We all have times when we don’t want to practice. We wish we wanted to practice, but for whatever reason, we seem to have lost our self-discipline. Maybe the house is too messy, the piece is too hard, we are worried about something else, the weather is too nice, the weather is too rotten, we didn’t get enough sleep, or we have too much homework.But the practice must be done.

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If you are practicing for perfection, working to make a piece or an excerpt note-perfect, you may not be using your time wisely and you may be missing out on the real benefits of good practice. You may be frustrated, and even setting yourself up for failure.

A music student was telling me about his practice. He was discouraged; the things he...

No room for a harp!

You deserve a vacation, some time off away from everything, even away from practicing the harp. But how can you make sure you don’t lose momentum when you’re not able to practice for a week or two?

Some instrumentalists have it easy. They can grab the handle on their instrument cases and go.

Not so for us harpists. If you have a little harp or a Harpsicle, you...

We all know that “practice makes perfect” is a stretch of the truth, but most of us agree that practice is the only way to get better at anything, particularly music performance. But if our practice isn’t consistent, neither will our performance be consistent. Remember the tortoise and the hare? The tortoise’s steady, consistent pace got him over the finish...

©iStockphoto.com/Sharon Dominick

All practice is not created equal. And GREAT practice leads to terrific performances.

I remember when I was a young harpist,  my mother would set the kitchen timer to make sure I did the amount of practice my teacher required each day. At that age, it couldn’t have been very long – maybe 20 minutes or a half hour – but...