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I received some harp music, but, most importantly for me, a heavy-duty music stand that doesn’t fall over!
My first inspiration for harp came when I heard someone my age playing a harp (no idea what piece) live.
Hello, all, and Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the U.S.!
The best advice I’ve ever received for performance anxiety was from my high school band director. I’ve always struggled with performance anxiety, and played a few piano preludes that I was preparing for a competition.
When I mentioned my anxiety to him, he asked “what are you afraid of, specifically?” I answered that I wanted to play my pieces perfectly, and that I feared making one mistake that would lead to another, and then to another, etc.
He replied “Have you ever just made up your mind to make a mistake on purpose?” Go ahead and make a mistake, on purpose, even a few mistakes, and notice that the world does not come to an end, and that you are still in control. If you make your mistakes early, and intentionally, you won’t make many (or any!) more.”
Well, that works for the most part! I think that the idea that you make a mistake and survive helps lessen the anxiety a bit. Thanks, Wayne Markworth (retired Centerville High School Band teacher, and former principal trumpet player in the Dayton Philharmonic).
Lisa
Curly, you are very cool. I have had a number of piano students over the years and never had an issue with their clothing…maybe I was lucky. I agree with the poster who said that female students need to think about what they wear in terms of bowing at recitals. My husband, a teacher, just bought a pair of sneakers for a student who had only one pair of shoes and could not participate in physical education class. I kind of get what some are saying if their students are affluent, but that is not always the case.
As a counselor for my “main” job, I do encounter female students who come in exposing a lot of skin, which I find a little distracting, but my effectiveness as a counselor would be compromised if I starting focusing on their clothes, as opposed to what they came to talk to me about.
Lisa
All excellent tips!
Miss Lawrence’s “repeat 10 times” idea bears a striking resemblance to my mother, who made me play a piece 5 times through, perfectly, before letting me get up from the piano!
It feels like I’ll never get this, but I must say that with the harp it always feels that way, and then, magically (with lots of practice) it just seems to come together!
Amen, Carl.
I have said before on this column that music saved my life. It was my means of expression, my confidant, and my counselor. I had a piano teacher from age 5 until the day I went off to college as a full-scholarship piano major that I will never forget.
Sounds sappy, doesn’t it? My teacher wasn’t a trained counselor–what she taught me had everything to do with technique and theory, but that skill provided me with all of the choices I needed to control my own life.
Her teaching provided an amazing and needed counterpart to one of my parents, who, if they had been a piano teacher, would have been at the opposite end of the teaching spectrum. At home, I was a trained monkey–“I’ve set up an audition for you here on Wednesday, on Thursday you are booked at the Rotary Club, Friday you will provide background music at a private party, and next week we’ll be having friends over–will the new Rachmanoff prelude be ready?”
I’m trying to say that the teaching articulated above provided the most empowering counterpoint to everything else–and that made all the difference.
Lisa
Hi Pippin!
Don’t feel too badly about your lack of piano background–I have an extensive background in piano (majored in it in college) and it has its advantages, but some downsides, too. For example, I get VERY frustrated when I can’t play a piece, instantly, and perfectly. I know that it’s not reasonable, but I don’t want to start at square one again! Yet I have to, and I’ll have to develop patience about it too.
I’ll bet that you end up learning left hand much as you the right–rote, rote, rote. Boring and tedious, but it will come. Those of us who learned it early have just forgotten how long it took the first time!
I think that I had a similar experience to yours when I tried to learn to play the bass guitar after knowing a little bit about “regular” guitar. Even though I knew both clefs, it was just so hard not to “see” those bass strings in treble clef mode. Finally, I had to pretend that I didn’t know treble clef at all in order to change gears mentally and think in bass mode.
Oh, and I’m also terrified when I play with both hands on the harp. I just crawl along the strings sometimes, so afraid that I’m going to hit th wrong note. Finally, I started playing some of the time with my eyes closed, which forces my hand to recognize intervals, etc. from muscle memory.
Have patience with yourself and keep at it. For a while you may feel like you are plodding along, but it will come, I promise.
Lisa
Many thanks to Carl et al for such an informative discussion on this topic. My excellent harp teacher (Chelsea Spence in Fort Collins, Colorado) and I had a very lively discussion on placing based on this discussion!
John Doe….again. Oh, boy.
John, perhaps you can elaborate a little about the difficulty that you always seems to have with Salvi. Where is your information coming from? Have you worked for Salvi in the past? I would like to hear something substantive about your negative experience, instead of the same old lines about buzzing, soundboards that pull up, and, I think, several posts about the way they smell! Where’s your evidence, and what’s your background? (By the way, I love Camacs too, but jeez!)
Lisa
Placing in sequence is a more advanced technique that uses all of the skills developed from placing blocks of notes.
Carl, would you mind elaborating a bit on this statement? As a beginning harpist, I think that placing one note ahead would be much easier than block placing.
-Lisa
I am a beginner in Fort Collins, Colorado (raised in Ohio, college in Kentucky, also lived in Chicago, Orlando, New Jersey and New Orleans).
One of my co-workers once asked if I was in the witness re-location program!
Hmmm…..a “brushes with greatness” thread! I like it.
Two favorites come to mind, one about me and the other about my son:
1) When I was 13, I thought that I wanted to learn to play the banjo and was having a terrible time of it. The summer (1971–do the math if you’d like) my mother took me to a bluegrass festival coming through town, and Ralph Stanley talked to me about my difficulty. What a gracious man! Invited my mother and I into his trailer after his performance, hung out with us for probably an hour and helped me immenesely.
2) My husband and son were in Breckenridge, Colorado, at a blues festival. Our main reason for going was our son’s interest in a particular blues guiar player, Joe Louis Walker. Just before JLW was to go on, it started pouring rain, and everyone ran for cover. We ducked under an overhang, and there stood Joe Louis Walker and his entire band, waiting out the rain. Joe and all of his band were delighted to meet our son (who was shaking like a leaf with nervousness) and had a wonderful conversation about my son’s playing, who else he liked, etc. He signed my son’s program, and I will never forget the way that the entire band made my son feel so at home–it felt like they had a sincere interest in mentoring a younger player. Amazing!
