Notes from the Harp
Issue #14 April 2010

Welcome to Notes from the Harp!

I know it's been a long time since you heard from me. I've been busy starting tons of new students, both locally and via Skype. It won't be long before I have to start a waiting list! Besides that, I've also been working on lots of harp arrangements that I hope to publish later this year.

To make up for the wait, I'm sending you a bumper-crop issue. I've included two guest articles by my almost 20-year-old daughter, Kathryn. You can let me know if you think she's earned her chocolate! In this first article, she tells you how not to stress while learning music theory, and in the second she teaches you about the chords on the scale with some zaniness about colors and M&M's thrown in.

Besides that, I've included an article about some simple practice habits to get your pieces flowing faster. Don't miss the special announcement about the new, interactive website feature. Plus, there's a fun way to improvise with Pachelbel. Finally, we'll have a bit more fun at Pachelbel's expense.

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In This Issue:

Guest Article
Music Theory: Taming the Wild Beast
By Kathryn Zevenbergen

Guest Article
M&M's, the Rainbow, and Diatonic Triads
By Kathryn Zevenbergen

Technique Tips
Unblock Your Ability to Learn

Special Announcement Your Chance to Participate in the new Interactive My Harp's Delight Improvisation Starter
Play with Pachelbel's Canon

Resources
Resources: Fun with Pachelbel

Music theory is a term that gives many musicians the feeling that the apocalypse is here, and that they should move to New Zealand and start a life of sheep herding, never again to be faced with this language that most people don’t understand, let alone speak fluently. I’ve lived in Germany for about nine months, and when I first got here, I didn’t understand much in my classes. But trust me, if you sit there long enough, sponge up enough information, it will start to make sense. I am not going to promise an epiphany. You probably won’t wake up one morning and go analyze Liszt. But slowly, the pieces will start to fall into place, if you give them time. And don’t stare out the window at the squirrels every time you hear the words "music theory". Yes they are cute, but they don’t understand it either.

When Mom mentioned she hadn’t written her e-zine in a few months, I said I would do it. I had no idea what I would write about, because I’m not a harpist. So, although I could write with ease about most horn-related topics, all I ever do with the harps is tune them when I’m feeling nice, or flip the levers randomly to make them impossible to play when I feel like being annoying. I decided to write about music theory because it’s one of my happy places. I admit, I’m one of those people with t-shirts with music theory jokes on them, who belongs to Facebook groups about music theory, and who can smell a modulation coming a mile away. Music theory for me has always been easy. Mom doesn’t believe that I can make it easy for you too, so being the dutiful daughter, forever determined to prove my mother wrong, I’m going to try. Maybe if I do a really good job, she’ll give me chocolate.

So why is music theory important? Why do we bother to learn it if it makes many of us (including many of my fellow music majors) want to go learn alternative agriculture techniques in Zimbabwe? Basically, music theory is a set of rules and regulations that have existed and evolved in music since music was created. These rules basically encompass what the people at the time thought sounded good. As composers broke the rules (which they almost always did and continue to do), theory changed and evolved, so theory in Bach’s time was quite different from how it was in Beethoven’s. We study music theory to try to understand what the composer did to make the pieces work, what internal mechanism makes them tick. We also study music theory so that, with luck and with a few simple rules, we can learn how to improvise or compose something beautiful.

TIP #1: be patient and loving with yourself. Nobody, with the possible exception of Mozart, get’s music theory instantly. Being human is to be limited, and I don’t believe God teaches theory class in His or Her spare time. Give yourself permission to make mistakes--often you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. Give yourself permission to take time to understand things. Give yourself permission to take baby-steps. Most importantly, give yourself permission to eat a bit of chocolate when you finally do understand something.

TIP #2: ask your teacher to explain it again, and again, and again, and again, in as many different ways as possible. If you have a friend, acquaintance, or relative who is also a musician, ask them to try and explain it. Often, all you need is a different way to think about something. It’s not that the first explanation is wrong, it’s just that we all learn differently. Try to understand how you learn; it’s the first step to actually learning.

TIP #3: take breaks. I remember doing math homework as a kid. The more I struggled, the harder it became, until I was a big teary mess, my parents were contemplating murder, and the world was ending. But if I stopped, ate something (chocolate?), went outside, and thought about something else for a while, when I came back to it I had a fresh start. Suddenly it was much easier. Music theory is the same. The more frustrated you get, the more impossible it becomes. If you don’t learn something instantly, refer to TIP #1, and then take a break--and eat some chocolate.

TIP #4: imitate. A lot can be learned from hearing something you like, and then trying to play it. Do you have a favorite song on the radio? Can you sing the tune? Can you make it come out of your instrument? Now, what note does that tune use the most? Observing the little details of your favorite song can lead you to accidentally discover the theory behind it. Figure out what sounds good to you, and then try it.

TIP #5: Listen to music. I can’t stress this enough-- really, I can’t. Listen to anything you can check out of the library, and not just for your instrument. Every instrument has shortcomings, and listening to how other instruments work can be fun. As a horn player I turn to clarinets for phrasing, oboes for breathing, and pianos for understanding harmony. You always have something to learn from other instruments. When you listen to music, see if the music is similar in any way. If you think you hear something in the harmonies you’ve heard before from another composer (or the same composer but another piece), that’s the music theory you’re hearing. You don’t have to understand it, just notice.

TIP #6: when you’re taught something new, try to use it practically. It’s all very well and good to be able to write a C major scale on paper and then name the triads and their function. But what does that actually mean? On paper, nothing. Ask your teacher what you can do with your instrument and the new information. Learning some practical application makes it relevant to your life, and thus will help you remember it.

TIP #7: experiment. Take 20 minutes, grab your instrument, and play. There is no wrong; there is no right. "Right" and "wrong" are two useless words you should delete from your musical vocabulary. Play a note. Then play another note. Play a few notes together. Make up a melody. Make something that sounds beautiful, and hopefully with some learning, someday you’ll understand why.

TIP #8: review. This seems obvious, but music theory is something you learn in a specific order for a specific reason. Reviewing what you’ve already learned makes learning the new stuff much easier, and keeps you from getting sad and confused. If you don’t know algebra, calculus will be hard. If you don’t know your triads, don’t learn seventh chords.

Music theory is either the necessary evil of the music world, or a wild beast you get to tame to make music more fun, beautiful, and exciting. You get to choose. Let's see what tricks that beast can do!

My mother has so kindly informed me that in order to actually earn the chocolate, I have to take a crack at explaining something that she says most of her students struggle with: diatonic triads. To make this even more fun, she has banned me from using words like “interval”, “major third” and “fully diminished iii9/vii” (for anyone panicking, the last one isn’t even musically possible. Plus, those are words I’m not allowed to use). So, being a sucker for a good challenge and really wanting that chocolate (I recently lost a bet against my mother and orchestra director, and thus am feeling a sad shortage of chocolate, having mailed out the last of my Swiss chocolate to the states yesterday as payment), I am going to attempt to explain diatonic triads using a metaphor. Possibly a metaphor that involves M&M’s.

According to Wikipedia, there are currently only six colors in an M&M package, thus my metaphor is a flop (but Mom, they have coconut M&M’s??? Mail please?). So, since Skittles won’t work either, I’m going to use a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. If I were you, I would now find paper in these colors that you can cut into strips that you can arrange in patterns as a visual aid (I’m sorry, I know it would have been more fun to be arranging M&M’s. We can write to the company and complain if you would like). Arrange them in a circle in front of you, and then we can make pretty patterns.

So let's now build a triad starting on C, which is red. When you build a triad you always use three notes (tri=3--another math analogy again). You always hop over one note between each of the three notes. So our triad would be red, yellow, and blue, which in notes is C, E, and G (we hopped over orange and green). We can do that on any note: a triad on B would be B, D, and F, or violet, orange, and green (this is when having your papers in a circle is important, since scales are circular, not linear. Oh dear, I’m resorting to math words again).

Because there are different chord qualities in existence, some triads will be major, some will be minor, and one will be diminished. This depends on what color we start our triad on. If we start it on C, F or G (red, green, or blue), the triads will be major. If we start it on D, E, or A (orange, yellow, or indigo) they will be minor. If we start it on B (violet), the triad will be diminished.

Now, go to the harp. Make sure that your harp is in C major. Play the C, F, and G triads. Do they sound happy? Now play the D, E, and A triads. Do they sound sad in comparison? Now just for fun, play the B triad. Does it sound either small, or freaky weird? Perfect; it should. The triads have different qualities because, thanks to the uneven steps of the scale, they sound different, not because the "Powers That Be" wanted to make music theory confusing (that was just an added bonus).

Now you’ve probably heard the words "key signature" before. This means that we’re changing the notes in our rainbow. You can build a scale on any note, but you have to add sharps and flats to keep it sounding the same (to shift those half steps necessary in a diatonic scale to be in the right places). However, the rainbow colors don't change, even though the notes do, as long as red color remains as the first note of the scale. Does that makes some sense? But honestly, you’ll be slightly happier if you just worry about C major right now. It is the most important key for you, and the rest will come later.

I hope that you can use your rainbow to help you remember your scales, and I hope that I didn’t just make triads more confusing than they already were. Most of all, I hope that I finally get my chocolate.


Kathryn Zevenbergen is studying Music and German in Oldenburg, Germany, on an Exchange Program from the University of Northern Colorado. She plays the French horn and piano and any other instruments she can get her hands on. Except harps; those she just re-tunes and puts through lever experiments to challenge her mother.

Download Notation of Chords on the Scale Here

Free Music Theory ebook--Take the harpist survey here

Probably the question I'm asked most often is about getting the music to flow, especially with two hands. Many of the articles in past issues of Notes from the Harp focus on techniques that will help you flowing faster. Just in case you've missed all of that (still available in the eZine archives, of course) or are still stuck, I've written a guide to the quickest route to harp mastery--the techniques I use and teach that really will speed you to fluency at the harp.

Here's how it usually goes: You're sitting with your teacher at your lesson. You open your book and turn to the piece you're working on. You start to play. You stumble in measure 4, right where you always stumble. You sigh and try to keep going. Your teacher sighs, too. (S)he asks, "Didn't you work on that practice spot?"

You sigh again and think, "What's a practice spot, and why can't I just play the piece?" You can just play it, yet all the while hoping that eventually you'll somehow get the hang of all of it, even that spot in measure 4.

But at some point you'll ask, "Why am I not 'getting it?' Why is this so hard?"

Well, the problem is your brain, but not for the reasons you think. You're not too old, too rusty, too distracted or simply too lazy to learn. You're just not using the harp practice techniques that will allow your brain to reliably grasp and remember the complex actions required to play this piece well.

According to psychological research, it takes only seven repetitions of a stimulus to learn something new. That means that however you first play a passage or piece on the harp will become ingrained after only 7 passes of playing it. On the other hand, if you've learned the passage wrong from the start, it takes 35 times of playing it to over-write it with what is correct. Catch that math: that's five times as long!

So, let's start with a clean slate. Click here to read more.

Everyday, I receive emails from people all over the world thanking me for the rich resources and encouragement I've provided on My Harp's Delight. Now there's a way you can add content of your own, comment on each others' ideas, and help spread the love of all things harp.

The Tips & Techniques page, long your hub for all the goodies on the site that help you play the harp with more ease and flair, it's now interactive! It's easy to add your own tips or comments to the page with the built-in form. Please try it today! I'll be there, too, commenting and cheering you on, as always.

Share your tips and tricks here

Here's a fun way to become more comfortable with that oft-requested piece AND learn to improvise at the same time. It's especially useful to free up your right hand. Pachelbel's Canon makes us of the same chord progression over and over:

I V vi iii IV I IV V

In the original key of D, that's D A Bm F#m G D G A. Play just the root of each chord in your left hand. Notice that you go down a fourth, then up a step, down a fourth again, until you get to the final two chords. (Don't have levers? The chords in C are: C G Am Dm F C F G).

Now for the fun part! With your right hand, you will be outlining the chord tones to create patterns. It will be easier to play and sound a lot better if you use inversions of the chords to keep them closer together and “under your fingers”. Here's the progression with slash notation to show you which note is on the bottom of the inverted chords (say, D over A, and play A on the bottom, with D and F# above it, otherwise known as a 2nd inversion D chord):

D/A--- A--- Bm/F#--- F#m--- G/D--- D--- G/D--- A/E---

Or, in C:
C/G--- G--- Am/E--- Em--- F/C--- C--- F/C--- G/D---

Practice finding the chords in your right hand while playing those roots in your left hand. When you know where they are and can find them reliably, you're ready to play with them. Remember that the left hand simply plays the chord root on beat one; the right hand will fill the whole measure.

Here are some patterns to try:

*Play with rolled chords; two half notes per measure
*Start with the top note; play down and back up in a pleasing, regular rhythm
*Play the chord tones plus one extra “color” note in each measure (a note between two chord tones. If you don't like how a note sounds, simply move on)
*Play the chord downwards in a triplet pattern (one triplet per beat)
Create a meandering melody that wanders around the chords

Now its your turn. Anything can work. Regular rhythmic patterns will sound more classical, but how about some syncopation for a Latin canon? What rhythm would you use to make a rock-inspired canon? A dreamy New Age canon? Keep playing and experimenting, and you will stumble into new patterns for your right hand. Have fun and make it yours!

Pachelbel tango? Pachelbel bluegrass? Check out this video by "Pagagnini" for laughs and inspiration for improvising with the canon. The cellist is your left hand . . .

Pachelbel Madness

This is the original cool Pachelbel video, the Pachelbel Rant. Rob Paravonian demonstrates just how often this chord progression shows up in music, and you will laugh through the whole thing. Go ahead, watch it again . . .

Pachelbel Rant

All content by Susan Zevenbergen, Copyright 2010.

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