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Have you considered trying something completely different, just to cleanse your palette? DHC teaches an online “Blues, Harp-Style” class a couple of times a year. I took the pilot course a few years ago and it was incredibly fun.
Hi Romola,
Fun from the First Vol 1 is on sale at Harp Connection right now for $4.95. Their shipping is reasonable, and they get the stuff out the door quickly. The second volume is currently $12.50 at the same store.
Have fun with your lessons!
AngelaPrajna, I’m so glad to hear you’ve found your harp and teacher matches! Best wishes with your first steps. 🙂 Angela
Hi Prajna,
I teach adult novices, and I would say that a weekly lesson is necessary in the beginning. Of course there are variables such as motivation and background, but you might be surprised how much can go wrong with your understanding and usage in six days when you’re just starting out. And if things get too jumbled between lessons, you then have to unlearn the wrong stuff at your next lesson before you can move forward again. Talk to your teacher about your financial concerns. It won’t be anything new to him, and he’ll have strategies for addressing it — perhaps his students usually need to see him weekly for six months, and then they’re okay to move to bi-weekly lessons. Bi-weekly means you’ll have to adjust your expectations, though; you’ll progress slower than half-speed. It is a rare person who can keep himself motivated every day with a consistent two-week deadline!
As a person who taught herself to play harp from books, I can say that without guidance I missed steps along the way, so I ran into a wall, which led to burnout. A good teacher is WORTH IT. Work the cost of lessons into what you’re willing to spend on the harp. If you have a teacher available to you in any kind of reasonable way, but the expense of a particular harp means you can’t afford the lessons, then I’d go so far as to say you can’t afford that particular harp.
Since you’re an adult beginner with no music experience, the very basics of harp plus music theory will take you anywhere from 8 months to 2 years. You’re on the younger side, so depending on your motivation and how packed your life is, maybe the shorter end of that. During that time you can absolutely get away with a Harpsicle, and you can often find those used or with coupons at someplace like musiciansfriend.com or music123.com (those places seem to have the same stock, but their coupons vary). If the cheapest of playable harps is what it takes to be able to afford a teacher, then go with it. You can sell and upgrade later.
I hope you’re having fun with this process! Please let us know when you pick a harp!
AngelaI also use a bow, but I play standing with my lever harp on a stool, so I tie the bow loosely where the column meets the base. The ends of the bow fall over the green fabric on the stool. My bow has gold bells, for that little extra bit. 🙂
Hi Andelin,
Teaching is the other side of learning. If you know how to learn, at some level you know something about teaching. That’s not to say you can’t get better at teaching (you’ll get much better as you do it); rather, if you’ve learned your instrument, you have a place to start.
The best way to learn how to teach is to find someone who wants to learn. You’ll be most comfortable if it’s an older person who clearly won’t be making a career of the instrument; that way you’re not messing anyone up for life. You can use this person to start establishing your rhythms: how much of each lesson will you spend on theory? Exercises? Songs? How will you teach pulse? Rhythm? Harmony? In what order? What is the most important area to start with? What can wait? You might even start with small-group lessons or workshops. I’ve been doing those for a while and can share details if you’d like them.
Regarding your experience, simply be up-front and you’ll be fine; just keep in mind that it can take a lot of time to build a studio. (I’m five years in, in a small region, teaching two instruments, and I currently have 13 students with two more in the wings.) I do have professional training in voice, but there are teachers a couple of towns over who are at a much higher level, and I encourage people to go there if they can afford it. I still have plenty of students. In harp I only claim to help people understand the building-blocks. And again, I still have as many students as I want. You’ll probably charge less in the beginning to reflect your experience. If you keep going, you’ll reach a point where it’s no longer worth it to you to teach at that rate, and then you’ll increase your prices. No big deal. The thing about your studio is that it’s your studio. Once you launch it, you’re officially an entrepreneur! You make the rules.
You’ll also want to start thinking about your goals in teaching, because they will determine how you establish and run your studio. My primary personal goal is to spread music in my region. Because of this, I’ve set my studio limit at 20 (voice and harp students combined) so that I can continue to relate to each of my students on an individual basis – that’s how I believe I can be most effective, and it’s also what makes teaching fun for me. However, within this relational approach to teaching I’m very strict about the professional aspect. Even this is part of my goal to spread music: I’m teaching people to take it seriously, which is not a small thing where I live.
In the beginning you should find that you’re spending a lot of time prepping for each lesson. As you establish your patterns, it will become easier and faster. Each of my students has a file of Word documents in my computer. When I’m prepping for lessons, I open last week’s document, save-as the current week’s date, make any necessary changes, print two copies, and hole-punch it. In the lesson I sandwich a piece of carbon paper between the lesson sheets, take notes, and at the end the student gets the original and I put the carbon copy in my binder. When I’m prepping the next lesson, I refer to my carbon copy so that I know where I need to make changes or update something.
Some of the resources I use:
Flashcards
Beginner method books (Vols. 1&2)
ExercisesClearly I can really go on about this topic, though I did go back and cut out a lot. If you want to talk more, you can find my contact info at my website.
Good luck!
AngelaThanks Tacye, that will be a good place to start! And thank you for the recommendation, Donna, I’ll look that up. 🙂
LOL Carl… I’m sorry for outing the secret? But Merry Christmas to me!! I’m very excited to hear that you’re already in process and I won’t have to wait a year. When it’s officially published, please post and let us know right away!
Hi Andelin,
My harp room is 120 sq ft, and yours will be 126 sq ft. I have two bookcases for music and supplies, a desk, a Rinnai space-saving heater, a dehumidifier, a cajon, a Harpsicle on a stand, five Harpsicles hanging on the wall, and my performance harp in the middle of the room. The room is currently at max capacity if I don’t want to feel squished every time I walk in there (though my ceilings are lower than standard and yours will be quite high). The quarters are too close to teach there. My dream harp studio will be at least 15- and preferably 20×20. Then I could add a pedal harp to my fleet. 🙂
My current harp room was originally carpeted. It kills all the sound and really decreases the pleasure of playing. Right now the floor is linoleum stick-on tiles, and they’re much better than the carpet. When I take my harp out to teach on the wood laminate floors in the dining room, I don’t notice an appreciable difference between laminate and linoleum. I’ve only played on wood at churches, and there’s a lot more going on acoustically in that setting, so I can’t comment on wood. However, I second Sid’s recommendation to go with a hard floor and add throw rugs or curtains if you find the acoustics too live. And if you can use real wood or tile, do it, if only for the value of your house. Linoleum and laminate’s primary recommendation is simply price.
I would suggest “Harp Games” by Lisa Lamb, available on Amazon. It has some musical bingo-type games, form exercises, aural exercises, etc.
Are there reasons why her lesson shouldn’t be a half-hour, if that’s the length of her attention span?
Hi Alyson,
I only played French horn in high school, so I’m by no means a horn expert. However, I do have a little experience with it and am also a professional vocalist (i.e., professional breather). If horn playing was described to you as predicated upon “building up tension in your torso,” that choice of words is your first problem. I encourage my voice students to think of breathing with pressure adjustments as a matter of “flexible strength.” Yoga is very good for this, so I second Gretchen’s suggestion. Furthermore, I would suggest that your finger/arm tension is actually a breathing problem. If you improve your breathing, I bet you anything your harp playing will relax. This forum isn’t the place to go into detail on that; we’d have to talk.
That said, I have found Alexander Technique very helpful with both my singing and harping. If the AT teacher in your area specializes in singing, he may be a voice teacher with some Alexander training. In that case, he might not be able to help appreciably with harp, but he could probably help with your breathing — which I’m almost certain will significantly help your problem. However, if he is a certified Alexander teacher who simply has a primary interest in singing, he should be able to help you. Alexander, while it can be tailored to address specific uses, is a whole-body technique.
BUT, I’ve been doing AT for two years with a really good teacher (mostly small-group classes with one private lesson a month), and it is a long-term commitment. Please don’t expect to go in and just get “fixed,” as if you were going for a massage.
Good luck!
AngelaI’m not particularly familiar with politics in the harp world, but in general politics are found wherever there is more than one person. To practice kindness is a good general rule. Whatever happens politically, if you’re always kind you’ll always be innocent.
I have… actually, I don’t know off the top of my head how many Harpsicles I own! Eight? Two or three are usually out for rent and I have to keep five on hand for workshops. I use them for teaching, rentals, and Christmas caroling in my neighborhood. Recently I played an outdoor funeral in the POURING rain and used my Fullsicle (there was no way my performance harp was leaving my car). I told the family about the rain caveat ahead of time; nobody else there knew the difference and everyone loved it.
I keep one Harpsicle set up on its stand because I use it to give lessons. It holds its tune very well, though I only use it one day a week. After their strings were stretched and soundboards bellied, I’ve found that the several harps I use once every couple of months for workshops hold their tune well during that workshop hour. I go through and rough-tune once, then start over again and fine-tune and they’re good to go — after two months without being touched! If the one you tried was going out of tune, it is a fluke flaw, the harp was never given that initial tune-every-day period, or it went a very, very long time without a tuning.
The Tasty Harps Company is very helpful. My first Harpsicle was one I bought for super-cheap because it had a blown soundboard. Even though I didn’t buy it from the maker, they told me how to fix it, and that was the start of my fleet. Most recently, I bought back a previously sold Harpsicle from a student who was having financial trouble. I didn’t think to look for bent tuning pins initially…. but when I discovered one, THC sent me a couple of replacements no charge. They’re really nice, helpful people.
If you want to busk and your budget is about the size of a Fullsicle, I think it’s a good choice — and get a guitar strap. I always feel really cool playing a harp while walking around. I mean seriously, how many people on this planet are lucky enough to do that? 🙂
