…especially if it still falls apart when I try to put them together?

Anne Sullivan is a harpist, teacher, founder of Harp Mastery, and an expert at helping her students achieve harp happiness.

Stop right now. When we are first learning the harp, hands separately practice helps us implement the fundamentals of technique and develop good habits. It is a path to learning. Later on, hands separately practice becomes a secondary learning strategy, so we can isolate and correct details. Harpists must understand that playing both hands alone is not a guarantee that the hands will work together. Hands together playing requires very different coordination of physical and mental processes. For this reason, continuing to practice hands separately will not assist you in putting the hands together.

I encourage my students no matter what their skill level, to play hands together from their very first encounter with a piece. Playing a section of two to four measures slowly hands together, then reviewing each hand separately as needed, and then finishing with another hands together repetition is a good strategy. Our playing is mostly hands together, our practice should be too.

To ease into playing a passage hands together, try playing all of one hand and just part of the other, or playing one hand and singing or saying the notes of the other, or working backward from the end of the passage beat by beat until the coordination develops.

Allison Allport is a busy orchestral and studio harpist. She maintains a large private teaching studio and is on faculty at California State University Northridge, where she teaches harp and musicianship.

Putting hands together in a tricky passage is a great opportunity to practice the art of practicing. While working hands separately, break the music down into individual technical elements and work each one until you feel comfortable and strong. Then, go back to the passage you want to master. Use a metronome to keep everything at the same tempo so it flows naturally when you put it together. 

When working hands separately, always have an awareness of what the other hand will be doing, working slowly and in very small sections if necessary. While playing one hand, sing the notes the other hand will play. Then, imagine playing one hand while actually playing the other. Mental practice is extremely powerful and can save you from repeating mistakes that become difficult to undo. Try playing a small bit hands-together in your imagination. If the passage is fuzzy in your mind’s ear and eye, it probably won’t go well in real life yet. Try practicing that small snippet in your head and not touching the harp until you’re sure it will go well.

If you are not getting the results you want from your practice, try approaching the challenge in different ways. Ask your teacher for advice and give their methods a chance. Most importantly, be creative, curious, and patient with the practice process itself. Have fun!

June Han is a graduate of Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, Yale School of Music, and The Juilliard School. She is on faculty at Yale School of Music, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and The Juilliard School Pre-College Division. 

When practicing separate hands, prioritize more repetitions than you think necessary, for reliable and lasting results within an efficient timeframe. While it may be tempting to stop the separate-hand practice after what feels like sufficient time, in reality, it takes a few days for fingers to assimilate and achieve muscle memory. Isolating each hand’s notes, fingerings, and pedals through separate-hand practice results in accuracy and confidence. Execute these repetitions in a forte dynamic and in a very slow tempo, incorporating rhythmic exercises—preferably with a metronome. Though not initially fun, one will gain immense satisfaction in solidifying notes, fingerings, and musical lines consistently throughout the passage. 

Rhythmic exercises entail configurations of twos, triplets, and quintuplets, in tightly dotted rhythms, all performed forte. Sixteenth note passages particularly benefit from this regimen. The metronome is your best friend for gradually speeding and building up to the desired tempo, ensuring an even pulse without hesitation. Only move up to the next tempo when every detail is perfect. For Baroque and classical repertoire, this practice regimen contributes significantly to polishing and solidifying all contrapuntal lines. 

After all this hard work of separate hands, transitioning to playing both hands together smoothly and perfectly requires returning to a much slower tempo. Despite the tedium of starting back slowly, it is the most efficient way to master coordination on the harp, which demands extra vigilance and attention. •