Boot Camp Week 4 - Five Weeks to Better

If building a habit takes 21 days, then you’re on your way to a solid practice habit.  And although sometimes it can feel like liver and durian on the same plate, you know it’s good for you – so stick with it – we’re almost there!

Stretch – Hand yawns: Few things are as satisfying as a good long yawn.  It looks funny - but it feels good!  These we’re going to spread that satisfaction to your hands.  These are a fun, quick, and can be done just about anywhere.  Start with your hand closed, fingers together. Take a deep breath.  Now spread your fingers as wide as you can.*  Reach with each finger.  Hold your hand open like that for 5 – 10 seconds.  Keep breathing.  Do each hand 3 – 5 times.  Fully relax your hand between stretches.  You can do this stretch before and/or after your practice, while you’re on the phone, while driving (of course, don’t let go of the steering wheel!), or while waiting in line in the grocery – the possibilities are endless.

Technique – Lever changes: You might not think about lever changes as needing a lot of practice, but because they are relatively infrequent, you do need to practice doing them efficiently and smoothly.  Making a lever change needs to be like all the other movements you make – on time, quiet, accurate, and consistent.  Let’s focus on the left hand because, while you can do right hand lever changes, you will want to avoid those as much as possible!  Today we’ll focus on changing a single lever.  The same process occurs when you modulate or change a lot of levers at the same time).  We’ll do this in ¾ and you’ll play a note, engage the lever, play a note, play a note, disengage the lever, play a note – try that until you get the hang of it.  Then you can work on playing this exercise:

In effect, you start in C tuning and by the end you have moved yourself to D tuning. Move carefully and deliberately.  In the left hand, (beat 1) play the D, come off and (beat 2) engage the lever, (beat 3) return to the strings and play the D.  You can do any key you like – remember we’re only trying to change one lever.  Go slowly at first.  Be careful, stay in rhythm, be accurate (get the right lever!), and be thorough (fully engage the lever).  As you get more comfortable, pick up the tempo, but do not accept sloppy.  As you get the hang of it, you can move on to modulation (changing from one key to another – in this example, changing all the Cs and Fs on the harp – but get changing one down before you try that!).  Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy (but still takes practice).

Practice element – Counting: Counting is essential.  No matter how you feel about it, music is applied mathematics, so whether you’ll admit it or not, you should always be counting.  And although you’ve been counting since you were young, you s-t-i-l-l need to practice counting your music.  The challenge is to have enough spare mental capacity to ensure you are counting even when things are tough.  And, lest you think that all the harp hero’s you’ve watched on stage aren’t counting – fie – they just have way more practice than you, so they are at the end of this paragraph – and you might be right here àStart by counting aloud.  No really – out loud – so everyone can hear you.  You might notice that this is difficult.  It’s hard to talk (count out loud) and play and think about what comes next and everything else! And it won’t get any easier unless you practice it.  When you can count out loud while staying on tempo and on rhythm and while playing the right notes, then you can, as always, pick up the tempo a little.  And as always, when you fumble, slow down and work it some more.  When you can play and count out loud successfully, then you can move to internalize your counting more.  This is more challenging than it sounds – the next step is to say the numbers without saying them out loud – still a bit of extra work.  From there you can verbalize the counting inside your head (and yes, you should still be able to “hear” yourself counting, only now, you’re the only one who can hear it!).  This can be a slow and painful process, but it’s so worth the work. 

We have only one week remaining in this summer’s boot camp – one more week to work hard to be ready for all the summer fun that awaits – hope you’re finding it useful and as always, I’d love to know how you’re coming along, what was helpful, what was hard to follow, and how you are noticing improvement in your practice and playing! 

*Remember that I’m not that kind of doctor, so please be careful, work within your own abilities (which isn’t to say don’t stretch yourself but also, don’t hurt yourself!). Be careful and only do what you can do. This blog pro­vides gen­eral infor­ma­tion about trying to stay health and other sub­jects related to playing the harp. All the con­tent pro­vided in this blog, and in any linked mate­ri­als, is not intended to be, and should not be con­strued to be, med­ical advice. If you have a med­ical con­cern, con­sult with an appropriately-licensed physi­cian or other health care worker. Never dis­re­gard pro­fes­sional med­ical advice or delay seek­ing it because of some­thing you have read on this blog or in any linked materials. If you think you may have a med­ical emer­gency, call your doc­tor or 911 immediately. The views expressed on this blog and web­site have no rela­tion to those of any academic, hospital, practice or other insti­tu­tion with which the author is affiliated. Don’t be thick – these are just suggestions – take care of you!