Make your music shine!

When I walked into my local grocery on the morning of Halloween – yes, on the 31^st of October – the candy shelves were bare.  Not picked clean by overeager spoilers of goblins, ghosts, and ghouls. Swept bare – professionally cleared out.  In preparation for stocking the Christmas treats.  In October!

That helped slam home how little time remained before the holidays.  How little practice time actually occurs before the onslaught of holiday playing opportunities.

In the weeks since then, while cramming Christmas carols and jamming holiday songs, it’s easy to lose sight of one teeny-tiny element.  Yes, you know you need to know the music – but how will you make it shine?

You might be shaking your head thinking, “what is she on about now?”.  What do I mean by “shine”?

Well, think about it.  There will be music everywhere.  Children’s choirs, high school bands, muzak, and….you.

You with your beautiful, enchanting harp.

You, with your lovely arrangements.

You – just another performer in a season that is full of performers and goes on and on and on.

So, how will you stand out?  Of course, you will have the novelty of the harp.  And that will be satisfying to your listeners for a few minutes.  But it is what you do with it that will keep them captivated.  And this is true whether it’s your first Christmas harping, or if you were there playing at the nativity!

You will play your best for them pa rum pum pum pum.  You need more - but what?  I'm so glad you asked - here are five ideas. 

1. Remember – the melody is the thing.  You may be working on an arrangement that looks like the most rhythmically complex arranger made a bet with the most lux chords arranger to generate an arrangement that uses all your fingers, toes, your nose and your friend's fingers – but if it comes apart (from nerves, poor lighting, not enough preparation, or any of the other things that knock your playing) it doesn’t serve your audience.  Be sure to deliver the melody – on time, every time, even if you have to drop the harmony.  An amazing arrangement is great, but it's the melody that's the show - the melody is the thing – deliver the goods.
2. Learn some cool stuff, but include the traditional old favorites.  I recently saw a statistic which indicated that over 90% of Americans celebrate Christmas, even though somewhere like only 40% identify as church going Christians.  As humans, we crave traditional things, and we follow trends!  So, know your audience (as much as possible) and play for them.  For every I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas have a Silent Night.  And I’ll give a prize to the person who can explain to me why this hippopotamus song is so popular!
3. Don’t forget the rest of your repertoire.  Even though it’s holiday time, you can fill out your performance package with some non-holiday tunes.  These give the advantage of being slightly more practiced, so if you hit a rough patch, playing these tunes will help you to refocus and settle back in before returning to Christmas.  Distribute these tunes throughout the set list and keep the non-holiday portion of the list to about 25% or so of the total.  The change up will revive your audience of the monotony of all holiday music, which happens - especially as we get closer to Christmas day.
4. Add “pro” touches to the tunes.  If you typically play trad, there aren’t a lot of intros, codas or bridges.  But now, it’s holiday time and not everything is trad (or not the trad you usually play!).  So, step up your game.  Generate some intros.  You don't need to spring the tunes on the audience.  Intros are cues to your audience of what’s to come so they can be part of the music.  Don’t let them all be church organ wonders (playing the last phrase before launching the tune).  You can use a “catchy” phrase, a countermelody, a chord progression, or anything else that helps the audience be “in” on the tune as it starts.  Add a bridge to move between tunes that make good sets or pair up tunes that help lead from one to the other (my current favorite is to lead into Silent Night from a riff on Brahms' Lullaby).  and don't forget the coda to make sure everyone knows your about to wrap the tune.  Remember – you’re communicating with the audience so don’t bury the lead – let them be part of the conversation.
5. End Big!  Keep a standard that is a strong part of your repertoire for your close.  I like We Wish You a Merry Christmas – it’s upbeat, comes in varying tempos and, like Auld Lang Syne, helps signal that we’re at the end of the event.  This works well for a background gig and it also makes a great encore/stage return for a concert gig.  Either way, if you can, practice it with volunteers “joining in” so you can get a feel for how it sounds/what it feels like when people start to sing along.  Trust me, it will happen and the first time, you might as well be ready for it.

All of these elements will help make your set shine – like the lights on the tree.  I'm sure you have great ideas too - what do you include to make your holiday music shine?  Do you close with other tunes?  Let me know in the comments! 

Happy Thanksgiving

Celebrate Peace

Sunday was Armistice Day, and the 100th anniversary of the end of the war to end all wars.

Ok, so they didn't get that bit right.

Armistice Day, Veterans' Day, Remembrance Day – no matter where you live, it is an opportunity to remember the fallen who gave their lives, and those who pledged their lives so we could enjoy ours in peace and freedom.

That seems like a good reason to give them their due the way we are best able – through music.  

There are so many things you could do at this point.  You could do nothing, of course.

But instead, you could commemorate the original Armistice and play the tunes of the day – there was some great tunes written at that time including Keep the Home Fires Burning, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, or Carry Me Back to Ol’ Virginie.

You could play music from other post war eras including anything from Irving Berlin.  Or you could just play music of our own time - which we enjoy because of those that came before.

You could compose your own pieces.

And you could play in a number of places including a Veterans' Home, for a veteran’s group, or another civic group.

Just play – and enjoy that you can do so in peace!

Give it a rest!

There are so many things we can do with our harps to make a noise – typically beautiful, but not always.  And there are all the effects – from bowing the low strings to PDLT to damping to glissing – we have all kinds of ways to disturb the air and get sound.

We each spend time practicing our favorite sounds.  Or those required by the score (Bernard Andres comes to mind quickly, but there are others…).  We might even spend time actively seeking out new noises to make from our instruments or perfecting our technique to assure we get the effect we meant (harmonics come to mind).  We work hard to get noises from our harps.

And of course, we spend a great deal of time learning to play so that we know exactly how to touch our instruments, so we get what we wanted – beautiful tone, deep, sonorous chords, compelling melodies, captivating harmonies.

But there is something else that we should practice that will enhance all this.  We always let this get by us, and yet, it is often the secret sauce that really “makes” the tune.  It allows the audience time to reflect.  It gives you a space to think.  It helps insert life into the tune.  And it seems to terrify so many of us.

 

What is it that we’re so afraid of? 

Is it a technique that is difficult to master? Nope

Is there some “signature composer” that we should have already thought of (but we haven’t)?  Nope

Is it some advanced riff that only the best musicians get? Nope again.

It’s the magical, useful, and all too undervalued rest.

You know – silence.

The space b-e-t-w-e-e-n the notes.  The ones you might shave in the fast tunes (which is why you end up playing faster).  The ones you wish you didn’t have so many to count in ensemble.  The ones that can completely make (or break) your competition air.  The ones that, when used appropriately, get your audience right where you want them, in the moment, with you.

Why do you need to practice your rests?  Well, mostly so you will be comfortable – with the silence.  We often “clothe” ourselves in the protective wrapping of notes.  We think that we will be protected if we have the notes or that we are vulnerable and exposed in the space between.

How about you turn that thinking on its head.  In fact, the rests are the most free part of the melody.  Rests add a strength to the harmony that the sounded notes cannot.  And they give you a little bit of a breather.

You already know how to make a rest.  You just don’t play (or you also damp).  And you don’t play for some finite amount of time (as described by the music).  You create an absence of sound.  You don’t generate any sound.

Of course, as you practice a piece, you would generate a rest if required by the composer in the piece.  But, there are other useful times for silences – between pieces? Under thunderous applause? When you want to get the attention of the audience?

So, how really do you get comfortable with rests?  Especially the long ones.  Because, contrary to popular belief, that is not time made available by the composer so you can fidget! That’s true whether it’s a 16^th rest or a thousand bars of rest in an ensemble piece.  No matter how long or short, you need to wait, be quiet, and be ready, but not overeager, to come in.

Short rests are relatively easy to practice because they are a direct part of the melody.  You can practice them with your metronome, just like every other element of the music.

For the longer rests, between tunes or to create a mood, here’s a suggested practice element.  This can help you become more consonant with the emptiness of the rest.  Use your watch (but only sparingly).

One of the most difficult things to do is to estimate how long you have been sitting, making silence.  I had the opportunity to play for a meditative event.  In this playing, it is important to leave a little space for thinking, praying, and contemplation.  So, the rests become ever so much more important! A full minute is not too long to wait.  I actually used my watch. 

And learned something so important – when I had finished a tune and was waiting to begin the next, I had thought, “oh crikey, I better get going or they’re going to think I’ve fallen asleep.” 

Watch check – 18 seconds. What?!? Only 18 seconds? It felt like a week.

I was aiming for 90 seconds.  It felt like forever had gone by.  Boy was I wrong!

After that, I start practicing estimating the amount of time that had passed since the end of the tune.  (Reality check – to you the tune might end when you start to play the last chord, but to the audience, the tune ends when they can’t hear the lingering reverb any longer (or you complete your gesture) – which could be a while!) 

My hack for estimating time – because it’s rude to check your watch over and over – is to sing the Birthday Song in my head.  It takes about 10 seconds to sing (don’t rush it just because you’re not singing aloud).  I breathe.  I position (and then check) my fingers when I’m ready to play again.  I don’t rush. Want to leave a minute? Sing the song six times through.  To get 90 seconds sing it 9 times. 

This ability to “tell time” without telling time will also make your presentation easier on your audience and on you.  You can assure you leave some "breathing room" between your tunes.  When you are not in a rush, you are more present which makes your music more lifelike and fuller.  And what’s not to like about that?!?

So, incorporate full rests (no shaving of note value) and waiting rests (silences between) into your playing and Give it a rest!  How do you make space for the silences?