The Bucket List

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Jen

Some people have a bucket list. Of course, even more haven’t made one, but they probably have things they’d like to have accomplished by the time they’re done on the coil mortal.

A bucket list is a compilation of all the things a person would like to have accomplished, completed, or dreamt of. It is (yet another) goals list, pure and simple.

You might think a Bucket List is a macabre thing to keep. After all, most people think of it as a list of all the things you may (or might not) have accomplished in your entire life. Ok, that would be macabre.

But what if you instead think of it as a gentle reminder of what you think is interesting, curious, important, and/or worth pursuing? If you look at it that way, it could be sort of interesting – and a little goading. And probably worth keeping for quick and frequent reference. For guidance. And as a reminder to keep your head up (metaphorically…. although you should also do that physically while you’re playing!).

Apparently loads of people have lists that include travel around the world, run a marathon, be a better person, write a novel, or pursue a passion.

BUT – YOU ALREADY HAVE A PASSION. You’re no desultory harper!

What sort of things might you put on the list? Well, that’s going to be fairly personal. After all, it will be all the things you hope you will do before you are no longer able to play the harp. I have my own ideas (although, to be fair, I’ve been checking mine off as fast as I can!).

How, you might ask would you go about making your bucket list? Well, it’ll take a little time and effort, but it’ll be worth it! First, note that you might be making more than one list. After all, once you start thinking about it, you might be making a life list, a harp list, a family list, etc. And that’s ok – you can have multiple lists!

I’d suggest making the list in your practice journal. You have to keep it somewhere, so why not there? That way you’ll see it each time you sit to practice – and be reminded of some of the reasons you’re about to practice…

It’s your list – you can put anything you like on it. Secret fantasies, deepest desires, put ‘em down. You’ll never know when you’ll have the chance to check one of them off, but you’ll be ready for the opportunity if you know you want to (you won’t have to think about it when it happens – you’ll be ready!).

Of course, also put down stuff you know you can do if you try. Learn that piece you admire. Write down that tune that you hear in your head. Ask that well-known teacher for a lesson. You have nothing to lose!

Then there’s the harder to define stuff – what do you want your harp legacy to be. Don’t think you have one? Oh, you do, you just might not have thought about it before. Do you want to be sure that you have actually played for your friends? Wish you would sit a Master Class? Want to participate in that fabulous workshop everyone’s always talking about? While these things might be more challenging, you can get there. And writing them on your list will remind you to keep at it.

Maybe the hardest thing about generating your bucket list is to prioritize it. What’s the most important to you? What will take you the most time (or require new skills or significantly more practice)? Does anyone in your life need to have an input (whether they be an audience member or a travel companion or some other adjunct to your thinking)? You’ll need to factor that in. Also, is there any intersection of your harp and your life bucket lists? Maybe you can take your harp with you as you travel around the world? Always wanted to go to Scotland (always a good idea) – maybe there’s a workshop you plan around (or you could join us sometime in the future!). Two birds, meet one stone!

What does not belong on your Harp Bucket List? ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT INTERESTED IN! Don’t want to play in an ensemble? Don’t. Don’t want to play orchestra parts? Don’t even write it down! Never wanted to learn that “must do” repertoire? Then DON’T!

You’re capturing what YOU want to do with your harp life. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Maybe you’re not quite ready to do some of it, that’s ok. You’ve written it down so you can be reminded of what you want to be so you can keep acquiring the skills or practice you need to be able to get there. And remember – it’s your list. Share it with others if you like, but you don’t have to.

When you complete something on your list, savor that!

Make your bucket list – so you can do all the things you want while you are able. Live your harp life! What might you put on your bucket list? Got a good idea? Want to share it in the comments?

Clear vision for 2020

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Jen

It is now 2020 – Welcome to the new year and the new decade!

Just like every new year, we are encouraged from many sides to develop resolutions – to define those things we need to “fix” to improve ourselves.

How about this – in 2020, the year of clear vision – just give it a rest. Resolve to make no resolutions. Don’t set any goals.

After all, if the goals were important, you’d have set them right when they became clear. If you need to work on specific things, you would have started right then – if you wanted that to become a goal!

There’s nothing special about short cold days for achieving anything. Up to 91% of people who set resolutions drop them, most before the middle of January! So, setting resolutions is really not a useful thing to do, unless you like to set yourself up for failure and to give yourself a specific thing to beat yourself up about not accomplishing.

Then what should you do? How about you take on just these four things:

Just Stop. New Year’s resolutions really seem to be about false notions of self-improvement and possibly about self-aggrandizing virtue signaling. And really, unless you made a significant wager with someone, no one else really cares if you make it, so stop pillorying yourself about having resolutions, goals, visions, whatever. Use that energy to – just play!
Be Nice. Be kind to yourself – if you’re not where you want to be, you probably not only know it, but you likely also know how to get across that gap. You might just not be ready to spend that energy. And if you are not sure how to get there, work with your teacher (or me!) and keep reading (because you know that here, we’ll talk about ways to improve!).
Take a smarter path. The path forward that begins by recognizing the reality of your life will be a smarter path. And possibly there’s more to your life than playing the harp – like family, friends, day jobs, other hobbies, other instruments, and myriad other things you prioritize ahead of the harp (otherwise, you’d have more time to practice). By examining your real life – and using that as the foundation of your thinking about your playing – you will be more likely to be able to find the time to practice and to better fit your harp playing into your reality! Your life is a system and it needs to be kept in balance so that you can accomplish the requirements of each of its parts. That balance starts by understanding where all the pieces lie.
Practice! You know it will all come down to this – but you need a wider definition – you have to practice:

- Practice the instrument – probably that old saw of spending at least 30 – 90 minutes a day (depending, again, on where you’re trying to get, your level of performance and development, and your real life)
- Practice fitting everything else in too (you know, like dinner, exercise, sleep, work, chores, etc.) (after all, 3 above will not happen by magic, it will take a little work to analyze what will fit, where it will fit and how you might have to adjust things to get it all into the day).
- Practice having balance
- Practice being kind to yourself
- Practice stretching
- Practice learning
- Practice spending time away from your harp productively
- Practice being present
- Practice practicing – you can’t just sit on the bench and have magic pour out your fingers – you know you need to warm up, work on fundamentals, analyze music, think about your approach and strategy for new music, work on learning, learn new things, develop musicality, hammer out new burbles, etc.
  - Practice the tunes you love
  - Practice the tunes you don’t love
  - Practice the way you play and developing your technique
  - Practice becoming more accomplished
  - Practice sharing your music
  - Practice being better
  - Practice enjoying the process
  - Practice capturing your progress so you can see your improvement
  - and practice identifying where you need to improve and practice

It’s going to be a busy year, and you’ll do exactly as much work as you fit in (and no more). Setting improbable or impossible goals will not help and could actually get in the way (by making you feel like you’re failing or not making progress when you actually are).

What will you do with all the energy you have from not developing resolutions or goals that won’t work for you? Let me know in the comments!

Tired of Christmas yet? So, what’s next?

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Jen

I get it. We’ve been teaching, learning, practicing, and performing Christmas music since it was hot! It’s a limited pool of tunes. It’s a short window to share them. And they really aren’t that different from one another. It can get boring. And at this point, it is too late to start changing them up…or you’re already doing that and you’re running out of ideas for changes that you can perform on the fly. After all, by December, we’re likely to be operating on autopilot just a little.

So, while you’re on autopilot, you might be thinking about what’s next! What do you want to do? What tunes are you going to take on? Do you have a longer-term plan? Now’s your chance to make a workable plan for the post-December season.

To do what’s next, we need a plan. How do you make a plan for your music? Same as any other plan you might make, you just need to take a few (ok, 10) steps –

Know where you are – take stock of where you are right now. Be honest and rigorous and identify where you’re starting. And it’s the foundation of the plan. If you’re not honest, you will have a hard time succeeding in the plan.
Set realistic expectations (based on your real life). It’s easy to build a perfect and beautiful plan. But if the plan doesn’t reflect your real life, it will fail. Do not promise yourself that you will get up at 5 and practice for 2 hours if you are responsible for getting your household up, fed, prepped and out the door by 6:30 every morning! While it’s a lovely plan, it won’t fit your life. (we’re back to being honest and rigorous with yourself).
Make a schedule. No matter how good your plan is, it will help to write it down and ensure it fits into your (real) life…the messy one with chores, and work, and meals, and traffic, and showers, and all the other stuff of daily life. Writing it down will let you see the conflicts and were you have (actual) practice time…and plan in free time – you’ll need it.
Where are you trying to go? You should begin with the end in mind. ‘Nough said.
What will it take to get there? You have to see the space between where you are and where you want to go. In business and engineering this is called a Gap Analysis. Be sure to note which specific, steps, techniques, etc. are missing to close the gap.
When do you expect to arrive? While you may not know how long it will take you to master skills, techniques, or tunes on your path, you may want to develop some idea of how long you think it might take. Be prepared to be thorough, but also be ready to be wrong. Remember to be flexible too.
How will you know when you get there? Before you begin to execute your plan, you will have had to identify where “there” is…so you’ll know when you have arrived!
Do you know why you’re going there? It helps to define what you need to work on (where you’re trying to go), but it is also important to keep in mind why you’re trying to get there! Are there techniques you need to learn or perfect? Is there a particular repertoire element you wanted to build in? The why is essential to getting there!
What happens if you don’t get there? Sometimes your plan is to achieve something before a specific event. Or you need to tackle a particular element on your way to nailing a particulate tune you want in your rep. But what if you don’t get there – what’s the worse that will happen. Do you have a contingency?
Did you write any of it down? You know I’m a fan of keeping track of stuff – and this is no exception! Take notes, write on your plan, keep a calendar, make a scrap book, use a practice journal. I don’t care how you keep track, just be sure to keep track.

Like the meme says, no matter where you go, there you are. Make a plan so you’re there is somewhere you’d like to be. What are you thinking you might make a plan for? Let me know if the comments.

Are you happy with 2018?

Posted on December 19, 2018 by Jen

The end of the year is drawing near. With only two weeks remaining, are you happy with your harp year 2018?

In January, I suggested you keep a diary, build an I-love-me board, and/or record yourself. Did you get a chance to start these?

If you did – it’s time to pull them out (and likely dust them off – it’s ok if you lost motivation in the middle of the year – it happens). Look through your artifacts. What you collected there will help you continue to grow and develop into the coming year. You can review your diary entries or your continued additions to your I-love-me to see what worked and what didn’t. And by worked, I mean what worked for you. The point of the diary, the I-love-me, and the recording is to give you a means to review where you were, where you are, and to determine how they line up with where you are going (or where you think you’re going or where you thought you meant to be going).

No pillorying yourself! No harsh critique. No judgmental condemnation. Just a review of how you spent your time and if it served to get you where you were headed. Take the time to thoughtfully review your documentation. Did you practice the technique things you needed to so that you could play that dream piece? Did you practice enough? Did you practice regularly? Can you identify patterns of good (or bad) things that you spent your time and energy on? With this information you can continue to move forward – wherever you’d like to go!

If you didn’t (or if you started but got sidetracked by, like January 3rd) – why? What about the methods I suggested didn’t do it for you? There’s gold in the answers – because these are only three ways to capture your continued development. If they didn’t work for you – can you tell me why they didn’t work and what would work better – for you? Did you use another method? What was it?

Remember, the idea is to know where you’re trying to get to (to master some particular technique, to play a particular piece, to be able to play a tune at a particular tempo, etc.) and to make slow, small, accurate, continuous progress. And to avoid getting sucked down a rabbit hole (of a particular gig, something that’s giving your trouble, your regular life, whatever) and thereby getting derailed.

How did you monitor yourself this year? Did it work? What would work better? Enquiring minds want to know – so share in the comments!

Should you bother to set Goals for 2018?

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Jen

It’s that time of year again. That time when experts, brainiacs, eggheads, and bloggers all exhort you to set goals for the coming year. They delineate the process and give away worksheets. They remind you that 5000% of people who write their goals down achieve them and that 3756% of people never even set a goal*.

In other words, they nag you and sort of bully you into generating a set of goals. I start to feel like it is nearly immoral to not set goals. And I know – because I have done the same thing to you in the past! And to myself. Well – not this year!

It is January and the beginning of a new year. It is a time many reflect on the previous year and our progress as humans to date. And it is nearly a habit to expect to generate some goals. And those goals better meet all the criteria of good, achievable goals.

But should you bother to go through goal setting for 2018?There’s a reason only 3% of people even bother to write their goals down**. It clearly is a strategy that doesn’t work for most people. It requires a level of commitment difficult to bring to just about any activity, except perhaps a quest. And since many of us play for our enjoyment (and even for those who play for a living) – it becomes just one more thing to do (and therefore it becomes easy to ditch!).

So, if goal setting isn’t the right approach, what better ways could you use to identify what you’d like to do with your harp this year and check-in over time to see if you are getting there? If the standard goal setting hasn’t worked for you, here are three other ways to approach this:

Keep a diary. Yes, this is a thinly disguised journal – but for some reason a diary is slightly less threatening than a journal (just look at Instagram or Pinterest – loads of journals not too many diaries). You can keep a diary in any medium and it really is just you talking to you. You can do this in the blocks of your planner calendar, in a separate book, on scraps of napkins – whatever fits in your day. The best thing – who gets you better than you? It gives you a place to pour out your frustration when you are having a hard time – and to capture your glee when something totally comes together.
Make an “I Love Me” board. I started out thinking that a Vision Board was a great idea but it comes with so much baggage. And of course, it is hard to find magazines with pictures of harps (except Folk Harp Journal, Harp Column, and AHS Journal – and who wants to cut those up?!***). But you can capture all you want to do in the future and what you accomplish as sort of a visual scrapbook. It can have photos and selfies, invitations, programs, contracts, etc. Capture and display the detritus of your successes as well as any artifacts that arise from frustration (sheet music so marked up that it is unreadable? string bits?). Be sure to put the board somewhere that you can see it – and see that you are definitely moving.
Make a record. I like to encourage students to do this at Christmas time and spontaneously (or maybe not so spontaneously) throughout the year. Christmas is a trove of tunes you play every year, so it is easy to effortlessly hear your progress. But you should also include any other tunes you’ve worked on. You could make what is an audio diary and after playing the tune you could comment to yourself – how much easier it was to play the tune this year, how much you want to add tunes, how good you feel about something you’ve worked on for a while. You could do this more regularly (as a version of 1 above) but I kind of like the idea of a different means of reminding myself what I’m doing.

Or just write your goals down. There’s nothing wrong with writing them down, keeping a practice journal and actively looking for progress and successes. The key is to capture evidence of your journey in a way that helps you travel! Let me know if you’re going to bother to set goals or how you might watch your own growth over the coming 12 months!

* these statistics may be randomly generated (i.e. made up)
** actual statistic snagged from this article – you’ll find various numbers in assorted sources, but they are all low
*** if you’re not already reading at least one of these, you might want to consider adding it to your readying list

Is it a Maybe?

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Jen

So, here we are, about ¾ of the way through the year. Everyone’s back to school and the holidays are fast approaching. By now, hopefully, you’ve sorted out your yes’s and no’s. The next question is do you have your maybe’s?

Perhaps the biggest maybe at this time of year is related to the goals you set for yourself. So maybe it is a good time to review them. How are you coming? Do you need to tweak any? Do you know?

This is where that journal comes in handy – it’s a good time to review your notes to see if you are getting where you wanted to go. If not, can you see what you need to work on? Do you need to:

Rededicate your practice time
Actually practice
Reprioritize your practice time
Actively schedule elements of practice
Review your goals to make sure they are realistic for your real life
Examine your journal to have a better idea how it’s going so you can continue to meet your goals

Are you getting there? Maybe part of the way? Maybe isn’t bad at all – as long as you mean it!

Just Say NO!

Posted on September 14, 2017 by Jen

After at least a week of saying “Yes!” perhaps it’s also time to start saying “NO!”

No can be so negative but sometimes it’s the best answer to allow you to hang onto your sanity! Or to make progress toward your goals. I will always encourage you to stretch – to do things that are a little scary or uncomfortable. This is because typically these things only l-o-o-k scary but are actually a lot of fun once you break through.

But some things are scary for good reason. They are better avoided – a stretch piece that is a huge stretch, a stretch piece with an unreasonable or unrealistic deadline, something you just really do not want to do (or don’t agree with doing), something that will just add the straw that broke the camel’s back to your schedule.

Here are some things it might be helpful to say “NO!” to:

Weddings – if you don’t like to be stressed, don’t book weddings! Only do them if you feel confident – otherwise they will chip away at your confidence and possibly your self-esteem.
Short notice gigs – if you don’t have regular practice time in on your repertoire, you will not be ready at the drop of a hat. So don’t do that to yourself. Only book gigs for which you can be confidently and competently prepared.
Music you’re not interested in – now, I’m not saying don’t experience new things but this music is also typically music you don’t know (so you won’t have tricks up your sleeve for dealing with not being rock solid on the tunes). Or it’s music you haven’t worked with (so you’re likely not solid and confident). And this is often coupled with short notice and/or weddings!
Only playing for the cat and the curtains – Get over yourself! No one plays perfectly and you never will either. The only way to get better at playing for people is to do it. You know – to practice doing it by doing it. The longer you put it off, the more you tell yourself you’ll do it later, the harder it will get. So get out there.

Say no to anything that will require more preparation than you will be able to devote. If you are only able to practice 30 minutes a day, don’t even think you’ll be able to take on a challenge and succeed (Carol of the Bells from scratch in 2 weeks? Ha, don’t even). You will be stressed and unprepared and miserable.

Practice saying No at the right times so you are ready to say Yes as appropriate. And if you’re knocking yourself down (over these or anything else) – Definitely Just Say No!

Plan your work – work your plan

Posted on June 7, 2017 by Jen

Whew! Now that we’re back from Harpa and all the focused preparation for that, it would be easy to think that it’s time to slack off. Or because it’s summer we could argue that it’s a good time to chill a little. Or because it’s Wednesday, we could convince ourselves it’s ok to take a break. There are plenty of reasons to rationalize that we don’t need to work at practice. But these are exactly the sorts of time when reapplication of focus to practicing is precisely the right thing to do!

No matter what your level of play is, no matter how much you only play for amusement or play only as a profession, practice is still work. And like the work you do in your day job or the work you do around the house, your practice will go better if you make (and adhere to) a plan!

What should you plan to do? Well, you already know. You might not want to do it, but you know what your plan should include. Your plan needs to include elements that assure

that you know how much time you intend to work
that you spend your time effectively
that you don’t practice mistakes into what you know
that you learn new material
that you distribute your time across the things you love doing (playing things you already know?), the things that aren’t so much fun (etudes?), and the things you just don’t want to do (metronome?).

Be sure your plan includes all the necessary work. These things may not happen every time you sit to practice, but having a plan assures that you remember to work on things over time.

Once you have a plan – make sure you actually work that plan! Don’t go through the exercise of making a plan and then leaving it in a drawer. Write it down – and keep it near your work place practice spot. Set yourself up to succeed by checking it each and every time you practice so that you are always moving forward. Occasionally review your plan to make sure it is still pushing you toward your current and long term goals.

Do you have a practice plan? Do you use it?

You set goals – so what? Five ways to capture your progress

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Jen

All of January we have been talking about identifying, setting, keeping and meeting goals to improve playing, learning, and performance. The final question – how do you know if you are making progress? How can you be sure you are moving toward the outcome you wanted?

Well, like everything else, you need to record what you have done and see if you are on track to get there (or maybe that you are already there!). How do you go about recording your progress? Well, here are five ways:

Write it down! And be sure to reread your notes. This can be in your lesson notebook or your journal. You can make notes on little scraps of paper – doesn’t matter, just so long as you can make sense of it when you go to review it.
Record yourself. You can buy an inexpensive digital voice recorder at your favorite local office supply depot that are staples of most areas. This will give you good enough sound quality for this purpose. Then you can listen to your playing after you play as well as when you are playing – you’ll be amazed what you hear later!
Check yourself against your plan – and review to see how well you are keeping up. Did you actually learn three nocturnes last week? No? You can always modify the plan but you won’t know if you aren’t watching!
Ask someone to listen to you and provide you feedback (and then provide feedback on the implementation of their previous feedback). This can be your teacher or a helpful friend or family member. The point is to get some information on your progress (don’t lose sight of that).
Videotape yourself. This is, of course, a variation of recording yourself but with the added benefit of having visuals as well – you might learn something you weren’t even expecting!

I’m sure there are more ways to be sure you are making progress – what do you do?

Just like you learn – you succeed!

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Jen

So, you have written down your goal(s) for the year. And that is an important step – you’re most of the way there if you have actually written them down. But now you need to move from doodling in your harp journal to actually moving forward. Just like you learn music – a little at a time, and beginning with the end in mind! Here are seven ways to get going:

Be honest – don’t make a harp goal just because I’m leaning on you! Make goals because you want to achieve something in particular, not just because it’s January.
Make a plan – a real plan. Make sure you know what you need to do, how long it will take, when you will expect to have things done. Use a schedule so you will know you are making progress. If it helps you, make a road map. Or a vision board, or Goals storyboard…it doesn’t matter, so long as you have something you can work with. This will help you keep your eye on the ball!
Make small steps – in that plan, make sure the steps are small and achievable. If they’re too big (play Carolan’s Concerto?) break it down into bite size chunks so you can actually get there. You know the joke – how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Make “tests” so you will actually do the work – we all know that we work to a deadline. No one says you can’t set your own test schedule!
Schedule a lesson – which will make you practice – just so you don’t embarrass yourself! Think of it as a pop quiz. And the bonus is you’ll learn a lot while you have the lesson!
Continue to document to keep track of what has happened and what is coming next. Use your phone/laptop/ipad to help you! No, not to watch youtube videos of other people playing the harp! Rather, use the calendar, the recorder, the notepad – all ways to help you keep track and keep moving toward your goal. Or, keep it all in one place and include it in your lesson book/harp journal.
Get support. No one gets anywhere alone. Enlist the aid of your family, friends and other harpers to help you – to make sure you have time, that you learn what you need to so that you get to the next level, to cheer you on when you have challenges.

By keeping track, you are much more likely to have success in getting to where you want to be – and you can be proud of you progress.

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