Turn it up to 11 – Redux

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Turn it up to 11 redux 

Last week we talked about not playing ALAPATT (As Loud As Possible All The Time) and how you can enhance your playing by adding dynamics. How using dynamics help tell the story you mean to tell through your playing. We noted that if you want to be a better harper, you needed to work on dynamics.

Dynamics come from control of your hands and fingers. This control determines how your fingers interact with the strings. Expression (an outcome of dynamics) does not mean to play limply or weakly or barely or badly. Rather, we want the same rich, warm tones you get at full volume, but at different levels of loudness. You can do this!

Remember, this is not about playing louder or softer. Rather, it’s about controlling your fingers on the strings, learning how to get what you seek from the strings based on how you move. It’s a delicate dance between you and the harp strings. In this case – you have to lead! To gain this control, I want to give you some exercises that will allow you to focus on learning to control your dynamics. 

Let’s start by reviewing the dynamic markings. If you’re not familiar with them, they indicate the loudness for a particular section of music. These run from incredibly loud to incredibly soft (but still audible). The word for loud is forte (noted as f) while the word for quiet is piano (noted as p). There is also the range between them, and more letters indicate more (of that). So f is loud (forte), ff (fortissimo) is louder than that, and fff (fortississimo) is even louder still.  Likewise, p (piano) is quiet, pp (pianissimo) is quieter and ppp (pianississimo) is even more quiet, but still heard. Smack in the middle are mf (mezzo forte) and mp (mezzo piano) which are moderately loud or moderately soft.

There are a few exercises you can incorporate into your practice to get better at playing throughout your dynamic range so you can master your fingers and tell the story you want to tell. These exercises are not difficult and a few minutes a day will train your fingers and your brain to work together to get what you want. The focus of the exercises is to build differentiation between ppp and fff with clear progress through pp, p, mp, mf, f, and ff and to be in control of your fingers for each.

In control means that you play what you meant to when you meant to.This requires good technique with placing and closing, so if those are still something that you have to think about, then get that ingrained and then work on this.

Also, this is a relative continuum (meaning there is no absolute “loud” or “soft” only really really loud, really loud, very loud, loud, quiet, quieter, really quiet, and “what?”).

The exercises can be piggybacked onto exercises you’re already doing and I’ll use a scale as the example. I chose the scale because 1. I’m sure you’re already doing scales every day already (right?); 2. Scales are important, safe, and accessible to all levels; 3. You already know them, so you don’t need to spend a lot of cognitive energy on remembering the notes to be played which allows you to focus instead on achieving the dynamics; 4. you’ll quickly know when you don’t get the result you wanted/expected. 

Here goes:

Play one octave scale (up and down) in both hands at fff (as loudly as you can – while maintaining good form while staying in rhythm and tempo).

Now, play one octave scale (up and down) in both hands at ppp (as quietly as you can – while maintaining good form while staying in rhythm and tempo).

Third, play one octave scale (up and down) in both hands starting at fff, then repeat the scale each time starting at a progressively quieter dynamic (so fff, then ff, then f, mf, mp, p, pp, ppp. Each time through is a different dynamic). Yes, that is 8 times through the scales with graduated volume.

Next, play one octave scale (up and down) in both hands starting at fff, and subtly shift through fff to ff to f to mf. This takes a little planning – decide before you start to play where you make the shift – and how you will do that! Move it around a little and have some fun. For instance, you might do most of the scale fff and “downshift” to mp in the last 3 notes. Or play every two notes at a particular level. It’s up to you – the important thing is, did you get what that you expected? Don’t forget to do the other side and play your one octave scale (up and down) in both hands starting at ppp, and subtly shift through pp to p to mp.

Once those are easy(er), you can really shake it up.  Rather than moving gradually from one dynamic to the next, adjacent dynamic, make big leaps!  Maybe go ppp to ff to mp to fff, etc.  You get the idea – big changes…just like you’re playing music!

Go slowly and carefully at first. Each time you learn something new you need to give yourself time to process it, think about what you’re doing, what’s working (and not working), make changes, experiment, and learn. Give yourself time for all that! Make your own variations – rather than playing both hands together play from one to the other (for example – fff from left hand up an octave to right hand for another octave and down at ppp or something else that challenges you a little bit but doesn’t stop you from learning).

When you are able to successfully do each of these, then do the same exercises but make the movement between loudnesses larger across multiple octaves. At first make really big adjustments from fff to ppp at the crossover or vice versa. Change up which direction you go (loud to quiet or quiet to loud). The point is to test your control (and decision making).

Just about the time you think you’re big and bad and hard to diaper, it’s time to do the really challenging exercise. Because real control will be having different dynamics in each hand – a quiet base line under a loud melody. Or a shift of the melody to the lower register (and in the left hand) with a quiet harmony in the right hand. Remember the idea is to control your hands and make good decisions.

Here we go – Play the bottom of the octave only (e.g., C-D-E-F (up to but not through the cross) in each hand. Select which hand will play fff and which will play ppp. Give it a go. Now, this is much like when you first tried contrary motion – you might feel like your fingers are connected to someone else’s brain! Just breathe and keep on. You want to have each hand doing its thing (now you see why you have to practice!). And when you are feeling pretty confident on this, then do the whole octave up and down.

If it doesn’t seem to be coming along, try letting one hand come ever so slightly before the other so that you’re in control of each finger. Breathe. Relax. Work them closer and closer together until they’re simultaneous. This is hard – don’t rush it. When you think you have it – make a video to assure that you’re not getting tense (and that you’re keeping the dynamic distinction between hands consistent).

Important things to keep in mind (especially when it isn’t going swimmingly):

  • Progress not perfection.
  • This is about control not volume.
  • Whatever leaves you thinking you’ve had enough and can probably get by without is exactly what you most need to work on.
  • It will be worth it – when you bring tears to a listener’s eyes…and they’re not from painful eardrums!

Remember that even fast tunes have a story (of some sort). If you want to tell the story of a frenetic rave + chase scene from a video game, then by all means, keep thrashing away. But if you’d like to tell a more subtle story (Battle of the Somme or Flowers of the Forest anyone?) use your dynamics and tell it!

I’d love to hear how you get on with this – let me know in the comments! If, after reading this, you are a little lost, let me know that too – and we’ll work on it. And if you have other approaches, let me know!

Turn it up to 11

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Turn it up to 11

Did you know there are apparently four musics of the harp? They are Goiltai (for crying), Geantrai (for cheering), Suantrai (for sleeping), and Thrashai (for being heard over any other sounds present on the earth). (ok, I might have made up that last one)

Have you ever noticed how many people play their harps like they are auditioning for the Scorpions or MegaDeath? It seems as if playing as loudly as possible is their only goal. Now, I get it. You sit behind the instrument, and it is designed to project in front of you so you really might not be able to hear how loudly you’re playing. And if you sit in enough sessions between the other instruments, you could be forgiven for thinking that thrashing away at the strings is the best possible way to get out there.

But ugh – stop! Whacking away at your poor strings is not what you need to get better at. If you really want to join a death metal band, buy an (really big) amp.

If you want to be a better harper, work on dynamics.

Dynamics are an easy way to differentiate your playing, bring musicality to your music, and help your audience to know which of the three musics you’re trying to convey. Dynamics allow you to play at varying loudnesses. There are two major parts of adding dynamics to your tunes – storytelling and technique. Let’s start with the easy one this week.

Storytelling is essential to your playing. Remember that when you play, you are communicating with your listener (even if the only listener is you). For each tune, you’re telling a story. For many laments, airs, and songs there is a specific related story or tale. For others there isn’t (or the story has been lost, or you just haven’t heard it). When you play, you’re going to tell a story – whether you mean to or not. Might as well tell the story you mean to (even if you have to make it up).

The story you convey will be put forth on the tune and will be told through the tempo, the rhythm, the accompaniment, and the dynamics! So having some (dynamics) is a great place to start. If you doubt what I’ve said, I refer you to Prokofiev’s Peter and Wolf a very easy example of this point.  But also, Holst’s The Planets or Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture * or Muse’s Uprising as other easy examples. **  When you listen to these pieces you can quickly hear how much the dynamics support the story being told.

You can do that!

When you’re preparing a piece of music, think about the story you want to tell and how your dynamics will help you tell it.

How? (you already know what I’m going to say….)  The way to get better at varying dynamics is to practice. Next week, I’ll share some exercises you can incorporate into your practice to develop your dynamics!

If you have tips or tricks for playing dynamically, I’d love to hear them – let me know in the comments!

Keep breathing

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Keep breathing 

I think we could easily agree that playing requires concentration. A lot of concentration. Of course, some things make us concentrate harder than others.  For instance, we have to really focus when we’re learning. Maybe when a tune is really well learned we don’t have to focus so much (or at least we feel like we have more brain capacity available).  When we perform we probably focus carefully as well (at least we hope we will!).

One of the challenges of concentrating really hard is that when we do, many of us actually stop breathing (I can’t make this up). While you’re focused, you may hold your breath. When your brain is working hard, it gets busy and has a harder time of keeping all its plates spinning. Things like breathing can be one of those plates that gets dropped. (Don’t worry, the rest of your body will demand a breath when you really have to have one!). Of course, not breathing doesn’t make you think very well and all in all, it’s best if you can keep breathing.

The good news is that you can overcome this not breathing. You just need to practice doing it. Yes, even though you mostly don’t even think about breathing – you DO need to think about it if you’re not breathing consistently when you’re practicing (or performing).

When should you be breathing? Well, it’s best to breathe normally but if you notice you’re not (or your teacher points it out to you), you can add it to each tune or exercise! Here are a few ways to incorporate it so you can keep breathing:

Phrasing. If you’re learning by ear, you’re getting the tune in phrases. Phrasing might be easiest to understand in the context of singing because you must breathe (other blowing instruments are the same – no breathing, no playing). Phrasing is how the tune breathes, Watch (good) singers and you’ll notice that they never leave off in the middle of a word to take a breath – they breathe in “obvious” places…between the words. Just like they do, when your music calls for a breath (the end of a phrase) – take a breath. If you’re reading, you can still breathe at the end of a phrase – just remember to mark it!*  When you’re practicing be certain that you breathe there and make it part of how you play the tune.

Mechanical. I’m not keen on this one, but it could work. In this approach you specifically incorporate breathing as a “movement” just like placing, closing, changing levers, and all the other movements of playing. I don’t like this because it’s not natural (which might interrupt your breathing rather than improving it) and because breathing is a very different type of movement. More importantly, this approach doesn’t support the music either. It doesn’t tie your breath to the phrasing (above) which could knock your musicality out of whack (and who doesn’t need more musicality).

Relax. You might hold your breath when you are stressed – so relax. You’ll get the tune, you’ll learn the melody, you’ll get the fingering! And your brain will be glad of the oxygen!

Pay attention. This is related to Mechanical, and it might seem silly – because we are paying attention….to something else! Like Mechanical, set yourself the additional task of paying attention to your breathing while you are concentrating on learning the music. Post a sign on your music stand or make some other reminder to keep it front of mind!

Breathing is fairly important when you’re learning and when you’re playing. Do you notice specific places you aren’t breathing? How do you remember to breathe? Let me know in the comments how you are going to keep breathing!

*If you’re not familiar with the marking, use an apostrophe above the treble staff to indicate where to take a breath (ok, it’s your music, use anything you’d like but the apostrophe is the standard marking).

What’s the question?

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What’s the question?

One of the best things about harp players is their innate curiosity (in the main). It has been my experience that we are, in general, interesting people who tend to be interested in loads of things.

But we’re also human and so sometimes we can do things that don’t move us forward. This is true whether we are teachers or students – where two sides of the same coin might be helpful and not!

For example, being curious. I think we’re all a little curious. That leads us to ask questions. Lots of questions.

Asking questions is imperative! It is a wonderful thing to ask questions. And we have a lot of resources – from teachers to friends to colleagues to learn from. Whether we know it or not, this searching for information to satisfy our curiosity helps us maintain a beginner’s mindset which has been celebrated as an important part of continuing personal growth. Beginners are curious because there is so much they don’t know! It is easy to stop being curious once you know some stuff. But no matter how much you know, there is always more to learn, to build on, to enhance, and to expand what we already have. Staying a beginner on the inside can be freeing because it allows you to give yourself permission to keep learning. A significantly experienced performer doesn’t have no questions. They have different questions! Hopefully, you are always coming up with questions as you learn.  Cultivating an interest is certainly one way to continue to push yourself – to be always learning. Sometimes the questions are simple and other times they are complex.

However, it is possible to confuse curiosity with diversion! I’m all for asking questions and learning, but focused questions based on your playing and learning are different from constantly scrolling fa-sta-gram-to-x watching videos and reading websites looking at content. That only draws in more information that fills your head but doesn’t actually inform you. Wasting time searching up info because it might be useful or getting into a loop of searching to search will never improve your playing. It won’t make you a better musician. And it will always leave you feeling like you should have learned more (and possibly like you have wasted time you could have been playing!).

I’m not suggesting there’s nothing of value to be learned online. But I am suggesting that letting your intuition, playing and experience drive your questions. And, you know that journal I’m always suggesting. That’s a great place to keep your questions so they don’t slip out of your head when you have a chance to ask them! Keep your questions focused on your development, your playing, your progress, and you’ll learn something every day!

Now, if there are no more questions? Go practice!

Where has your curiosity and questions led you? Let me know in the comments!

Tiny Snowmen

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Tiny Snowmen

We’re having our first measurable snow today. After a 2-year hiatus, we are having a visible bit of winter. Like so many other things, snow happens whether you love, like, hate, or ignore it.

But one of my favorite things that has come out of our (barely) measurable snow days is the local Small Snowman contest, run by a local meteorologist (not shilling, just sharing).

It makes me giggle (which I won’t be doing later when I’m tired from shoveling the snow that is still to come!).

What do Small Snowmen have to do with anything? Well, they remind me of other things that I love about this including the attitudes of 1. Make a fuss over small but fun things, and 2. Work with what you have, and 3. Find the beauty and celebrate the small.

Make a fuss over small but fun things – It’s so easy to slide into cynical and to stop valuing the fun things that bring you a mote of joy each day. We focus on what went wrong with our practice rather than rejoicing over the small wins. Whether it’s finally remembering the phrase or nailing the fingering, these are the little successes that move our playing along.

Work with what you have – these tiny victories occur no matter what your level of play. They are really obvious when you start. Each practice you have “aha” moments, more control over your fingers, and a better idea of what’s going on! As you mature as a musician you might feel like these events get fewer and farther between (which likely they are) so instead enjoy your ongoing growth and appreciate that your changes are far more subtle but just as important. You might have to look harder, but enjoy that you now have to look hard for the incremental improvements.

Find the Beauty and Celebrate the Small – sometimes we wedge playing our harps between homework and dishes and dusting and making dinner. That means that we might not necessarily be thinking only about what we’re practicing – but “thinking ahead” to what we have to do next. Don’t. Focus on your practice so that you can find the things that are beautiful. Some of the best compositions or improvisations come from recognizing a “mistake” that is a gorgeous addition (and then building on it)!  Be present so you find those and then celebrate. And never minimize those steps you make. Cheer for you!

As you do these things (and put away cynicism) you will get better at identifying and enjoying your successes, no matter how small. And that will give you something else to celebrate!

More later.  I’ve got to go make a Small Snowman – quick before we get more snow!  How are you celebrating your small achievements? Let me know in the comments!

 

 

 

Word

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Word

Happy New Year and welcome to 2024! It’s the time of year that our thoughts turn to new endeavors, self-improvement drives, goal setting, and making plans for our days. Some people craft  rigorous goals. Some others make vague guesses. Meanwhile still others select a word of the year as a guide star. I’m (uncharacteristically) not going to bang on about goal setting (I’ve done that here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) as a nod to those who are not “Team S.M.A.R.T. goals”. If you are, you’ve probably already set your goals. But if you’re not, you might be floundering.


Let’s focus on what you told me interests you. Thank you to all of you who completed the survey (if you missed it, go here – I’d still love to hear what the rest of you have to say). Your inputs definitely helped me see what we should be sharing here! Your thoughts seemed to fall into two broad categories – Personal Development and Playing Better.

Personal Development includes learning, memorizing, performing, and managing how you deal with each of those. Playing Better encompasses specific techniques, theory, theory in practice, and figuring out what to practice. We’ll talk about these things throughout the year and I’m looking forward to your thoughts, questions, and experiences!

Maybe we should take the Word of the Year approach. One thing all these topics have in common could be captured in a word. This would be a single word to help us quickly get back to what we think is important and bring our attention to what we think is essential. You could write it on your mirror, put it on the fridge (or, if you’re like me, IN the fridge!), or tape it to your steering wheel. Put it where you will see it so that you can remind yourself of what it means – to you, to your playing, and to your progress. 

I’m going to nominate Consistent as our Word of the Year. Because we know that consistent is what we need to be to get there (wherever we have decided there is). And being consistent will help us with both Playing Better and Personal Development. It is through being consistent that we can best find what you need to work on, what you want to work on, and applying your progress to your practice.

Consistent isn’t a sexy word. It brings ongoing hard work and it dribbles out small rewards. However, it will be in these little, activities with tiny feedback that will, given the chance, pull together over time to yield results you might be awed by! But you’ll never know unless you are consistent in your attention, practice, journaling, and analysis.

We’re going to have a great (if sometimes wild) ride – thanks for consistently reading and letting me know what you think!

 

As the year comes to an end

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As the year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect and ask questions.  I have been writing to you since 2009 (!) and I hope some of those topics have been interesting and informative.  And I hope you know that I genuinely appreciate your taking the time to spend here.

So this week, I’d like to ask you to tell me what you’d like to know more about.  What gives you trouble?  What would you find interesting?  What do you need to learn (or want to learn)?  Anything you don’t want to know?  Please (pretty please!) let me know your thoughts so we can talk about important stuff in the new year!

Just fill in the blanks with your brilliant thoughts and I will be ever so grateful.  And, of course, you’re always welcome to use the comments!

 

Gift Guide – Part B

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Gift Guide – Part B

Last week we listed some gift ideas you could share with the people in your life who might ask what you would like to receive this holiday season. Now let’s flip the script. What gifts could you give from there on your bench?

Like any gift guide, this means matching the giving intention to the recipient and there are so many possibilities!

  • You can play for your family. You might think that your family listens to you play every day so this wouldn’t be a good gift. But the reality is that they probably don’t listen to you practice. They might hear you, but they’re probably not listening. They will enjoy having a specific time to sit and actually listen to the fruits of your labors. They are, after all, your biggest supporters.
  • Jane Austen is calling! There was a time when it was expected that each person would take their turn being entertaining for guests. Invite your supportive friends over and, as part of the time together, play for them. You’d be amazed how many of your friends don’t even know you play the harp, and how many of those who do know have never heard you play.
  • Play for someone special. This can be as complicated or as simple as you want to make it. You have all the tools – just get out of your own way. Play the music you hear in your head.  Don’t have a lot of noise going on up there? Stumped on where to start? Set your harp to C major and play only the white strings (thank you Marianna!) and diddle around. Run your recorder. Go back and listen, find what you like and put that stuff together. Practice that, toss in a left hand (hint – start with G) and boom! a handmade present!
  • Give a concert. Why not! You need a venue (your living room?), an audience (friends, family, neighbors), and you need 3 to 20 tunes (depending on how long you want to perform). Add some “patter” (it is a show, you are the MC) and wine or tea and cookies and you’re in business. It doesn’t have to be Carnegie Hall, just play.
  • Volunteer. Go to a nursing home or a rehab facility and play for them (or for the staff). You can do this anytime of year but the holidays seem like a good time to start (this does require a bit coordination, but so worth it).

It’s also amazing how good you’ll feel after sharing your gift of music.  What else could you do with your harp to give someone a lovely gift? I’ve given you several ideas here, but I bet you have better ones – let me know in the comments.