LIVE Harp Q&A: Power Hour with Heather Downie | Festival 2026

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:20]Okay, everyone. We're about to jump into our live power hour. If you are joining us live, then get your questions ready to write in the comments. I will be looking for them to answer. I already have a few questions that have been emailed in in advance to get us going as well.

[00:00:38]Power hours are something that happen every month in the Heart to Heart membership. It gives you the opportunity to get my eyes on your playing and get your questions answered. This is super important, especially when you're learning online. So, you don't feel like you are floating out there in the ether without the support that you really need, without the questions you need answered. You can come along to our monthly power hours, get your questions answered. You can share little bits of sheet music, specific questions, questions about your own technique. You can come on screen and get me looking at your fingers. Any harp question goes.

[00:01:18]So, let's jump in and get some of those questions answered.

[00:01:28]Hello, everybody. That was a very quick changeover, wasn't it just?

[00:01:35]But, we're here.

[00:01:36]We're here and we're live. Can you guys hear me okay?

[00:01:40]Where is this cable going? Put it behind here.

[00:01:44]Let me know in the comments who's here and that you can hear me. I've got some notes ready.

[00:01:51]Um so, as I said in that little intro, this is something that happens monthly in the High Tart membership, the Power Hour.

[00:01:59]And it is one of my favorite live events. I love troubleshooting. I really do love it. It um Yeah, I get fired up. Please do jump into the comments. Let me know Oh, you can hear me. Good. There's Kim. Perfect.

[00:02:12]Let's see if I if I add this.

[00:02:15]Oh, look you here. I can add some of your comments as well.

[00:02:18]Um The two things that it says underneath your name is add to broadcast and ban.

[00:02:26]>> [laughter] >> So, I need to make sure I don't click the wrong one, don't I? Anyway, I'm getting distracted this. Calm down.

[00:02:34]That was a great practice session, wasn't it? It was really good. I got loads done.

[00:02:37]Um So, Power Hours are something that happen monthly in the High Tart membership.

[00:02:43]It's your opportunity to have your questions answered. And although we are on YouTube today, usually we're on Zoom. And so, if anyone wants to in the in the membership, if anyone wants to um come on screen and get me to look at their fingers or their hands or their seating position or anything like that.

[00:03:04]Angela, you're definitely getting banned.

[00:03:06]>> [laughter] >> Um if anyone wants actual eyes on their hands um and their playing, the Power Hour is the opportunity to do that. It's so important to have that point of feedback. The Power Hours are open to everyone in the membership.

[00:03:20]It's your opportunity to get that feedback. Now, I would like you guys to pop your questions into the chat.

[00:03:30]You know what's funny? Every time we do a Power Hour in the membership, it takes a while for the questions to start flowing. I do have some questions that people have emailed in, which I will use to get started. But every time we start a Power Hour, I'm like, "That's it. There's no questions. This is not going to be an hour. It's going to be like 10 minutes long."

[00:03:49]Um but then the questions start flowing and inevitably we over an hour, but we have to make sure we don't do that today cuz there's another session happening. Wow, there's just so much going on.

[00:04:01]So, I've got some notes over here. I've got far too many screens because we're live, but I have some notes over here for our first couple of questions I'm going to use to get us going.

[00:04:12]Okay.

[00:04:17]Perfect.

[00:04:20]Perfect. Okay, ready. So, the first question I'm going to answer is actually a question that was popped into the How to Harp community last week or or the week before a little while ago. And this is another way that people can ask questions. They ask questions in the community and if I think mm, that's going to need a little bit more attention than me just writing a reply, then I will save it for the power hour. So, we had a question about trills.

[00:04:48]And so, da-da, this is the little excerpt of music that was shared in the How to Harp community.

[00:04:56]And the question was, is there anything in the membership about playing trills?

[00:05:01]Now, we actually have a full ornaments course in the membership, but it doesn't have trills in it. Now, obviously I will be updating that, but we want to make sure that this is addressed nice and quickly. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about trills.

[00:05:17]Ooh, nice. That's a good question, too.

[00:05:19]I think I can star these questions as they come in.

[00:05:22]Yes, fab.

[00:05:27]Yeah, perfect. Okay, so trills.

[00:05:29]So, this is the example that's shared.

[00:05:31]Now, you can anytime you've got a question again in the How to Harp membership, if you're playing with a piece of music, you absolutely can email that music in. We will show just a small excerpt of it to make sure that we're not breaking any copyright laws and we can discuss that as well. We have talked about fingering and technique, things like this, and all these kinds of things.

[00:05:51]So, this is the little picture that was shared. So, I don't actually know what this piece of music is or what the key it's in or any of these things.

[00:05:59]Um so, we'll probably just approach it as if it's in C major, but we're really focusing on the trill.

[00:06:04]So, on the harp, I'm going to try and keep this as short as possible because I could probably talk for a whole hour about trills.

[00:06:12]Um on the harp, there are a couple of different ways of playing trills, and it really depends on what's going on in the rest of the music and what kind of um well, sound and approach that you're looking for. So, you can play a one-handed trill or you can play a two-handed trill.

[00:06:32]Now, there's also more than one way to play a trill, and um it depends on how it's written, and also sometimes depends on like whether the music is Baroque or if it's a more modern or classical piece of music, um and I'll talk a little bit about that, too.

[00:06:50]But, when for your like kind of bog standard trill, we're going to use this one as an example.

[00:06:58]Um you're going to be playing the note itself. So, this example that we have in front of us is written on a G. I'm going to assume it's treble clef.

[00:07:07]Could be bass clef. Playing a trill in the left hand, that'd be fun.

[00:07:10]Um it's written on a G if we assume that this is treble clef, and the trill is written above.

[00:07:17]Now, you're going to play the note itself, and then we're going to play the auxiliary note. So, the auxiliary note is like the added note in the ornament.

[00:07:26]In a trill, the auxiliary note is the note one diatonic step above the note that's written. Now, what on earth does that mean to start with, right?

[00:07:38]If you're playing um diatonically, if you're finding a note that's diatonic, then we're talking about the note that is within the key.

[00:07:48]So, if we assume that this piece of music is in C major, it might not be in C major. It could be in G major. It could well could be in anything, really. Could be in E flat.

[00:07:58]But, if we just assume it's in C major, and we played this little excerpt without the note at the end, we would start with this little and then we're going [music] to the G, right? So, we've got G E G B G.

[00:08:12]So, our melody note is the G.

[00:08:16]If we're working diatonically, we're only going to use notes that exist in the C major scale, cuz we're in C major.

[00:08:24]And so, our auxiliary note for the trill is one diatonic step above our melody note, which in this case is A.

[00:08:32]>> [music] >> Now, that becomes important because it's not really enough information for us to say, "You need to play the note itself, and then one tone higher, or one step higher." Because in music, we can step by a semitone, we can step by a tone, we can step by bigger distances. We need to be really clear. So, we're going to go one diatonic step higher. So, one step in the scale higher.

[00:08:56]Depending on what note you're on, that might be a semitone higher, or a half step half tone higher, half step in America higher.

[00:09:04]Or it might be a whole step higher, a whole tone higher.

[00:09:07]If we're working in the case of G major, sorry, I beg your pardon, C major, then we are going a tone higher. We're going G to E. So, our melody note is the G, [music] and our auxiliary note is the E.

[00:09:20]And when we're trilling with >> [music] >> one hand, we're going to have our finger two on the melody note, and we're going to have our thumb on the auxiliary note, which is one step higher, and we're going to be oscillating >> [music] >> between these two finger between these two notes and these two fingers.

[00:09:38]Okay?

[00:09:39]And we're going to start on the melody note, and we're going to finish on the melody note. And this is kind of your standard trill. Like if you see a trill um and you're not thinking this is a baroque trill or this is a certain type of trill, um then this is what you're going to play. The note itself oscillating between the auxiliary note, which is the note above, and finishing on the note itself.

[00:10:02]So, you're essentially playing for your trill. If I do a little zoom in there, the note itself, the auxiliary note, which is next door, one diatonic step up.

[00:10:17]>> [music] >> That's your trill, and finishing on the melody note.

[00:10:22]Okay? [music] Now, the way to get a nice-sounding trill, really there's two kind of key pointers for getting a one-handed nice-sounding trill. The first is to um allow your hand to be relaxed.

[00:10:39]Now, that doesn't necessarily mean play quietly, because you might be being asked to be play playing forte in the piece of music where you're trilling.

[00:10:50]So, you should still be able to have a relaxed hand and have power and strength behind your fingers.

[00:10:56]But if you tense, ooh, that's when your trill's going to start to sound and just not nice.

[00:11:02]You want a nice relaxed hand, and you should then be able to make a lovely [music] tone whether you're playing loud in your trill or whether you're playing quietly [music] in your trill.

[00:11:14]Now, the other thing is this I'm playing this very fast, but I am actually bending my my thumb.

[00:11:22]If I slow it down, >> [music] >> hopefully you guys can see as I speed up that I am still bending my thumb, which allows me to really keep nice and relaxed. My finger too, yes, it's not going to be pulling right into my palm every time. It's going to be very hard [music] for me to get speed if I pull right in, but it is heading towards that direction. So, it's not doing this kind [music] of thing, yeah?

[00:11:45]It's still pulling in.

[00:11:49]>> [music] >> Okay?

[00:11:50]But, it's very relaxed, nice and relaxed. So, that's the first thing. A relaxed hand super important. There's our little Let's take that away now.

[00:12:01]So, relaxed hand. The second thing is an interesting one because in a way, I want to say it kind of goes against our learning in harp. It's not that it goes against it, but we are taught in harping to always place our fingers ahead of the fact. And that is good. We we definitely want to place our fingers ahead of the fact. So, when we're playing a phrase of music, we're playing a shape in the right hand, you definitely want to be placing your fingers ahead, advanced placing.

[00:12:33]However, in the trill, one of the keys to playing a nice trill is actually placing at the last minute.

[00:12:43]And that's because it allows the note in the trill to ring for the longest possible time, which gives you the nicest sound.

[00:12:51]So, keeping a relaxed hand and play It's almost like you're switching between the two notes. So, we're not What we would usually be doing would be thinking about uh hand view would be thinking about pluck and place, pluck and [music] place.

[00:13:06]If I try and do that while I'm trilling, I'm not going to get a nice sound. I have to place at the very last moment.

[00:13:17]So, if I'm going to slow this down, I'm kind of switching between my fingers.

[00:13:26]I'm not going pluck, please pluck, please.

[00:13:32]>> [music] >> Yeah? I'm allowing >> [music] [music] >> which allows the note to ring.

[00:13:47]Okay?

[00:13:50]That's your standard trill. For two-handed trills, >> [music] >> I love two-handed trills.

[00:13:59]>> [music] >> You're literally playing two one in one hand, two one in the other hand.

[00:14:06]>> [music] >> And at the very end, you're going to play a two one two with your right hand.

[00:14:15]So that you are finishing the trill by ending on the melody note.

[00:14:20]>> [music] >> Okay?

[00:14:25]Um obviously, you can only play a two-handed trill if the arrangement is allowing you to do that because your left hand might be playing something else or it might be about to play something else right on the next beat.

[00:14:37]Um the other thing to remember when you're playing a trill is that it should last as long as the note that's written. So in this example, you can see that it's written on top of a crotchet note.

[00:14:49]And so you want the trill to last the length of a crotchet note. Now, I can't tell you how long that is cuz I don't know how fast this piece is being played. Might be quite a slow piece and therefore the crotchet will last for quite a while. It might be quite a fast piece and so you might only get a little bit of a trill in on that note, but it should last that length of time. So that's how you know how long to actually trill for. Sometimes you'll see a pause over the top of the note, like a little eyebrow.

[00:15:15]Um and then you've got a bit more leeway with how long to trill for.

[00:15:20]But um because you can make the note last longer than written.

[00:15:24]Now, some trills Let me make sure I've covered all the notes I wrote down actually.

[00:15:31]Um >> [sighs and gasps] >> natural note, auxiliary note we talked about.

[00:15:39]So, yes, in Baroque music traditionally with the trill, you actually would start on the auxiliary note. You'd start on the higher note.

[00:15:47]Um And so, some some of the time you have to know a little bit more about the music in the period you're you're playing from.

[00:15:57]Um so, instead of starting on the melody note like I just did [music] there, you would start Okay? And the other thing that quite often happened as well was that the trill often ended with um a little mordent at the end.

[00:16:13]>> [music] >> Okay, which is going down to the note below.

[00:16:20]So, it's playing the the melody note, the auxiliary note, a diatonic note above, and also the auxiliary note, a diatonic note below.

[00:16:29]>> [music] >> Now, quite often So, you're playing that at the end.

[00:16:35]>> [music] >> Okay?

[00:16:37]Quite often when composers are looking for you to play that like turn at the end, they will put a little tiny little grace note at after the trill to make it clear, and it will be on that note lower. So, in this example, it would be like a tiny little grace note on the F after the trill. And then you would have a better idea that that's what they were actually looking for.

[00:16:58]Um I think that's that's your trill information. Hopefully, that helps.

[00:17:05]Remember that the key is playing with a relaxed hand and not placing your fingers too soon. So, you make sure that you allow the notes to ring out.

[00:17:17]Now, the question that I was sent in this afternoon that was very exciting, that I got a question this afternoon, was also about ornamentation. What are the chances of that?

[00:17:28]Um and it shows that this person was really listening. I don't know where the email's gone, so I actually haven't got the person's name, but thank you for really for listening um to the art of noodling session because the question is, "When you were demoing the tune, um you played some extra notes. What were they?" And you are totally right. I quite often will put in ornamentation.

[00:17:56]Just it comes quite naturally to me to just pop the ornamentation in.

[00:18:02]And it's something that really comes from kind of folk music playing.

[00:18:06]We ornament our tunes um in our own kind of stylistic approach. And so quite often little ornaments will sneak into my music without me almost even noticing.

[00:18:18]But I did put in um trying to think where it was now.

[00:18:24]>> [music] [music] >> I think it was actually on the butterfly sheet.

[00:18:39]>> [music] >> Yes, it was.

[00:18:42]So, I put in a little three-note run.

[00:18:46]There's a butterfly [music] There's a butterfly sheet. Let me tell you what page it's on.

[00:18:53]Um or what measure it's in.

[00:18:57]Here we go.

[00:19:00]So, it is in measure 20 in the second part of the art of noodling. And what's written in the music is Okay, so the section that's being played if I go from the bar before is >> [music] >> Okay, that's it without the ornament.

[00:19:34][music] And what I played in the example was >> [music] [music] >> Okay, so I put that little ornament in.

[00:19:49]So, instead of playing this >> [music] >> I played this.

[00:20:00]Okay, so it's when I come down this butterfly shape >> [music] >> that's the melody and I played So, this is a three-note run. It's a type of ornament.

[00:20:15]>> [music] >> So, I'm playing the first two melody notes in my butterfly shape, this the E and the C.

[00:20:24]And the melody the next melody note is this finger three on the B. But before I play it, I replace the E and the C that I just played. And then I play them as very quiet little quick notes rolling >> [music] >> to the B.

[00:20:40]They're ornaments, so we they want to be quieter than the melody.

[00:20:45]>> [music] [music] >> It shouldn't change the timing of the melody. It shouldn't change the feel.

[00:20:57]And I also often do as well >> [music] >> do little cuts.

[00:21:06]And it's exactly the same idea. You're just repeating the note.

[00:21:11]>> [music] >> So, there's a cut and there's a cut. And here's the three-note run.

[00:21:22]>> [music] >> Um this is something that's covered in a lot more detail in the ornaments course within the Harp membership. Um where we have a whole lot of learning on it and we've got a bunch of exercises to help you practice both the cuts and the three-note runs.

[00:21:38]Um I love ornamentation.

[00:21:41]I think it kind of goes hand-in-hand with when you're thinking about putting your own dynamics in.

[00:21:46]Um putting your own ornamentation in I think is a really beautiful thing to do.

[00:21:50]So, thank you for noticing it.

[00:21:51]>> [snorts] >> Let me go to the comments and see what questions have come in. I starred two.

[00:22:03]Yes.

[00:22:05]I'm glad Linda that you learn lots from the Harp Power Hour. That's nice.

[00:22:11]And yeah, like Angela says, this type of ornament is covered in the ornaments course. Yeah, it's it is in the ornament course. Okay. So, the two questions that came in. Vicky's asking, is there a quick way to adapt a tune to a small 26 harp beside 26-string harp besides going up an octave? Going up an octave is always going to be your easiest way to adapt because you can literally just read exactly what's written up the octave. Um but sometimes it's a bit frustrating, isn't it? Cuz sometimes I'm sure your harp doesn't sound this way. I'm sure your harp is stunning all the way through.

[00:22:43]Sometimes I find on a smaller harp when you just jump up the octave, it sounds a little plinky plonky.

[00:22:54]I'm sure your harp doesn't sound plinky plonky.

[00:22:56]I mean, we probably should describe it as like twinkly and beautiful like stars, shouldn't we? But you know what I mean. Sometimes we jump up the octave and it's just not as satisfying in a way, and you want to play the melody in that mid-range.

[00:23:08]So, how can you quickly and easily adapt um There's Vicky's question.

[00:23:16]Da-da!

[00:23:18]a tune for a small harp. So, the best way of doing this is to learn music theory and harmony and really understand what you're doing. And although that might not sound like a quick way, um it's the best way, and it's a quick the quickest way in the long run.

[00:23:42]That makes sense, because the thing is a lot of the time we're trying to cut these corners and get there as quick as we possibly can, but actually, if you learn about music theory and how music is put together, and you learn about harmony and what chords mean, um yes, that might sound like a long road, but once you have that knowledge, you will be able to adapt anything to your harp very, very quickly.

[00:24:11]Um that is the best way of of doing what you are looking to do, of looking at adapting music and working with lead sheets and things like this, is to do a theory course.

[00:24:24]There's a How to Harp theory course.

[00:24:25]It's not in the membership, it's an extra thing. Do a harmony course.

[00:24:29]There's a How to Harp harmony course.

[00:24:30]There are other courses in harmony and theory as well. I know Ailie Robertson had a really great foundational course on this. There's other people who teach these things, too. So, there's lots of places you can get these. We do have the resources if you are interested in them.

[00:24:45]That is honestly the best way, because the other thing is if you understand your theory, then you can look at a piece of music, and you can write the chords in. You can see, okay, that's So, if I look at The Art of Noodling here, I'm looking at bar 17. I can see it's an F chord, a G chord, and then a C 7 chord.

[00:25:04]And then an F, a G, and then an E minor add nine.

[00:25:11]And with that knowledge I can very quickly adapt the arrangement to suit my taste, to suit my harp, to suit what's in front of me, to do whatever I want with because I'm able to look at the music. I understand how it's put together. I understand the chords that are being used even though they're not written in above the music.

[00:25:34]Um I mean, I kind of I inside me I'm like, can I give you an actual quick way so that like tomorrow you can do it? But I feel like that kind of goes against everything inside me because the thing is if you cut corners now, then tomorrow it's going to catch up with you.

[00:25:55]So it's better not to cut corners and do things really well and in depth if it's something that you're interested in doing.

[00:26:05]I hope that that helps somewhat. The true answer is that the good way to adapt music to the smaller harp is to use inversions of the chords. You have to understand what chord is being used and then you can actually use inversions of the chord and that way you can still have the chord that's being played in your left hand and still keep the melody where it is, but you can add inversions. And you can also then use your left hand to play some sort of inversion below the melody and then jump up above the melody to add something more above it if you want to. And understanding chords allows you to do that. Vicky's asking, "I'm waiting for the harmony course.

[00:26:46]When will they be available?" They'll be available in August. So you don't have that long to wait.

[00:26:51]Um Yes.

[00:26:55]Hopefully that helps somewhat.

[00:26:58]Next question. You mentioned an enharmonic notes during the practice together. I know you give a very quick explanation, but can you give us a little demo? Yeah.

[00:27:06]I never got round to playing around with my enharmonics, Angela.

[00:27:10]I got distracted.

[00:27:12]Um Whoopsie.

[00:27:18]Oh, I love that everybody's trying to explain what the top of a small harp sounds like.

[00:27:22]Tinny. Yeah, thin at the top. Yeah, exactly.

[00:27:26]Um Angela's saying less spread out versions of the left hand sometimes works too, like a 1 3 5 rather than a 1 5 8. Yeah, exactly. You learned inversions in the post beginner course.

[00:27:36]Yeah, so yeah, you probably know a lot of the stuff already just from what we teach in the membership, Vicky, to be honest with you because we actually teach a lot about this kind of stuff.

[00:27:46]Um but the harmony course will bring it all together for you. But yes, if you understand inversions, then you can look at a sheet of music and say, "Okay, this is big C chord that's being played. I could play some sort of C inversion."

[00:27:59]Um yeah.

[00:28:01]Okay.

[00:28:02]Enharmonics. An enharmonic is a note which is the same note in pitch, like when you hear the note played or it's two notes, sorry, that are the same note in pitch. When you hear them being played, they sound the same, but they're actually given two different names. Now, the harp is such a cool instrument in this sense in that we can play around with enharmonics.

[00:28:25]Um but these ones I'm going to show you aren't the only ones that exist in music. They exist all over the place.

[00:28:31]So, for example, D sharp and E flat are the same note with those two different names.

[00:28:41]So, if I put all I'm in E flat major, so if I put all my D levers up, I get a D sharp.

[00:28:48]But, I also have an E flat because of my tuning.

[00:28:53]So, I've got my D lever up.

[00:28:57]So, then when I play the D and the E string, they are going to sound the same.

[00:29:02]>> [music] >> I'm playing two different strings. I'm playing a D sharp and I'm playing an E flat.

[00:29:06]>> [music] >> But, actually it's the same pitch that you're hearing. It's the same note that you're hearing. Now, on the harp, the D sharp and the E flat are a set of enharmonics that you can get. And the other ones are the G sharp and the E flat.

[00:29:23]And it's so lovely on the harp because it means you hear these two consecutive, but same same pitch notes. [music] It's such a lovely thing to play around with. So, if I put them all up all the way up my harp, >> [music] [music] >> I'm just playing around with my um >> [music] >> with my clear notes now.

[00:30:07]>> [music] >> Isn't that lovely?

[00:30:16]Ooh, it's so nice.

[00:30:18]So, yeah, that's what an enharmonic is.

[00:30:20]Like I say, there's other um examples of enharmonics. Those are the ones we can use on the lever harp. But, B sharp is the same as C.

[00:30:30]C sharp is the same as D flat.

[00:30:33]Um all of these are enharmonics. It's two different names for the same sounding note.

[00:30:41]Okay, let me see if there's any more questions. I think that might be all the questions.

[00:30:46]See, now it is a quick parary. See, because that's within half an hour.

[00:30:52]There's 38 of you watching. I'm sure there must be more questions that everything sounds beautiful in here.

[00:30:59]They're pleased at that. So lovely.

[00:31:01]Um, I do really love playing around with enharmonics. I should really write a piece using them, shouldn't I?

[00:31:08]Maybe I should do that right now.

[00:31:10]Um, maybe not.

[00:31:13]Right, let me go through all the comments. Just make sure I've not missed a question.

[00:31:18]Um.

[00:31:34]Ornaments course.

[00:31:37]Harmony courses will be available in August.

[00:31:44]Well, done them all. I'm going to give you guys a few more minutes in case you've got any more questions or something pops into your mind that you'd like to ask about. Um, and whilst we wait, I will let you who are live know that our next session is our concert, which is at 7:00 p.m. And that might seem like a big break, but that's because actually for those of you who are listening who are in the Heart Harp membership, there is actually an improvising session on at 6:00. So, it was to make sure that you guys could have your full harp a day and make sure you could get your improvisation session at 6:00 before the concert starts at 7:00.

[00:32:22]Um, so if you um if you are in the membership you'd like to go to that, you can. It's at 6:00.

[00:32:31]Hey there, will you talk about your process for composing? During that session that Angela just laid, I started a composition.

[00:32:44]What is my process for composing? It's such a good question because honestly I would I feel like there's way there's so many different ways to compose and there's so many different ways that I compose.

[00:32:55]But um usually it starts with a kind of little noodle or an idea or like a like a >> [sighs] >> feeling or an outdoor. I'm really inspired by nature. So if I have to compose something then quite often I will go outside and just listen to the birds. Sometimes I record the birds um because they sing with like interesting rhythms and things like this. And I'm like, "Ooh, that's chirping with an interesting rhythm.

[00:33:27]It's like da da da da da da da da da da da da da or whatever it is." And I'll record it and then I'll take it home and I'll listen to that rhythm again and take that rhythm and then put a melody to it.

[00:33:40]Um so I quite often do that.

[00:33:44]Or I have like a picture of something in my head. Like recently I've been composing all about the sky for the early intermediate sessions. So quite often I'll have seen some a picture of the sky or I'll want the sky without end for example. I knew that I wanted a kind of feeling of of never-ending of this kind of vast space that just went on and on and on.

[00:34:08]Um and what was nice about the early intermediate was I also had to have a certain skill in the pieces. So I had made a list of all of the skills that I knew I wanted people to learn as part of the early intermediate course.

[00:34:23]And so I would get a picture of a cloud or a sky or a feeling or a concept in my head and I'd have a bit of a noodle around and then I'd say, right, what um skills do I need for people to practice and therefore what can I use?

[00:34:42]Um so for example for shelf cloud um I got the picture of the shelf cloud. It was quite menacing and I knew I wanted to be in like a minor key and it to be quite dark and and fast because it's like a thing that's coming before a storm.

[00:35:00]Um but then I looked at my list of skills that I needed people to learn and I was like, oh, they need to learn about harmonics.

[00:35:06]Um let's see if I can come up with a kind of little menacing harmonic introduction type thing and that's what I came up with and then the melody formed out of that.

[00:35:16]Um So that's one way, but I also quite often will write a tune. So for example, because these have been my most recent compo- compositions, that's why I'm talking about the early intermediate course.

[00:35:28]But for example um Virga I knew that I wanted to write a kind of faster like more Celtic-y type tune like a jig type tune to challenge the early intermediates and to give them that skill of being able to play faster like learning faster tunes.

[00:35:48]And um I read about Virga which is a type of rain that falls but then dissolves before it reaches the ground and I thought that sounds like a jig. That sounds like it's, you know, flut- flut- flut- um rain in the sky and then it just dissolves into nothing. So I was like, that would be perfect for a jig. So for Virga I actually wrote the melody first and then I started putting the chords to the melody.

[00:36:12]Um And then with the piece I've just written I think because noodling is all part of the concept of this week's of this festival um I started noodle- noodling around with um a little five I'll just play it to you. If I play it to you now and then this is part of the early intermediates, you guys will all love this.

[00:36:38]Um So, I knew that I wanted to have something that has tucking in it because the scale, the last scale for the early intermediates is both hands tucking at the same time. So, I knew I wanted to have something with tucking.

[00:36:53]Um so, I started playing around with I actually started with this [music] hand tucking and I started with this kind of feel.

[00:37:05]>> [music] [music] >> The early intermediates have had quite a few faster, more menacing tunes recently. So, I know I want it to be quite chill and quite relaxed. So, that was quite nice, but this hand isn't tucking. But, I quite like those chords.

[00:37:23]It's in A major by and I was [music] like, I don't want to start on the A major. I want them to think it's in a different key and then go to the A.

[00:37:30]Um so, from that I was like, well, let's see if I can get a little pattern in the right hand that I can then put chords to. So, then I came up with this.

[00:37:54]And then to the E.

[00:37:56]Which will take us eventually [music] to the to the E, which is the key that our actual melody is in. The reason it's in E is because I was practicing Coriolanus, which is in E.

[00:38:05]So, yeah, I came up with that.

[00:38:11]>> [music] >> And then I was [music] like, okay, well, the left hand needs to talk too."

[00:38:26]And [music] so then I was like, "Let's make them just play the same number of notes."

[00:38:39]>> [music] >> So, that's what I'm still kind of working on is the two hands [music] talking.

[00:39:03]And then I could maybe go to >> [music] >> the chords. [music] Anyway, so yeah, that one's kind of starting to come out of a noodle, and I know I have to have my two hands talking. I do love patterns that repeat on the harp. I I think the harp really lends itself to that kind of stuff.

[00:39:30]And I love patterns that repeat, but chords that change underneath that.

[00:39:35]Um and I think if you look at different people's music, you'll notice things coming out that they tend to to enjoy or tend to gravitate towards. So, hopefully that helps.

[00:39:47]And this is interesting. I can see more questions coming in, so um Yes, recommendations for building our repertoire. How many tunes by memory?

[00:40:00]How often to practice?

[00:40:02]I mean, how long is a piece of string?

[00:40:04]It depends on you. Um lots of people can't have any tunes by memory or don't enjoy that. So, like if it's not something you don't have to have anything by memory. You can use sheet music. I remember having this discussion actually recently with a Gwen Cleghorn Cleary who was a guest in the hotel membership and she was talking about how she felt a real kind of stress and a real pressure about memorizing this like really intense material and then at one point she was like, "Do you know what? I don't have to memorize this. I'm just going to use music." Look, Digits come in. She's cute. Hi little Diggie. Hi love.

[00:40:43]Can you see her ear?

[00:40:44]There.

[00:40:46]She's cute.

[00:40:47]Um [snorts] yeah, she just decided she was going to start music on using music on stage and she uses her iPad and she uses her foot changer. So, it's not like she's leaning forward and flipping pages. And she was like, "It just took so much stress and so much weight off of my shoulders." And I was like, "Yeah, of course."

[00:41:03]Um so, if you don't want to learn tunes, then don't. If you don't want to have them in your memory, you don't have to.

[00:41:10]Just use sheet music. If you do want to have them in your memory, if you're maybe not a strong reader or you really want to focus on your technique, so you don't want to be looking at the page all the time, um then that's something that you can develop and the more you work on having tunes in your memory, the easier it is to hold more tunes in your memory. It's like um a muscle that you can work with and stretch. I have I've got no idea how many tunes are in my memory cuz there's so many in there. Um lots of ones I don't want in there. Lots of Boys of Ballina. Get out of my head, please.

[00:41:50]I don't need you taking up space.

[00:41:52]Um but they're there.

[00:41:56]Um how often to practice? Every day.

[00:41:59]It's so much better if you do a little practice every day than if you do a big practice once or twice a week. So, little and often is so much better, especially if you are wanting to build um a memory repertoire.

[00:42:16]It's so much better if you just chip away at it a little every day.

[00:42:23]You don't do a couple membership, do you? We have got quite a few. I think we've got like two or three people who have joined the membership as a couple, yes. And basically what happens is one person signs up, but they've put they've put them both both of themselves in the um picture.

[00:42:42]Um and they both access the material and use what they want. And yeah, so I think we've got three couples at the moment who are joined as a couple. We don't have an official like you know, this is your couple membership. But we've got a number of couples who live in the same house and they share their membership and we don't have a problem with that.

[00:43:04]Um yes, please come to the harp improvisation club. Starts Yeah, don't worry, I will make sure we're finished before 6:00 so you guys can get your harp improvisation club.

[00:43:14]Can you mention some effects pedals you like?

[00:43:21]I like a lot of effects pedals. Do you know what my favorite effects pedal is actually? It's my multi-effects.

[00:43:26]Because on that I can get quite a few different sounds and set it up. Um rather than having lots and lots of different things. I love a shimmer. I love a sparkly shimmer. That's probably my favorite thing. I've also got this really cool pedal. Willie, can you hear me?

[00:43:45]Can't hear me.

[00:43:46]Um I've got this really cool pedal just now that like sustains the note. Um it's like a gold actually looks like a piano literally a piano sustain foot pedal. I think it's called the sustain pedal and I love it because it takes the sound and it lets you like bring it in and out and it's completely sustains the sound. Um for way like the harp strings obviously are dying away.

[00:44:11]I love that pedal. So right now my multi effects and my sustain pedal which I don't know what it's called I can hear William in the other room though so I feel like if I call him I do this all the time in power hours as well by the way.

[00:44:29]He might be upstairs. Willie, can you either bring or come and talk to me about that sustain pedal?

[00:44:35]You know the one that the gold Thanks.

[00:44:40]>> [laughter] >> He's going to bring it.

[00:44:43]Whilst he's bringing it I've forgotten the name for it. I think music notation I think in music notation it's a circle above a note to get that lovely ring tone. How do you do that please? Sorry my music that's it's a harmonic.

[00:44:56]>> [music] >> I think that's what you're talking about. It's a circle above the note.

[00:45:01]When you're playing a harmonic you are doing two things. You're plucking the string and you're damping the string at the same time. You're cutting the string in half in order to create a sound which is an octave or more above. There's more than one harmonic you can get on each string.

[00:45:18]The normal harmonic which is an octave above.

[00:45:22]So if I play my middle C which is C sharp so let's just take that off. So my middle C I need this part this finger this is a really super quick deep dive into harmonics. We've got loads of stuff on harmonics in the membership. But the second finger acts as the kind of damper which is shortening the string. This has to be at the halfway point of the string. If it's too low you won't get the sound. If it's too high >> [music] >> you won't get the sound. It has to be at the halfway point which is there. Hiya. Thank you. I'll talk about that. I'll talk about that in just a minute.

[00:45:58]Thank you.

[00:46:02]Willie >> Yeah.

[00:46:03]>> What is this actually called?

[00:46:05]>> Plus.

[00:46:06]Yeah, plus pedal.

[00:46:07]>> Okay, thank you.

[00:46:08]>> It is a key changer audio pedal maker.

[00:46:10]>> Thanks.

[00:46:11]Um So, yeah, that part there has to be at the halfway point. The thumb, it doesn't actually matter where the thumb is on the It's the plucker. It plucks. But, it could be here or it could be up here. You'll still get the harmonic.

[00:46:24]>> [music] >> Okay, so that's essentially this has to damp and this has to pluck at the same time for you to get the sound. And it's the same with the left, the same concept, [music] except with the left hand this part of your hand is the dampening, this part here.

[00:46:41]Try to avoid using this part, which a lot of people do. You can do this. I won't go into why.

[00:46:48]Well, it's cuz you can't play double harmonics with this.

[00:46:50]It's not wrong to use this part of your hand, but you're going to get a different sound. Um and you know, that's fine. You can play around with different sounds, but just I think when you're learning, it's better to use this part of your hand because if you learn with this and then you struggle to get this, you use this, you can't play double harmonics. So, you're getting your I'll show you with this, although it's the left hand technique.

[00:47:12]So, the bottom of your hand is going to be the damper.

[00:47:16]The top thumb is the plucker.

[00:47:19]And you kind of scoop the harmonic out.

[00:47:22]And I'm talking about this part of the hand. That part of the hand is what some people use.

[00:47:26]You can see you still can get a harmonic with it.

[00:47:30]But, if you want to ever play double harmonics, >> [music] >> which I'll do with my left hand.

[00:47:38]There we go. [music] Then you have to use that part of your hand.

[00:47:44]That was a super quick um harmonics chat there because that is There's quite a lot in harmonics. Um you should join the membership. There's loads of harmonic stuff. This is my favorite pedal right now.

[00:47:59]It's called the Plus Pedal.

[00:48:01]And um yeah, it creates sustain and I absolutely love it.

[00:48:06]It's so cool.

[00:48:08]Um That's what it looks like.

[00:48:12]The Plus Pedal.

[00:48:14]Yeah.

[00:48:20]Building repertoire, some must-have tunes to learn for sharing with seniors.

[00:48:25]Yeah?

[00:48:27]You can still use sheet music, though, even if you're sharing with seniors, especially if you use an iPad.

[00:48:33]Um Yeah.

[00:48:36]I'm practicing for my grade three and I find that What time are we at? Okay. I'm practicing for my grade three and I find that I can play hands separate, no problem, but putting hands together is difficult, especially when they're playing and doing completely different things. Yeah, that is so true, Sue. I wish that I had a magic thing to tell you to be like, "Do this and it will magically go together," but I don't.

[00:48:57]It's all about practice and time.

[00:49:01]Um and I think as adults we I generally find that adult learners expect way too much, way too quickly.

[00:49:09]I do it myself with dog training. I know I always relate my teaching to dog training, but I can't help it. I literally did it the other day. I was training Quincy and he was doing really well on his seesaw training.

[00:49:20]And I was like, "Oh, he's so confident.

[00:49:22]I wonder what'll happen if I just let him do the full seesaw."

[00:49:25]Why did I do that? That was so silly. I missed like five steps out. I just jumped to the end cuz I wanted to get there quick and now I have to go right back to the beginning cuz he got afraid.

[00:49:37]Slow and steady.

[00:49:40]Good things don't happen overnight.

[00:49:44]They take work and time and effort.

[00:49:47]Um but I do have some tips about putting things hands together.

[00:49:52]Um The first thing is The first thing is don't wait too long to put your hands together. Yes, you have to have a good understanding of each hand. Um but don't wait too long to start putting hands together. That being said, even once you've put things something hands together, don't underestimate the power of still practicing the right and left hand. So, you don't have to wait to put hands together until you fully know the left and right hand.

[00:50:26]But similarly, if you know a little bit of the left and right hand and you start putting it together, keep practicing your hands separate as well, and you'll be still developing all the different skills that you need.

[00:50:37]Um The other thing that I often find when people are struggling to put something hands together is that they've maybe skipped Um >> [sighs and gasps] >> Like So, our whole of our post beginner session, our post beginner pathway is a year of playing the same tune with different left hands and learning those left hand patterns and being really confident with those shapes and things like this. So, quite often if you're struggling to put something hands together, I would say look at the piece, look at the skills that you actually need, and then take those skills and put it into a simpler piece.

[00:51:17]You could make your own exercise. So, it's probably that you are still you're trying to put something hands together alongside skills that you still need work on.

[00:51:27]Um So, yeah, make yourself some little exercises to help you learn and build those skills, and then put them hands together. And then the last thing is take each little section that you're trying to put hands together and make exercises out of that. So, don't just sit down at the piece and start playing and trying to put it hands together.

[00:51:47]Take the first two bars and make that into a little warm-up exercise and work on that and then take the second two bars and then the and then bars five and six or however, you know, and make little exercises out of them all.

[00:52:01]Hopefully that helps.

[00:52:03]Um yeah.

[00:52:06]Bill says you've made Susan happy. Thank you. You're so welcome. I like it when people are happy.

[00:52:12]We have exercises in the how to manage that. Yeah, there's so much on harmonics and how to manage that because it's difficult.

[00:52:19]Um and I think it takes a while to find the exact right approach for you.

[00:52:26]There's more than one way to approach playing harmonics.

[00:52:30]What I want to ask about coordinating the two hands whilst improvising. You taught us just like moving one finger at a time whilst playing a scale in the left hand. Is there any other tricks or ticks like that? Little tips like this. So, Moon is talking about in the early intermediate I started introducing improvisation.

[00:52:49]Um and I have a kind of series of exercises to get people going with starting to improvise.

[00:52:56]Um and that's how I taught them.

[00:53:05]Any other trick um do I have any tricks or tips like this?

[00:53:12]I think the more your hands can be independent from each other, the easier it is to improvise because you don't have to think so much about the coordination.

[00:53:21]And so, playing around with the little patterns like what I just showed you there where I was playing the little pattern of five notes.

[00:53:31]Oh, sorry about that. [music] Leave it out.

[00:53:36]So, it's just five notes repeated.

[00:53:39]>> [music] >> And then just playing around in the left hand.

[00:53:45]>> [music] >> And [music] then swap your hands over.

[00:54:02]>> [music] [music] >> I think that's a great way to get you to get you ready for improvising because it allows your hands to be independent of each other. So, little patterns and introducing something else in the other hand. So, once you've got the pattern going, you can almost zone out from the pattern and start thinking about the other hand. I think that's a really great way of approaching it.

[00:54:33]Um Yes, exactly. And I'll say the post beginner course is a great way of learning to play two hands, 100% and the best way of doing it to learn really well to play with both hands is to do it over a year.

[00:54:47]So, it's designed to be at least a year.

[00:54:49]It's designed to be worked on for at least a year.

[00:54:53]Um and I think some people look at it and it's the same tune and they do it over like 3 months.

[00:54:59]The thing is you you're not giving yourself enough time to like bed in the skill.

[00:55:04]You might be able to actually play the skill, but that doesn't mean it's actually bedded in. So, a lot of the time we think because we can play one thing that's has got the skill. It's not. You have to play it in all these different contexts. Let's use the seesaw training with Quincy.

[00:55:21]If you can do a seesaw in the back garden, that doesn't mean he can just automatically do a seesaw in competition with a lot of jumps and things like that before it. So, in the garden you can do a seesaw, but then I have to take the seesaw to the park and I have to take the seesaw to my friend's garden and I have to take the seesaw to um a play a playground, and I have to take it to a different training venue.

[00:55:42]And then I have to introduce a jump before the seesaw. And then I have to introduce a tunnel and a jump before the seesaw. And then I have to introduce a jump after the seesaw. And then a jump and a tunnel after the seesaw. And build it up. I can't expect him to just do the skill because he can do it in one context. It has to be bedded in. And that's why the post-beginner um pathway takes a year because it allows you to bed the skill in. Hopefully, that makes sense.

[00:56:10]Um Yes, I agree. I really love the combination of a little bit of music theory.

[00:56:18]Yeah, when you're going through the post-beginner pathway, you get music theory and technique exercises and Lenares, and it really helps everything bed in. I'm glad you like it, Vicky.

[00:56:29]The improv club shares an idea each month to help with improv. Yeah, that's a really good show, actually. You might want to head over to the improvisation club that's happening at 6:00.

[00:56:40]4 minutes. Hopefully, that helped. I knew you guys would burst full of questions. This is what always happens.

[00:56:47]I hope that that's helped you. I love doing our power hours. Thank you so much for coming.

[00:56:52]If you are in the membership, then you might want to head over to the Harpy Improvisation Club session now.

[00:56:57]If you are in the membership or if you're not in the membership, I hope you will jump back on with us at 7:00 p.m.

[00:57:04]The concert will feature Lenares that we were just talking about.

[00:57:08]The concert is um a mixture of material from our learning pathways in the membership and the retreat ensemble put together.

[00:57:20]I can't wait for people to hear it because it's I think it's one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

[00:57:26]Um and it's no no one's heard it, not even Angela. No one's heard it yet, so I'm really excited to share that. Um So, concert at 7:00, please come. I'm so pleased to hear that, Heather, as I often feel I must be going so slowly.

[00:57:41]You can't go too slowly.

[00:57:44]You can go too fast.

[00:57:46]You cannot go too slowly.

[00:57:48]It will only make things really, really um rooted in you, and it's a good thing. You should take it slow. Slow and steady wins the race.

[00:57:59]Okay, everybody. It has been a pleasure.

[00:58:02]Thank you so much for joining me. I've loved doing the power hour. I hope you guys have enjoyed it, too. We do have special offers on in the How to Harp membership right now. So, if you want to bag yourself a deal, Bill and you and Susan want to join as a couple, come and join us. We would love to welcome you in. Um but, the offers are there for everyone.

[00:58:23]And I look forward to seeing you guys at our next session for the concert.

[00:58:40]>> [music]