Practicing Harp Happiness

#259: When Right Is Wrong: The Ultimate Musical Dilemma

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Playing music is hard. Trying to evaluate how well you are playing it is even harder, much harder.

If this were a sport, a game like baseball, our efforts in relation to those of the opposing team would be reflected in the score. In an individual sport like golf, your score is a marker of your performance against the challenge of the course, the weather and any number of other factors. In an artistic endeavor, such as art or music or dance, there isn’t an objective numerical scale to score the outcome. I think that’s why I am always ambivalent about Olympic figure skating judging. I understand that they have tried hard to find objective measurements for all the aspects of a skating performance, but there is still room for debate. There isn’t always a clear right or wrong.

When we practice, we aim for “right;” we want to get the notes right, our technique right, the fingering right, the pedals right, the dynamics right. And as my friend MJ says, we get all wrapped up in right. When we get wrapped up in right, we lose our perspective on the music. It’s not seeing the forest for the trees. I’m sure you get that. Yet somehow we still focus on being correct. In fact, I believe we actually overvalue being correct.

That’s why, on today’s show, I’d like to explore the actual damage that overfocusing on right can do, how it can sabotage the music you’re trying to create. Never fear - I promise I won’t tell you to play wrong notes, and I won’t leave you without some ideas for refocusing. We’ll get you back on the right side of right.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

For another look at this topic, check out this article: Perfection or Performance? It's Your Choice
Experience the freedom of faster learning, more expressive playing, and the confidence to play like the harpist you know you can be with a My Harp Mastery membership.
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#258: 7 Ways to Place Chords: Beyond the Rules

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

When was the last time you took a moment to just play some chords on your harp and let yourself simply enjoy them? When you hear that rich, resonant sound, you know that this was what your harp was meant to sound like. Perhaps hearing someone else play chords like that was why you decided to play the harp. It’s goosebump territory, for sure. You can feel it in your bones, in your core.

I don’t know that there is a more beautiful sonority than a big beautiful harp chord, perhaps lushly rolled. But, I also know that there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t have to stop in my practice to check my chord placing to make sure I can play those chords the way I want. Just because they’re beautiful, doesn’t mean they’re easy, but you already know that.

One of the first things we harpists learn about chords is that the key to a well-played chord is in the placing. Getting the right fingers on the right strings at the right time is the biggest hurdle we face. I’m reminded of a famous quote of J. S. Bach: “There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.” This seems to me to reveal an over-developed sense of humility on Bach's part. Playing an instrument is definitely not that simple, but when it comes to playing - and placing - chords, getting our fingers on the right strings at the right time is certainly a good place to start.

Today’s show is indeed about placing chords, but I want to offer you a different perspective, one that is less about the technique of placing chords and more about the musical situations that may call for strategic changes in the way we think about how and when to get our fingers on those right strings. In other words, I’m going to talk about when the usual “right time” isn’t the right time, when you should consider breaking those rules I know you worked so hard to learn in order to make your chords sound the way you want. So get ready to break or at least bend some rules today.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Podcast Episode #205: Placing Chords: How to Find the Right Strings the First Time
For extra clarity on placing techniques: How to Play Four Note Chords Without Finger Fumbles blog post in the archives.
Experience the freedom of faster learning, more expressive playing, and the confidence to play like the harpist you know you can be with a My Harp Mastery membership.
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#257: Creating Your Secondary Practice Style: A New Look at Your Practice Breed

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

A number of years ago, I wrote a blog post comparing practice styles to two breeds of dogs: a German Shepherd and a Greyhound. This was my metaphor for discussing a topic I found really hard to address with my students, the fact that their natural practice style was a determining factor in the speed of their progress. Let me explain.

I had some students who were committed to doing everything correctly and as a consequence learned carefully and thoroughly, but rather slowly. I had other students who wanted to play the music right away. Their enthusiasm and energy got them to the finish line quickly, but we often had to go back to pick up some important points they had missed along the way. Both learning styles were good, to a certain point. But at that certain point, each style needed to incorporate the strengths of the other one in order to get the music to the finish line.

So to help my students understand this better, I chose two wonderful dog breeds as representations of the two learning styles, a German shepherd and a greyhound, both wonderful dogs with very different characteristics. While the German shepherds maintain order and discipline, the greyhounds race to the finish. My goal was to give my students a non-judgmental way to think about the way they liked to learn and inspire them to step outside their comfort zone a little so that they could make more predictable progress and enjoy the process a little more.

It seemed to work, to capture the imagination of harpists who had felt they were missing something but weren’t sure exactly what it was. A few years later, when I started this podcast, I added a third breed of dog, the beagle, the joyful investigator, into the mix. In fact, that podcast episode was the very first episode of the show, and you’ll find the link to that in today’s show notes.

What I want to do today is to talk about what to do when your practice style needs to shift, or when you find yourself drawn to a new way of practicing that’s different from your usual style. Of course, I’ll review the traits of all three breeds of practice styles and I’d like to add a fourth, too, the golden retriever.

By the end of our show today, you should have a pretty clear idea of your primary practice style and why it works for you, when it doesn’t work for you, and how to step into the shoes, or should I say, paws, of another breed when you need to. It’s a different lighthearted look at your practice today. Oh, yes…I’ll share my own practice breed with you too, although maybe you can guess. We’ll see if you’re right!

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Episode 1 of the podcast: Find Your Practice Style: Style No. 3 “The Beagle”
My Harp Mastery member resource: Practice Routine Refresh class
Harpmastery.com

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#256: Moving Up: The Intermediate Level Skills You Need

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 07:00:00 -0400

I think one of the biggest challenges in music study is that it is very difficult to really measure our progress. It’s so easy to lose track of what we’ve accomplished when we’re faced with new challenges that often seem to be more of the same ones we’ve been struggling with all along. The notes are still hard. Our fingers still aren’t moving fast enough. We still can’t make our music flow.

The reality of music study is that we will continue to face the same challenges at every stage of our harp journey. At the same time that we find new levels of facility or expression, we find new levels that we want to attain. It can feel as if we aren’t getting anywhere, even when we truly are making significant progress. I like to think of it as a spiral staircase, where we are dealing with the same skills but at increasingly higher levels.

Naturally, there are ways we can remind ourselves of the strides we have made. Reviewing pieces we played long ago or reading old practice journals can be powerful evidence that what was hard for us then isn’t hard for us now. Participating in exam systems can give us the stamp of approval from an objective source that in effect certifies our progress.

But it can be frustrating to feel like you’re not progressing, even if you actually are. And it can be more frustrating to wonder if you will be always stuck playing beginner level music, even advanced beginner level music. Or course, we know that these levels aren’t standardized in any way, and we must recognize that our own skills have strengths and weaknesses that make some pieces easier than others for us. Even so, it would be nice to know what skills really mark the step up from beginner to intermediate. That’s what I want to help you clarify today.

I’ve talked before about skills that I consider “level up” skills, but today I want to look at a wider range of skills and show you how they translate to that important, if ill-defined, jump from advanced beginner to intermediate music. And if you’re a solid intermediate level player and you’d like to push yourself to a more advanced playing level, this will show you how to move up that skill ladder too.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

For My Harp Mastery members: Climb the Scale of Success.
Related resource: The Line Between Difficult and Too Difficult blog post
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#255: Simplify and Renew: How to Spring Clean Your Harp Playing

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Spring is finally settling in where I live. You might be weeks ahead of me or behind me or in a totally different hemisphere, but in the spirit of sharing what’s on my mind and what’s happening in my world, I want to talk about spring cleaning today. Naturally, though, I’m not talking about cleaning windows and carpets and closets. I want to talk about spring cleaning your harp life.

When I first decided to focus on spring cleaning for this podcast, I didn’t want to take the easy way out. It would be easy to talk about harp care - changing strings, cleaning your harp, the right products to use, etc. But I wanted to go deeper and look at what matters to your harp playing even more than new strings or polish. I want to talk about your playing, your practice, your music.

We all get into a practice routine, and in general, having a routine is a good thing. It helps us stay on track more easily by creating a habit that can be nearly effortless to follow. But those same habits that support our playing can become ineffective when they go from being effortless to being mindless, and sometimes we aren’t even aware of it happening.

Here’s a simple example. Maybe you like to warmup with a particular scale or arpeggio pattern or perhaps a favorite short piece. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, unless you find yourself playing it so automatically that you aren’t paying attention to those things we want to watch in a warm-up: our posture, our relaxation, our finger action, and so on. Sure, we’re still warming up our fingers, but our focus is really elsewhere.

This is where we can decide to do a little spring cleaning. We can try a different warm-up, or rotate between several warm-ups. We could play our warm-up in different keys. There are a million things we could do, but the refresh is the point.

So in our spring cleaning planning today, I want to focus on two big objectives. One is refreshing or renewing some of what we are doing, whether it’s part of our practice routine or maybe the music we’re playing. We want to spruce things up a bit.

The other objective is to simplify, to investigate what’s working for us and what isn’t, to eliminate extra work so that we can do more of the playing we love. Think of it as decluttering your harp playing. We will start by simplifying and then we’ll get on to the renew and refresh part. And it’s going to be fun.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Check out this blog post from the archives: Spring Clean Your Technique: 5 Days to Fresher Fingers
A five day guide to understanding music at a deeper level: Playing More Musically: 5 Days of Discovery
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#254: Music Theory Starts Here

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0400

If you came to me for a lesson and said you wanted to work on music theory, my first reaction would be to do my happy dance. I admit it - I am a theory geek. I love talking about the building blocks of music and exploring the way composers use them to create the kaleidoscopic variety of music we love to play.

But after my happy dance, I would ask you this question: why do you want to learn music theory? It’s not a test question; there is no wrong answer. But I have often found that harpists make assumptions about what theory knowledge will do for them, and those assumptions, if they aren’t completely wrong, aren’t always on the mark.

Knowing more abut the inner workings of music, the nuts and bolts of it, is undoubtedly important for any musician. It is also certainly true that some elements of music theory are immediately applicable to our playing. Most harpists, for example, realize that if they understood more about how chords work, they would be able to learn their music more quickly, sight read more easily and memorize faster. That sounds like a superfood for your playing, and lots of harpists are ready, willing and eager to add that to their practice diet.

But before chords will make sense to you, before they will be really useful, before you can become fluent with them, you need to know your major and minor keys. You need to know them cold, not have to figure them out, just know them as well as you know your alphabet. This is a step that too many harpists fail to take. They try to jump right into learning about chords without the foundation that makes their construction and sequences inevitable and logical.

So that’s where we are starting today. I want to be sure that whatever your goals are with music theory, you have the knowledge that everything else in our system of music springs from: scales and keys.

One caveat - don’t think this is going to be basic baby stuff. I promise unless you’re a complete theory geek like me, you’ll learn something today that you didn’t know before.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Blog post Musical Understanding Starts with Key Signatures
Podcast Episode 6: Minor Keys [A Scale of a Different Color]
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#253: Your Ultimate Guide to Practice Journaling

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0400

I was recently at the home of a harpist friend, and she showed me her stack of diaries, her appointment books from past years. There were decades of them. She was deciding it was time to get rid of them, but she wasn’t quite ready to do it. I had to admit that I pitched mine long ago, and that occasionally I have wished that I still had them. They would be fun to look through.

Those entries, even the most prosaic ones, recall so many memories. They bring to mind places, people and events that you have nearly forgotten. Suddenly, you are transported to a different time and place, even a different version of you, and this can give you a different perspective on where you are, and even who you are, now.

But we aren’t talking about calendars or diaries today; we’re talking about practice journals, and the variety of ways that you can use them. Right off the bat, I will say that some of those ways are more impactful than others, in terms of promoting your progress and growth. For instance, if you’ve been using your practice journal as a simple way to keep track of what you’ve done, I think you’re underutilizing your journal. It can be an engine for forward momentum, not just a log of today’s practice. And we’re going to explore some of those ways today.

One disclaimer here: I am not one of those people who are natural journalers. Although many of my friends in our teen years kept diaries of all kinds, I was never able to. It always seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t really enjoy it. I appreciate that some people are very good at this and enjoy it, and I wanted to be clear, in case you’re more like me, that I am not one of those people.

However, I do use a practice journal and so I know firsthand how valuable it can be. So if you’re a journal-lover, you’re going to find some new ideas for journaling today, at least I hope you will, and if you’re a little reluctant to dive into this journaling thing, be patient because I understand where you’re coming from, and I have some key tips for you too.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Try the Spark Practice Journal, available in print or PDF versions
Practice: A New Definition blog post
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#252: Learning to Play By Ear: a First Steps Seminar

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 08:23:34 -0400

Playing by ear is one of those things that musicians either know they can do or think they’ll never be able to do. Those who are practiced at it seem to have endless tunes at their fingertips. Name a tune, and if they know it, they can play it. To those who can’t do it - at least not yet - it seems nothing short of magical.

But ask someone to explain how they work this magic, and you will likely get an answer that isn’t much of an explanation. They might talk about understanding and learning to hear chords. Or they might say they learned by trial and error, trying to play along with songs they liked. Or they might simply shrug and tell you they have no idea. But it’s only rarely that you encounter someone who will actually attempt to explain their process.

Notice that I said, “When you meet someone who is practiced at it.” Playing by ear is something you can learn. Like so many other apparent feats of magic, there’s no real trick to it once you learn how it’s done. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s certainly doable. Even better, if you decide to experiment with the practice ideas we’re going to talk about today, you’ll find that you will begin to notice things in your music that you never paid attention to before, things that help you learn and understand your music at a deeper level. That’s why playing by ear is really not a magic trick, but a serious musicianship skill, and that’s why I wanted to talk with you about it today.

What you’re going to hear is a part of a live seminar I gave a while back for our My Harp Mastery members. This call was followed by a workshop where I guided them through the practice techniques from the seminar so they knew how to continue developing their skill in playing by ear.

This is the kind of thing we do inside the My Harp Mastery community. We have a live call each week where my coaches and I guide you through every aspect of playing the harp, whether it’s learning new music together, or learning how to learn a piece of music, or working on technique or working through our Scale of Success curriculum. If you like learning about topics like this and getting expert instruction on how to be a better harpist and musician, I strongly suggest you check out everything that we include in our My Harp Mastery membership and join us.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#251: Creating Your Harp Life with Dr. Kristina Finch

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 07:00:00 -0500

I know it’s cliché, but when I was a young harpist, I wanted to be just like my teacher, the same way children want to be just like their parents. Specifically, that meant to me that I was going to play in a big orchestra someday. It was years later when I discovered that not only were there other paths harpists could pursue, but that some of those paths actually suited me better. I’ve certainly done my share of orchestral playing, and I enjoy it, but I have always found more scope and more musical opportunity in chamber music and solo performances.

When I was still in high school, I began to freelance, to play a variety of music in various settings to earn my living. Don’t get the wrong impression; I didn’t have to earn my living in high school. My freelance playing at that age set me up very well to earn a good living freelancing in college and beyond. I reveled in the variety, in the unusual experiences I had, in the interesting places my playing took me. I still do some of that kind of playing, albeit less than I used to, and I still enjoy it.

On today’s call, I am speaking with harpist Dr. Kristina Finch. Some of you may know her as one of our Harp Mastery® Certified Coaches. She has an extremely busy freelance career which has taken her all over the world. And now, she has a new harp path, in addition to playing and teaching; she and her husband are the new owners of the Harp Centers in Atlanta, Virginia and New Jersey.

I asked Kristina to join me on the podcast, because I wanted you to hear her story about change, about refocusing her harp career and the insights that she has gained in the process. Our conversation was fun – it’s always fun talking with Kristina – but I think it will give you some insight as well, and perhaps some takeaways about realizing your passion and balancing your own harp life.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Register now for the Atlanta Harp Center Festival
Visit the Atlanta Harp Center
Visit the Virginia Harp Center
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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#250: Masterclass: Making an Etude Out Of Your Piece

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:00:00 -0500

Today’s show is a masterclass, a show where I get to dig in to how to do something. We aren’t just talking big picture concepts; we’re going to get down to the nitty gritty.

I have to say this is my favorite kind of show to do, because it feels like teaching, almost like we’re right here together in the same room, and I’m sharing what I’ve learned to help you learn too. I love that.

And I really enjoy this topic too.

Our topic is how to make an etude from a piece you’re trying to learn. Let’s say you’re working on a piece and most of the piece is ready to go, but there’s one part that just won’t come together. You could take that section and make an etude out of it. Or perhaps the piece you’re learning is really a little above your head, and you’re not really stuck, but the going is very slow. There are etude possibilities there too.

I’m sure many of you already do something like this, whether it’s playing that section in different rhythms or just keeping the tempo slow while your fingers get used to the patterns.

But today, I’m going to show you a different way of doing it, a way that I have found to be more effective and one that will help you get to the music faster. We’re going to look behind the notes to what’s really going on, so that we can find the key to unlocking that passage or technique for you. So grab a pen and paper so you can take some notes and we’ll get started with our masterclass.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

Renie, Au bord du ruisseau on IMSLP.
Study with Harp Mastery® Certified Coach. Start here.
Related resource: Etudes: The Case For and Against blog post
Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

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