Practicing Harp Happiness

I was googling around the internet the other day when I ran into an article that began with this question: “I have completely different fingerprint patterns on both hands. On my right, each finger ha…

I love riddles. Here’s an oldie but goodie for you. What’s the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

So what’s the best way to learn a piece? One bite at a time, obviously. It’s just that …

In my family, my grandmother’s sister was pretty much our favorite aunt. Aunt Dolie was sweet and generous, although she never had very much of her own and worked very hard all her life for what she …

I rarely have guests on the podcast, but today I’m so happy to be sharing the show with my dear friend and my former student turned colleague, harpist Candace Lark, If you’re a My Harp Mastery member…

They say that only two things in life are certain, death and taxes. But if you’re a harpist you know there is a third certainty; at some point, often at the wrong point, you’re going to break a strin…

Maybe you’ve noticed or maybe you haven’t, but these podcasts are organized into three different categories. One category is “Practice and Performing” and another is “Music and Meaning.”  The third c…

At one of our Harp Mastery® retreats several years ago. I presented a workshop called “Learn Anything Fast.” That sounds like a pretty ambitious topic, and I imagine that some of the retreaters were …

In a world of sticky notes, Gorilla Glue and tape that can hold a leaky boat together, why can’t we make a piece of music stick in our fingers?

Does this sound familiar? We sit down at the harp on Mo…

I was going through some old music the other day and came across a notation that made me smile. It was written in my best elementary school cursive script and read, “Thumbelina’s having trouble with …

Are you a free spirit, a rebel? Or maybe you just hate being told what to do?

I have to admit that sometimes one or more of those labels fits me. Most of the time I toe the line but there are moments…

Have you ever had one of those moments when you wonder if you’ve been doing it all wrong? It might be something you have taken for granted, a habit maybe, or a process, something you thought was the …

Johann Sebastian Bach is a name every musician knows. He is revered as a composer whose music defined musical practices in the Baroque era and whose compositions still influence music and musicians t…

Today’s podcast is all about tempo, and I have to start by saying that tempo is a funny thing. We define it with numbers or with the familiar Italian words, or less familiar French or German ones, an…

When I was preparing for this week’s show, I couldn’t help being reminded of a couple of tired old jokes.

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Doctor: Then don’t do that.

And,

Patient: Doctor, i…

It’s high time I got up on my soapbox. It’s not often I do a rant on the podcast, but there’s an issue that has me so fired up that I had to talk about it with you.

I believe it’s the result of how w…

This podcast episode goes live on April Fool’s Day, and I probably couldn’t have picked a more appropriate day to release it. I didn’t do it on purpose, but today’s topic lines up very nicely with Ap…

We harpists take our finger placement seriously. Getting the right fingers on the right strings at the right time is paramount. One misplaced finger and a whole passage can go wobbly.

One of the quot…

Call me crazy if you want. I know your ideal day might be a day at the spa, or sitting on the beach with a good book, or going for a hike in the mountains. Although those all sound good to me, my ide…

My husband’s family is German, and even before we were married I discovered that one of the things I had long heard about German housewives was true, at least in my mother-in-law’s house: Germans tak…

See if you can guess the answer to this.

What can sometimes feel gently rocking like a boat on a lake on a calm summer’s day, and other times puts a lively spring into your step? It isn’t hard, but i…