Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Get some exercise – three good reasons

As the winter comes, we want to burrow in, swaddled in sweaters, nursing steaming cups of lovely tea.  And we’re likely, given the chill, to get some practicing in which is good given that ‘tis nearly the season and we’ll be asked to play more often.  The days are shortening, the nights getting deeper.

It would be easy to crawl back under the duvet, to snuggle in to our beds.  But all that snuggling and all that nestling needs to be combated.  For your general health and well-being you need to get a little exercise and some fresh air*.  And a little exercise and fresh air won’t be amiss in your playing either.

We’re not talking about running a marathon or training for the World’s Strongest Man competition.  You can just go for a short walk to gain a benefit.  There are three good reasons to get a little exercise this season:

1. The simple act of taking a walk outdoors in the winter will help lift your mood.  Evidence suggests that even 10 minutes of sunlight a day can help stave off seasonal affective disorder.
2. A little time outside can invigorate you (and thereby, your practicing).  Think of it as a little wake from your potential long winter’s nap! A short walk can enhance your energy (again directly contributing to your practicing).
3. A little extra exercise will also help exorcise those extra cookies that appear in the season and allow you a small measure of perceived virtue! And everything you do to take care of yourself will be reflected in your time at the harp.

So use these three good reasons to get a little light exercise outside, even as the winter deepens and the cold settles in – you’ll be glad of it when you sit at your harp – to practice, to share or to perform.

* Of course, this is not medical advice, nor should you pursue this approach if it is in direct contradiction to advice received from your physician.  This post is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Duh.

You are what you think. Now get ready to change your mind.

What a great quote!  I stole it from a brochure for a conference – that has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff we normally talk about…which is why it stood out to me – I love when I get knocked on the head by a thought that seems to be from left field and yet is TOTALLY aimed at my head!

How do you think about yourself as a musician?  A harp player? A performer? A person?  Do you ever think about how what you think about you impacts the you that is present?

Are you open and accepting of yourself?  How do you talk to yourself? Would you talk to anyone else that way?

Many of us talk to ourselves in a very negative way.  But here are 7 ways to turn that around:

1. Make time during your practice to provide constructive feedback
2. Make kind and gentle feedback comments to yourself in a positive way
3. Write down your feedback….and read it again later
4. Record yourself so you can provide more objective inputs at a later time and from a different perspective
5. When you are not very nice to yourself, stop, correct yourself, and restate your thought in a positive, constructive way – the way you would to another person
6. Take your time not only observing yourself and the way you think, but also to reconstruct the kernel of the original message in a positive and useful way.
7. Lather, rinse, repeat!   

You can change your mind by practicing reframing your comments to yourself.  And it will get easier…with practice!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas –

It’s barely begun to cool down, the days have hardly gotten any shorter and the trees haven’t really begun to show their colors.  It’s October!  But it is also definitely time to start preparing for Christmas!  From parties to church services, from fundraisers to celebrations, ‘tis the season to be asked to bring a little joy to people by playing for Christmas.  Will you be ready?  Here are 8 things you can do to be prepared this season:

•  Start now – Christmas is right around the corner, but the holiday season is even closer.  Holiday decorations had appeared in big-box retailers before Labor Day and the Christmas events will start after Thanksgiving if not before so you need to start now to be ready.

• Make a preparation checklist – write down those things you need to do to be prepared (some of the items in this post might be helpful for that).  Use your checklist to help yourself prepare.
• Budget your time – be sure to manage your time effectively – refreshing tunes you’ve learned before, learning new material, whatever you need to spend your time on – arrange to have that time available.
• Select your tunes – know what you are preparing for and use that information to generate a solid set of tunes (and specific tune lists).
• Schedule practice – not kidding.  The holidays are notorious for days filled up beyond reason, earlier than expected, and with way too much to do.  Be sure to schedule your practice time in – or you won’t get any!
• Use your practice time wisely – because your practice time will be at a premium, be sure you plan for that time so you can get the most out of every moment.  No shillyshallying at the harp, no unfocused playing through – actually practice when you’re practicing.
• Make notes for next year – some of your preparation will be very good, some will be no help whatsoever. Make notes to yourself for next year so have even better preparation in the future.
• Enjoy yourself – the preparation is challenging, and the added stress of performing may get to you, but be sure to enjoy yourself.  And also be sure to acknowledge any improvement in your performance, the level of difficulty of the music, the speed of refreshing tunes you had learned
  in previous years – all those positive indicators that arise from your preparation.

Christmas comes but once a year – fortunately, it stays for a while and provides you a great opportunity to prepare and to play for family, friends, and customers.

Community Ties

One of the things I like best about the harp community is that it is a community – with lovely people.  There is a specific joy from coming together to share music and laughter and friendship and experiences.  To that end, there is a lovely opportunity to get together with other harpers coming up soon.  If you can make it, you should not miss the Washington Area Folk Harp Society Getaway (WAFHS). 

The instructors this year are Seumas Gagne and Emily Mitchell.  The annual WAFHS Getaway weekend will be November 7-9, 2014 at the Wyndham Gettysburg hotel in Gettysburg, PA.

Seumas Gagne and Emily Mitchell, photos unceremoniously snatched from www.wafhs.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The registration fees are $105.00 for WAFHS members and $125.00 for non-members.  There is also a reduced rate for non-adutls (see the website).  There is a package deal with the host hotel that includes meals during the weekend (including the banquet).  Check http://wafhs.org/getaway for updates.