That hippest harpist Deborah Henson-Conant wrote a great blog post recently about mastery. She pointed out that the heralded “10,000 hours to mastery” isn’t what most adult learners are interested in. (By the way, you can read about the 10,000 hours in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success .) What they want, DHC writes, is fluency. And I totally agree.

I...

We all know the importance of protecting your harp from the weather and from bumps and scratches. And if you move your harp often, as I do, you must have protective covers.

I am definitely a fan of those wonderful transport covers that Lyon Healy has. But they are expensive and very bulky. (I know – bulky is the point.) And I have three concert grand harps to cover.

So when I needed a new...

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“Please memorize this for next lesson.” These are words that send chills through many musicians. Do you dread playing from memory? Do you feel ill-equipped for this task?

So many times I hear students of all ages say, “I could never play from memory. I...

Somehow I lost the last month. I had great intentions and a well-crafted practice plan, but it just didn’t work. We had a family reunion, plus I held harp camp and my website has been having issues. I had minor surgery. My son moved out of his apartment into another apartment and then went to on Italy for the summer. It’s been busy here, not really unusual, just busy.   ...

It wasn’t the bride’s fault that she picked the steamiest day imaginable for her lovely garden wedding. But there I was, under a tent, playing a wedding ceremony in the middle of a heat wave. To top it off, I was playing the Pachelbel Canon. I know people either love the piece or hate it, but I don’t usually mind playing it.

This time, however, I found myself playing the...

We just finished another fun week here at Harp in the Mountains. Harp camp is always fun, and this year I was privileged to have a great group of students. As always, we rehearsed a lot, but we had fun too. And this year’s heat wave made the swimming pool the best place to take a break from practice.

We like to call ourselves the only harp garage band. The garage is a perfect space for us...

As I am writing this, I am beginning another year’s Harp In The Mountains Festival. This is the seventh year that I have hosted a small group of dedicated harp students, mostly high school and middle school age, for a week of ensemble playing and learning about the harp.

This year the students range in age from 11 to 17, and as you might guess, their skill levels are very different. But I...

Have you ever been stumped trying to figure out how to organize your practice? Sometimes it’s because we have too much to do; other times it’s because we don’t have enough to do and our practice is aimless. Here’s my solution for those times I need a little structure: I use my “40/40/20” recipe.

The “40/40/20” method is easy to explain. Every day,...

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It was a little over a year ago that I started blogging at Harp Mastery. My idea in starting the blog was to share some of the things that I have learned about the harp and harp playing, music and being an active musician. Through this blog, I have been privileged to virtually meet harpists from all over the world who are on all different...

At Harpmastery Day in June, my friend and colleague Candace Lark and I co-presented a workshop on “Practice Strategies for Results, Growth and Pleasure.” Here are some notes from the first part of that workshop.

Practicing is difficult. It requires concentration, discipline and time.

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