we’re cutting everything into tiny bite sizes (because we are trying to digest a great deal of information). However, while measures are tight, convenient capsules of music, the music itself moves in wider swaths. While we’re taking tiny bites, the music is happening in the big gulps!

    There’s no magic to avoiding this. It really requires shifting your focus from the small bites to the bigger feast (from the measure to the phrase to the movement). But the ink is visually compelling, and you might find that it is challenging to ignore how the bar lines cut up the flow. What can you do?

    When we are learning (which is always!) we need to be shifting our focus throughout the process. I’m not suggesting here that you never take the small step, the tight take, the à petit four bite! Rather, you will be making small changes to your focus nearly all the time so that you can both take the wider view and the note-by-note examination as you continue to learn and develop a piece.

    It’s sort of like driving – you look way ahead, at the car next to you, at your speedometer, at the lane lines, and back out again – always shifting your focus to manage the entire task.

    The bar line is a useful guard rail, but you will also need to take the broad strokes across those same bar lines. You can do this when you notate your music to capture both the movement of the music (wide view) and the fingering (much narrower view).

    Start by trying to ignore those bar lines. No, really, work as if they are not there. If that doesn’t work, you could use Wite-Out to literally remove them! (I am not kidding – this is why I always suggest you make multiple copies so you have plenty to work from while you mark and modify throughout the playing life of the piece!)

    Some of us are loathe to write on our music (I’m not finger pointing – I always think I have make copious markings, but when I get back to the music, I see that it’s hardly marked at all). Write in your fingering so you can plan ahead – especially when crossing the bar line so that your fingering makes sense. Mark your phrasing. Draw in your big (long) dynamics. – so that you can learn that too (remember there are so many things to absorb when learning a tune!).

    So, the next time you start an anecdote with, “A Harper walked into a Bar…” you’ll already know how to duck! Do you have a strategy for working across the bar line? Let me know with a comment!

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  • Boring

    I hear you – you don’t (all) love playing scales.

    One of the reasons people don’t like to play scales is that they are “boring”. 

    Boooorrrrriiiiiinnnnnnngggggggg

    Here’s the problem with that thinking – boring is not a bad thing!

    Wait, what?

    It’s true – boring has some important positive qualities, all of which can make playing easier and better!

    What are these qualities? Let’s take a look – they come in two flavors – one cognitive, the other creative.

    The first of these – cognitive – means that you do not need to apply your full attention when playing your scales. When you have played something long enough, you have learned (something) about it. It feels like playing is getting easier (we’ve used this metric before!). Eventually it will be so easy you might think it is “boring”. But being bored is a really just a feeling of tedium, not an indication of thinking of the elements of playing. When tedium sets in, you actually have learned enough that your brain is looking for a new challenge. That means you have spare capacity to do or learn more. That’s why we have more complicated versions of each scale as well as other scale related exercises. This is definitely something to pursue. And it can go on forever – because once one thing is easy, there is room for expansion and adding to your effort. Once it’s easy, there’s no end to the things you can do to make your scales more interesting!

    The second flavor is creative. When you have achieved an ease of play as mentioned above, you can use that foundation for creative exploration! Being bored is a great place to start when you want to be creative. That same freedom you have from being bored will allow you to come up with new ways to play your scales. Or you can use those scales to come up with new melodies. You can also use these strong scales to come up with varying harmonies – the possibilities are endless!

    So, the next time you are thinking your scales work is boring, instead shift your focus. Develop a take on making them more effortless so you have the spare cognitive capacity to take them farther. Or use them as a launch point for creative exploration. Keep in mind that you can also bring the two together – using your freed capacity to be more mindfully creative.

    What do you think? Are you going to go for freed capacity or creativity or both? Let me know in the comments!

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  • Build a Habit

    We just past Quitter’s Day – the day by which most people have let their resolutions fade out and die. It’s depressingly early in January to have given up. But really, days are long, especially if you’re trying to make a change in your day…or your practice…and motivation and willpower can only hold on so long.

    How do we make a different choice and skip right over Quitter’s Day so we can continue to grow?

    We develop habits that reinforce our continuing to keep going!

    What makes a habit? Repetition and intention, focus and routine all build toward consistent learning, growth, and performance.

    Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice given that he was 80 years old at the time. He answered that he thought he was making progress! And he lived quite a while longer, so he had loads of time to practice. He had a practice habit and so should you!

    So, what’s the easiest habit we should have but might not? What will get us to confident, fluent playing which comes to mind as an appropriate end state for all of us. Let’s build one strong habit that can support that and helps throughout our harp lives.

    Let’s build a daily habit of playing scales.

    We learn from a young age that scales are boring. And they are if all you do is rip through them mindlessly! But just a little bit of thinking and they become not only a technical challenge but also brain work and a portal to music we know and music we haven’t learned yet.

    Typically, we think of doing scales at the start of practice time – and they do make an excellent warm-up. But there is no rule that says you can’t do them at the end of your practice – like a desert. Or, for that matter, you can do them in the middle as a break between other tasks and learning.

    No matter when you do them, scales are a tremendous habit to build. And once you have a small, strong habit built, others can follow. When will you do your scales? Let me know in the comments!

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  • Practice steps

    It’s January, so it’s still appropriate to be looking back at where you’ve been to help you look forward to what your next steps should be. As a teacher, I know that we are all over the map with this – some students already have a list of things they’d like to work on, pieces they’d like to play, events they’d like to participate in, etc. Some others look blank. So, who’s right?

    Like so many things, there is no right answer, only the answer for you. The downside to not having thought about this is that you might drift because you’re not heading anywhere. Of course, the downside to having already made a list is that you can be too focused and could miss out on serendipitous opportunities.

    Indulge me – jot at least a couple of things you’d like to work on this year (if you haven’t already). Could be technique improvements (because we can all use that – bad habits are slippery!). Might be to tackle a piece you have always admired but have been intimidated by. Maybe it is a social goal, like inviting people to play ensemble pieces together (formally or informally). Or possibly you feel like you need a challenge that will test not only your playing and learning but will really stress your mettle?

    Once you have a couple of ideas, take a look at them – probably some are smaller, shorter term (I want to learn to play (insert beautiful but very easy tune name here)) and some will be bigger, longer term (I will play with others in ensemble).

    Then you’ll need to suss out the steps that will get you there. For our short-term example that might be that you’ll need about 6 weeks total to study, learn, practice, polish, and finish that tune. In our longer term example that might be to identify 3 pieces of level appropriate ensemble music, find 3 people you would like to play with who are at or near your level of play, invite them to join you, assign the parts, learn and practice your part, set a meeting schedule and place, and secure a place to showcase those pieces. Obviously more steps, some that require 5 minutes, some that will require a little effort over some number of weeks.

    Both long and short term require that you keep an eye on where you’re going while also monitoring your progress, being honest in your assessment of your activities and development, “fixing” things, and checking that the gap is narrowing (or not).

    Once you’ve got the activities, you can then build out your practice time. We all want to be efficient with our practice time, so interleaving these steps will make a good practice plan – include steps for both small and big ideas. Look for ways to “double up” and hit multiple ideas with one activity (I’m looking at you, technical exercises!). This way too, you are never practicing just to practice – always narrowing the gap from where you are to where you’d like to be.

    All this will be true whether you’re working with a teacher or coach, or are guiding yourself. How will you incorporate small and large steps into your practice? Let me know in the comments!

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  • Welcome in!

    It’s the beginning of another year that we get to play the harp! YAY!

    This is that time when subtle (and not so subtle) forces attempt to push us around with talk of resolutions, goals, words, and more to define our upcoming year. In fact, in the past I have shared ways to set goals, define resolutions, and denote focus for the upcoming year. I’m not so sure how helpful or important any of those have been.

    Why? Mostly because they start by implying (or stating) that you’re not complete or sufficient as you are. The implication is that you aren’t good enough and require a structured, stoic, grinding path to get there.

    Bah!

    Because we are, each of us, good enough. Are we perfect? No. Are we fully defined? Not yet. Do we have work to do? Of course! But that’s because one of the reasons we play is that we are actively seeking to grow!

    So, what should we do then? If goals, words-of-the-year, and resolutions are flawed approaches to our growth, what we really need is to find the small, consistent steps that will help move us toward where we would like to be.

    That does mean that we need to have some idea of where we would like to be – where we’re going. That is, we need to name what we intend to do with the time we spend making music.

    Then we need to have at least an inkling that we need a path. What that path might look like can be fuzzy – and it will likely change. Where we would like to be can be outwardly grand or simply important to oneself. The size of that intention is not so important as having some sort of waypoint so we can check that we’re moving forward.

    The first step then will be to look back, even before we put a name on what we might intend to do with our time. What are looking back at? How about:

    • What are we happy with from the past year?
    • What successes can we count?
    • What was hard?
    • What was discouraging?
    • What felt harder than we expected?
    • What just flowed out our fingers, over the strings, and directly to the hearts of our listeners?

    We have a long stretch of time with which to work (got a year? Yup!). So be gentle and thoughtful. There’s no rush. Take your time. Find moments of silence to reflect. Think about not just what but why, when, how, and who (nothing happens in a vacuum).

    Knowing our historical elements can help us formulate projections that align with our interests. Then we can define the small consistent steps we need to take to get there.

    That was a lot of words to say, “when you know where you’ve been you can see clearly how to get where you want to go”. So here in the first week of the new year, spend a little time reflecting on your musical past and pull the threads to help define who you are and who you want to become or what direction you’d like to explore. Make some notes and don’t be too quick to seize the first thoughts that come to mind. And don’t worry about evaluating your thinking – just capture your ideas – you have time. Welcome in – here we go!

    You know I love to hear from you…

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  • New

    Happy New Year! Welcome to 2026!

    Thank you for being here, learning and sharing, and playing all the tunes!

    What are you hoping to accomplish in 2026? Can’t wait to hear – let me know in a comment!

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  • Celebrate!

    It’s that time of the year – time to celebrate the Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, and to bring the year to an end. I wish you a wonderful holiday full of joy and music! Play me a tune and I’ll play one for you!

    If you’re so moved, leave me a comment – you know I love to hear from you!

    Happy Christmas!

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  • Next

    I know it’s nearly Christmas, so you’ve probably already learned all the holiday music you are going to for this year. So, the next likely question is, what next?

    How do you select the music you should work on next? You can, of course, simply ask your teacher to point you in the right direction. This is a great idea if you are a beginner or low intermediate – you’re at the stage in your harp life that you may not be ready to go without some guidance.

    But if you’re a super independent beginner, or a more advanced student, you want to be selecting your own next tunes. How do you do that? Well, here are seven suggestions to point you in the right direction:

    Go with your Heart – If you L-U-R-V some tune – learn it! This is also true for arrangements by someone you simply adore playing. Don’t worry about whether you’re ready. Tunes can be simplified, arrangements can be flattened, you can learn new techniques, and/or you can invest more time into learning. I never tell a student they can’t play a tune – they may not be ready to play it, but we can work our way there!

    Go with your Head – maybe you know that you are weak at something – rolled chords? Harmonics? Whatever your weakness – find a tune (or arrangement) that requires that thing and work on it until you are good at the weakness. Two birds, one stone – you correct a weakness and learn a new tune to boot!

    Go with your Gut – if you feel like you are missing something, you probably are. Seek out tune types you might be light on. Do you have all the different tune types you need to make a well-rounded set? Do you have fast tunes and slow tunes? Major and minor (and other modes)? Can you build good sets from the tunes you already know? If not, your gut is pointing out to you that you need to fill some gaps.

    Go with your Reach – like going with your heart – what tunes do you not necessarily lurv but every time you hear them, you think, “I should learn that”? Learn those. These can be a little slippery because these are the tunes that you like enough to want to play but not enough to lurv. So, keep a list and learn these along the way.

    Go with your Smarts – If you have loads of tunes but they aren’t in the right keys to make good sets, work on learning the tunes in different keys. This could be dedicated time to learn tunes in new settings OR it can be deep work on transposition on the fly. Both of these will be good for your brain, good for your tune list, and good for your playing!

    Go with your favs – Not everything you play has to be work. Make sure you have some playful tunes in there too! If you love Taylor Swift, you can play that. If you love Mozart – have at it. Just because you may have made yourself a niche doesn’t mean you can’t get out of it every once in a while. Holiday tunes are sort of like that, n’est pas?

    Go with your hunch. Be honest, are you working toward your Julliard audition? No? Then pick music that is a little bit challenging to learn but is engaging enough to keep you playing. If you don’t like it (no matter what it is or who assigns it to you), you’re not going to play, so don’t pretend. Move on to something you will play.

    For adult (and more experienced younger) players, you can step up for these choices. A good teacher will, of course, make suggestions to move you forward. But in the end, you’re the one who has to decide. Don’t push the peas around the plate – take a little time to determine what you should play next.

    Let me know what you pick – can’t wait to hear! Share with me know in the comments!

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  • You need those hands to be happy

    Last week we talked about taking care of your skin. This week, we have a way to help keep them happy.

    I have dry skin. Sahara like. 00 grit. And I live in a place that is having an early and very dry winter.

    Sigh

    While many people are good about staying ahead of these sorts of things, I am not. That means that I’m never able to just slather on moisturizing lotion. I need to exfoliate and enrich first – then my skin is more ready for the moisturizer.

    Fortunately, I also suffer from a non-fatal condition called I-could-make-this-at-home-itis and severe parsimoniousness. You might have noticed that stuff to care for your skin is expensive (or inexpensive but not worth using) …and you run through it like water! What are we to do?

    We’ll make it ourselves! We can feel virtuous, get something that works, and smells good! The good news is that it isn’t baking, so precision is unimportant – a little bit of this, a pinch of that, a dab of the other is the best way to go. We can use a variety of grit-y elements and some sooth-y elements and a splish of smell-y elements and bam – you have your own, bespoke hand scrub!

    Use the table below to mix and match. Pick the elements you like (or already have on hand) and mix away.

    GritEmollientFragrance
    SugarVitamin E OilLavender extract
    Brown SugarOlive Oil or AlmondLemon extract
    Table SaltCoconut OilMint extract
    Ground AlmondsHoney Rose water

    Select one from column A, one from Column B and one from Column C.

    Here’s the “Recipe”:

    1/2 cup Sugar or Salt

    1/8 cup Oil or Honey

    5 – 10 drops Extract

    Mix thoroughly in a small bowl. Modify as needed (to get the consistency you prefer). Transfer to closed container. Store 2 – 3 weeks.

    To use the scrub, dampen your hands with warm water. Scoop the scrub out of the container and apply to your hands. Work it in. Don’t scrub too hard, you don’t want to hurt yourself. Gently for longer is better than vigorously for a shorter time! Use this as a time to give your hands a self massage – you’ll love that if you’ve been practicing a lot! When you’re done reveling in the feeling, rinse with warm (not hot) water. Pat dry. Apply moisturizer or other emollient.

    Obviously, don’t use anything you’re allergic to or react to. Sugar is gentler than salt and ground almonds are the most intense. Nothing says you can’t switch between them…or mix them together. If you have never used a scrub, start with sugar (as the gentlest) and decide from there. Don’t use this more than two or three times a week. When you’re done scrubbing, use your favorite cream, gel, or lotion to lock In the moisturize-y goodness.

    Don’t make a huge amount, it will only last for a couple of weeks and you only want to use it a couple of times a week so you don’t need a whole lot at any one time.

    Important to remember – this is for your hardworking hands NOT your gentle and beautiful face!

    Of course, you could take the easy way out and buy a scrub – but where’s the fun in that? While you’re making and using it, remember that it’s not rocket surgery. If you want it scrubbier, use less oil. If you want it softer, use more. Want it less fragrant, back off the smell agent. If you want unscented don’t put any in. It’s yours so make it the way you want!

    When you go online (oh, come on, I know you’re going to!) you will also find recipes with dish soap. This is certainly do-able, but I find dish soap drying, so I avoid it. If you want to clean your hands before you scrub, you can certainly wash up first as step one and then slather on the scrub mix.

    If you’re one of those people who is bad at setting aside “me time” this is for you because it’s self-coddling but also really quick. So while you can’t really do anything else while you’re scrubbing, it doesn’t take a long time to do – so you get a treat without that “I should be doing something else” guilt!

    Give it a try and let me know what you think. Which scrub do you prefer? What’s your favorite scent? Let me know – in the comments!

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  • Skin

    Now that Thanksgiving has passed, and autumn is only 75% complete, it’s increasingly difficult to hang on to it! Winter is banging on the door with its colder temperatures, brisk winds, rain-ice-snow, and days that seem to end before the begin! Really, it’s winter long before it’s actually started.

    No matter where you live, winter brings some challenges for us as harp players. It is important to adhere to our self-care and take it seriously. This is to keep playing comfortably, but also to keep healthy. It’s hard to play when your fingers feel like your skin has been tightened or your fingers have splits – and being rough and flaky is just no fun!

    Your skin is the largest organ of your body and it has many functions. And being your primary protective barrier is an important one. Your skin protects you from a lot of bad stuff – including bangs, scrapes, and diseases.

    Since it’s delicate, you need to care for your skin. After the recent unpleasantness, we all know that hand washing is essential to avoiding getting sick. Just because the plague is not currently on the land doesn’t mean you should slack on handwashing – 20 seconds (as long as it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” through twice) each time you wash your hands.

    While washing your hands often and thoroughly is good for your health, it is hard on your skin. Even moisturizing soaps will, with frequent use, dry out your skin. Use warm, not hot, water and pat your hands dry (rather than trying to scrub the water off like I do!).

    Using an effective moisturizer will help. Just like we get thirsty in winter because cold air and heating systems dry the air, our skin is also thirsty. Moisturizers will help keep your skin supple. Whether it’s made of shea butter, cocoa butter, aloe vera, or another moisturizer that you know works for you, regular use is important to keep your skin hydrated and supple. It’s good to have some on hand (get it!) all the time.

    This is also the time of year when we all crave cozy. Once a week or so, while you’re relaxing and bundled up, consider giving yourself an at home “minicure” – the works. Soak in warm water (or milk) before slathering on a thick emollient. Then put on cotton gloves and head into bed. The gloves and the warmth will help lock in that moisture and keep you extra warm! You can do the trimming, filing, and polishing another time, but you’ll also have supple hands!

    We focus on our hands because they are central to our playing but make sure you’re taking care of all of your skin. You will quickly notice when your skin splits, hang nails form, and your fingers get flaky, but it is still important to care for the skin on the rest of your body too!

    Even though the winter weather is just beginning, you can get ahead of keeping your fingers and hands well moisturized and comfortable – which will make playing so much easier (and no wincing while you play!). What do you do to keep your fingers and hands happy? Let me know in the comments below!

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