Spring is finally settling in where I live. You might be weeks ahead of me or behind me or in a totally different hemisphere, but in the spirit of sharing what's on my mind and what's happening in my world, I want to talk about spring cleaning today. Naturally, though, I'm not talking about cleaning windows and carpets and closets. I want to talk about spring cleaning your harp life.

When I first decided to focus on spring cleaning for this podcast, I didn't want to take the easy way out. It would be easy to talk about harp care - changing strings, cleaning your harp, the right products to use, etc. But I wanted to go deeper and look at what matters to your harp playing even more than new strings or polish. I want to talk about your playing, your practice, your music.

We all get into a practice routine, and in general, having a routine is a good thing. It helps us stay on track more easily by creating a habit that can be nearly effortless to follow. But those same habits that support our playing can become ineffective when they go from being effortless to being mindless, and sometimes we aren't even aware of It happening.

Here's a simple example. Maybe you like to warmup with a particular scale or arpeggio pattern or perhaps a favorite short piece. There's nothing wrong with that at all, unless you find yourself playing it so automatically that you aren't paying attention to those things we want to watch in a warm-up: our posture, our relaxation, our finger action, and so on. Sure, we're still warming up our fingers, but our focus is really elsewhere.

This is where we can decide to do a little spring cleaning. We can try a different warm-up, or rotate between several warm-ups. We could play our warm-up in different keys. There are a million things we could do, but the refresh is the point.

So in our spring cleaning planning today, I want to focus on two big objectives. One is refreshing or renewing some of what we are doing, whether it's part of our practice routine or maybe the music we're playing. We want to spruce things up a bit.

The other objective is to simplify, to investigate what's working for us and what isn't, to eliminate extra work so that we can do more of the playing we love. Think of it as decluttering your harp playing. We will start by simplifying and then we'll get on to the renew and refresh part. And it's going to be fun.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

• Check out this blog post from the archives: Spring Clean Your Technique: 5 Days to Fresher Fingers

• A five day guide to understanding music at a deeper level: Playing More Musically: 5 Days of Discovery

• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

Looking for a transcript for this episode? Did you know that if you subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts you will have access to their transcripts of each episode?

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-255

If you came to me for a lesson and said you wanted to work on music theory, my first reaction would be to do my happy dance. I admit it - I am a theory geek. I love talking about the building blocks of music and exploring the way composers use them to create the kaleidoscopic variety of music we love to play.

But after my happy dance, I would ask you this question: why do you want to learn music theory? It's not a test question; there is no wrong answer. But I have often found that harpists make assumptions about what theory knowledge will do for them, and those assumptions, if they aren't completely wrong, aren't always on the mark.

Knowing more abut the inner workings of music, the nuts and bolts of it, is undoubtedly important for any musician. It is also certainly true that some elements of music theory are immediately applicable to our playing. Most harpists, for example, realize that if they understood more about how chords work, they would be able to learn their music more quickly, sight read more easily and memorize faster. That sounds like a superfood for your playing, and lots of harpists are ready, willing and eager to add that to their practice diet.

But before chords will make sense to you, before they will be really useful, before you can become fluent with them, you need to know your major and minor keys. You need to know them cold, not have to figure them out, just know them as well as you know your alphabet. This is a step that too many harpists fail to take. They try to jump right into learning about chords without the foundation that makes their construction and sequences inevitable and logical.

So that's where we are starting today. I want to be sure that whatever your goals are with music theory, you have the knowledge that everything else in our system of music springs from: scales and keys.

One caveat - don't think this is going to be basic baby stuff. I promise unless you're a complete theory geek like me, you'll learn something today that you didn't know before.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

• Blog post Musical Understanding Starts with Key Signatures
• Podcast Episode 6: Minor Keys [A Scale of a Different Color]
• Join us in My Harp Mastery.
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

Looking for a transcript for this episode? Did you know that if you subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts you will have access to their transcripts of each episode?

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-254

I was recently at the home of a harpist friend, and she showed me her stack of diaries, her appointment books from past years. There were decades of them. She was deciding it was time to get rid of them, but she wasn't quite ready to do it. I had to admit that I pitched mine long ago, and that occasionally I have wished that I still had them. They would be fun to look through.

Those entries, even the most prosaic ones, recall so many memories. They bring to mind places, people and events that you have nearly forgotten. Suddenly, you are transported to a different time and place, even a different version of you, and this can give you a different perspective on where you are, and even who you are, now.

But we aren't talking about calendars or diaries today; we're talking about practice journals, and the variety of ways that you can use them. Right off the bat, I will say that some of those ways are more impactful than others, in terms of promoting your progress and growth. For instance, if you've been using your practice journal as a simple way to keep track of what you've done, I think you're underutilizing your journal. It can be an engine for forward momentum, not just a log of today's practice. And we're going to explore some of those ways today.

One disclaimer here: I am not one of those people who are natural journalers. Although many of my friends in our teen years kept diaries of all kinds, I was never able to. It always seemed like a good idea, but I didn't really enjoy it. I appreciate that some people are very good at this and enjoy it, and I wanted to be clear, in case you're more like me, that I am not one of those people.

However, I do use a practice journal and so I know firsthand how valuable it can be. So if you're a journal-lover, you're going to find some new ideas for journaling today, at least I hope you will, and if you're a little reluctant to dive into this journaling thing, be patient because I understand where you're coming from, and I have some key tips for you too.

Links to things I think you might be interested in that were mentioned in the podcast episode:

• Try the Spark Practice Journal, available in print or PDF versions
• Practice: A New Definition blog post
• Harpmastery.com

Get involved in the show! Send your questions and suggestions for future podcast episodes to me at podcast@harpmastery.com

Looking for a transcript for this episode? Did you know that if you subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts you will have access to their transcripts of each episode?

LINKS NOT WORKING FOR YOU? FInd all the show resources here: https://www.harpmastery.com/blog/Episode-253