In 2016, Stephanie Halsey played her final recital at the Royal Northern College of Music for her degree in classical harp performance. Soon after, she found herself questioning all she had worked for. Halsey says, “When I graduated I realized, ‘I have no idea who I am and what I want to do. I thought I wanted this, but now it doesn’t feel right for me—it’s a dress that doesn’t fit. I need to go in a different direction.’” 

While continuing to gig, Halsey set out to work in the music industry, learning useful skills while working in music marketing and venues, but without finding the “dress” that fully fit her. After a tour with musician Gary Numan in 2018, she realized she wanted to work in music performance, but not in the classical genre. She decided to pursue jazz instead.

In the autumn of 2019, she started a master’s degree in music at the University of Hull. Because she was a beginner in jazz, she focused on studying herself: the process of transitioning from classical to jazz. The genre switch had a challenging start. “You have to accept that you’re not going to be good. You have to relearn a lot of things—rhythm, improvisation, and just having fun and playing.”

Editor’s Note—This article kicks off our new series, Practice Makes Harpist. Over the next several years, we’ll follow nine harpists pursuing different paths with the harp to see how their practice evolves and shapes their musical experience. 

Taking lessons from jazz harpist Amanda Whiting helped Halsey learn how to practice jazz. Technique work, once pushed to the side, now became a habit. “It’s a lot of rhythm work, scales and seventh chords all with different rhythms.” Soon, she began to understand chords, harmony, rhythms, and technical work. 

For Halsey, the most difficult step was improvisation. “In the beginning, I could only manage five minutes of improvisation before I had to stop,” she says. “I realized that I was doing something completely new to me. I started to build up my stamina, just playing a few minutes more.” 

In David Beckstead’s article “Improvisation, Thinking and Playing Music,” she learned that separate regions of the brain are used for different types of practice. Playing read passages or pieces from memory uses the sequence, planning, and problem solving brain areas, while improvisation turns on the same processes used in daydreaming, meditation, and complex multitasking. 

Halsey started to link other practices, such as yoga and meditation with improvisation. “Meditation has a big impact on my playing. In fact, it’s had an impact on my whole life. I’m a naturally anxious person, always thinking all the time, with my mind going off on tangents. The meditation helps me come into the moment.” Halsey also credits meditation with helping her focus while practicing and being more comfortable with her musical voice. 

With jazz, her view of mistakes has evolved. She explains, “At music college, I was pedantic about mistakes. I would beat myself up. I’d ‘make mistakes’ frequently. I was unkind to myself. Improvisation changed my vision of that. In the start, I’d see myself as playing wrong notes, ‘not jazzy enough.’ I have learned that it’s not wrong, it’s just something different.”

Her practice routine has changed significantly from what she had at music college. “Then I used to practice four hours with the harp daily,” she says. Now she usually plays around 10 hours a week. “But what is practice?” she asks, rhetorically. “Listening to other jazz musicians is practice for me. Giving myself the space to be creative is practice.” Now her practice is more holistic. “Living life is practice. Taking care of yourself is an important part to playing and practicing—physically and mentally.”

Because she’s holding down a job and harp gigs, Halsey keeps careful track of what she needs to be practicing. Using a technique she learned working in marketing, she puts the important dates in the calendar and then works back from there, marking down which needs to happen which week for her to be prepared for upcoming gigs and concerts. “For example, if I have a wedding two months from now, I have the music listed and what week I need to start practicing it so I’ll be ready for the wedding.” She makes sure to leave extra time in her schedule so items can be moved back a week, if needed.