Welcome to Notes from the Harp!

Happy December! Besides enjoying your holiday music, I hope you can take some time away from the busyness of the season and your own life to think about your journey with the harp, where you have been and where you want to go next year. Instead of setting yourself up with drastic resolutions about your progress or habits with the harp, why not think about setting a powerful intention? For more about why and how to do this, read the feature article in this issue of Notes from the Harp.

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In This Issue:

Article
Setting a Powerful Intetion

Technique Tip of the Month
The Value of Listening

Improvisation Starter of the Month
Roving Thumb Pattern

Resources
New Finds

Why create an intention? In the midst of all the overwhelming choices about where to focus your energy, setting a powerful intention helps you decide what’s important to you each and every day. Instead of feeling like what you want has become a dreaded must-do on your list, an intention keeps your focus on the joy of doing what you most desire to be doing with your precious time.

The resistance and fear most of us feel, the things that make us procrastinate, come from setting ourselves up with statements that seem more like dictates than powerful intentions. No time is this more true than with the fervor of New Year's Resolutions! To clarify the difference, here are two examples of statements I might write regarding my journey with the harp next year:

1. I will practice everyday, find x number of new students, work on my website for ten hours per week, work through my procrastination, and rough out my harp book by May.

2. I intend to invite Spirit to flow through me, nudging me towards the next juicy musical surprise everyday, as I use my harp, my teaching, my site, and my composing to reach those who are thrilled to be discovering their own music.

Which statement would you rather live with? Which one makes your heart beat faster? The first statement isn’t a powerful intention; it fact it isn't really an intention at all; it’s an expectation I'm making for myself.

An expectation implies that only perfection counts, that hard work is required, and that willpower alone will prevail. It implies that I'd better put my nose to the grindstone and step up to the plate. It makes me tired just to read it . . .

An intention, on the other hand, is more like an invitation, made powerful by a promise to yourself that you’ll revisit what matters to you and ask your own guidance system for a nudge towards what to do next. If you do it daily, or even weekly, instead of once a year, imagine what your own wisdom can tell you.

Reread the second statement and see what happens inside you. Better yet, try putting your own harpy desire in the statement instead of mine. Keep refining your intention until it feels yours, it feels good, and it makes you look forward to the ball dropping on December 31. Revisit your intention throughout 2008, and remember if it doesn't seem to fit anymore, change it!

When you are learning an unfamiliar piece, don't overlook the value of listening. Hearing a piece is a vital part of learning it, and can speed up the process tremendously. Just as visualizing is an overlooked practice strategy, listening barely registers on the list for most students and even some harp teachers. My grandmother, an old-school piano teacher, used to warn me that listening to recordings of a piece I was learning would interfere with my own interpretation of a piece. Little did she understand how valuable that listening could have been, saving me countless practice repetitions of pieces full of wrong rhythms, inappropriate tempi and even wrong notes.

While the fear of copying someone else's interpretation dies hard in some circles, your harp teacher will probably be open to playing a piece for you, as well as helping you find at least one recording of it. Luckily, my harp teacher believed in the power of listening and even suggested I make a compilation of all the pieces in my recital to listen to religiously. Active listening, with the score in front of you, will make you much better at listening while you play, helping you avoid that dreaded automatic-pilot state where we don't hear our own music.

But even listening to recordings while doing other things (my favorite is while driving) will drastically speed up training your ear and making the piece "yours" from the inside. Likewise, it will ultimately help you interpret the piece with knowledge and sensitivity. Instead of restricting you, listening provides fresh inspiration that actually deepens the possibilities of your interpretation of your piece.

Finally, don't forget that attending live performances, no matter what pieces are played, is unbeatable training in music. Even if the concerts available in your area don't include harp, drink in all the live music you can find. If you love Celtic music, pay attention to what singers and instrumentalists of all kinds do to translate its magic, and think about what you would do in their place. All of this listening will enrich your playing beyond your imagination.

If you like to improvise, arrange and/or compose music, you have probably collected some favorite patterns for your left hand. A quick look at most Celtic harp books will show some very common patterns, such as rolled chords on beat one, three note arpeggios (4 2 1, anyone?), and various combinations of chords and extra notes in an "oom pah" style. One of my favorites is a rocking arpeggio with a changing top note, known as the "roving thumb."

Find this on your harp by putting 4 2 1 on the notes low C, G, and middle C. Play them from bottom to top, back to middle, and then to top again, but this time moving your finger to D. Next time, play E on top. The whole pattern spells like this: C G C G, C G D G, C G E G, C G D G. Now it starts over with the first set. Notice that you only return to the low C (finger 4) when you've played all of the roving thumb notes.

Practice this pattern on just this one chord until it feels natural. When your left hand is playing a busy pattern like this, you can bring in something really simple (whole or half notes) in your right hand, and it will add a lovely contrast. Once this is easy, graduate to other chords. You just need to find the root, the fifth, and the octave of any chord, and add the walking notes above the octave.

When you're ready, take the chord progression from a simple tune you know and try playing 2 measures of each chord using this pattern. Adding thirds or sixths as long chimes in right hand can be lovely, too. Have fun, and keep improvising!

Barbara Fackler has some lovely sheet music for harpists, including several Celtic and Classical pieces and a tutorial on reading leading sheets. Find it here: Horn and Harp Free Sheet Music

If you haven't heard of Maeve Gilchrist, you are in for a treat. This Scottish-born lever harpist is redefining Celtic music, bringing not only her lovely voice but an amazing jazz sensibility to everything she does. She is my new favorite, and she just came out with her first CD. Check it out at her website: Maeve Gilchrist

Just for fun, and to encourage your spirit of playful improvisation, watch the "Cat Playing the Harp" video on YouTube. Check it out here: Cat and Harp

Finally, something completely different and enchanting. I won't give away what's so magical about this harp video. Go watch it and be transported. Harp Escape

All content by Susan Zevenbergen, Copyright 2007.

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