Feeling overwhelmed or discouraged with your practicing, playing or anything else? Push back!

“Dynamic Tension” is an exercise system developed by bodybuilder Charles Atlas in the 1920’s. The core principle of Dynamic Tension is self-resistance, using your own muscles to provide resistance to train other muscles.

Atlas always said he got the idea for this system...

On this Good Friday, I would like to share with you the music of Good Friday 286 years ago, the music of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

The St. Matthew Passion is a monumental work, calling for double choir and double orchestra. It is imposing in length, around 3 hours. It is dramatic, a moody and emotional depiction of Christ’s suffering on the cross. It has been sung,...

Put some harp in your weekend,  just for fun!

1. Polish your harp. I like to keep my harp clean with regular dusting and occasionally a damp cloth, but once a year or so, I enjoy “detailing” my harp, cleaning all the nooks and crannies and giving it polish all over. Here’s a YouTube video on harp cleaning from harp regulator Steve Moss.

2....

A “talent seed?” This is what I mean:

Despite the six inches of snow on the ground at my house, today is the first day of spring. And in anticipation of the eventual good weather, I have been entertaining myself with gardening books and catalogs. Did you know the Burpee seed catalog lists over 100 varieties of tomatoes? I was particularly taken by...

Here is a collection of a few weird music tips and facts. I hope these enlighten and entertain you!

Disclaimer: take the science behind some of these tips with a grain of salt. After all, you’re reading this on the internet.

 Are you a night owl or morning person? Practicing at night may be more effective. Apparently, brains learn better at...

Are you still keeping your New Year’s resolutions? If so, congratulations! You are in a very small group. According to a 2007 study by Franklin Covey (as in Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), 35% of people who make resolutions break them before the end of January and only 23% manage to keep them all year. Another study is even more...

I love detective mysteries, whether the detectives are cerebral like Sherlock Holmes, witty and cultured like Lord Peter Wimsey or more earthy like Jesse Stone. And I love puzzles; crosswords, cryptic crosswords, sudokus, double acrostics, whatever. The harder they are, the better I like them.So when I was asked for help with a musical puzzler recently, I grabbed my deer stalker hat and called...

The GPS that we use everyday stands for Global Positioning System. It is a system of 24 satellites that orbit the earth, emitting radio signals. The GPS receiver in your car collects those signals and decodes them. If the receiver can detect signals from as few as three of the satellites, it can determine your location.

When you’re feeling lost, discouraged or in need of direction,...

Deciding on a college can be nerve-racking. There are so many things to consider. Here are some of the tips I share with my students to help make their decision easier. At the end of the post, you will find a link to a free College Choice Planner PDF file you can download.

Phase one of the college choice process is the research you must do to decide which colleges to apply to. First you need...

This is part four in a four-part series of posts designed to help you solve difficulties you may come across in your everyday practice. With a repertoire of techniques at your disposal, you can learn to solve nearly any practice difficulty. If you are not already a subscriber to HarpMastery, you can email me to receive the other posts in this series...