9 practice habits that DON'T work... and what to do instead

[@paulineann7900]

🎶It's not what you do 🎶 "it's the way that you do it"🎶 THAT'S what gets results 🎶. Christy-Lyn at Learning the Harp knows this. To stand before the Truth and refute it is impossible. 🙋‍♀️🏋️😇

[@LearningtheHarp]

Hehe, great song by Ella Fitzgerald! 💃🏻🕺🏼 🎶

[@kathilisi3019]

I'm always so tempted to play the whole piece every time! 😅 I really appreciate your solid advice and can confirm that it works... I even started to divide other sheet music up into practice sections, like you do in your courses, because that's super helpful.

[@LearningtheHarp]

Hehe yes, it’s super tempting, I do that too! The important thing is to only spend a small percentage of the practice time doing that ☺️ That’s so awesome that you find yourself practicing other songs similar to how we do it in the video courses, I love it!!

[@annettekelly1592]

Me too!

[@SharonCullenArt]

Excellent video Christy-Lyn. Thank you for all of the reminders. One of my worst mistakes is practicing up to tempo. And then I end up memorizing quickly but have a brain fart (excuse me, I don’t know what else to call it) and I’m not watching my music. The other problem I have is playing through the piece. My teacher, Stephanie Claussen says it’s okay if you want to go through it once slowly just to get a feel for the piece but then stop and begin the chunking and putting together. Oh boy do I screw this up. The other issue is I find the metronome so distracting that it screws me up and I can never get through the piece., no matter how slow I play. Well that’s not completely true but it’s always a problem. And I can never seem to get through my piece without pauses or a mistake. SO FRUSRATING! I’m sure if I were just slowing down to learn I’d do much better. I wrote all of these things down and will tape them to my music stand as a reminder.😁

[@annabelbrown9628]

Great, so encouraging that someone else makes the same mistakes as me! I also feel an unnecessary urge to perfect a piece before the next lesson, which is totally unrealistic and totally unnecessary. Teachers are for teaching us, not for us to perform to 🙄

[@jenborn5358]

It’s like you were taking to me CL!!! 😬😬😬😂😂😂 Thank you for this message and to not be so hard on ourselves - thank you! 🤍

[@spailpin710]

Super guilty of no. 2 lol Great video!

[@thesuburbanmorrigan]

I watched this twice in a row. 😳 I will sleep on the wisdom herein and watch again tomorrow. Thank you!

[@LearningtheHarp]

Put up your hand if you do any of these! 🙋‍♀ 😁

[@dizzyzizzy]

🙋‍♀️😂

[@tomiskind]

Not harpist but follow you for great tips for any musician. Most of my time is spent on sticky parts - on some pieces play through as lyrics "sticky" too in that my own phrasing would disagree with the actual words. Thanks for great job in sharing this channel and keep smiling!

[@saraderinger353]

Guilty.

[@LearningtheHarp]

@tom claussen That’s awesome, I didn’t know other musicians found my videos helpful 😄👏🏻

[@tomiskind]

@@LearningtheHarp Most if not all of the same basics cross-apply just with different details; posture, hand and finger position with the variations depending on what one needs to do next. Would not have known of you except your vids come up when I follow my niece, Stephanie Claussen here. Thanks again for great info!

[@normang139]

Thanks Christy! I’m chunking now and placing everyday!

[@annabelbrown9628]

This is a really brilliant video, well done. I grew up playing several instruments too, but none of my teachers taught me how to practice. It wasn't till I was 65 and took up the harp that I began to learn how to practise. And what a difference it makes. I regularly stop and do practise health checks, and your video was a really good health check! Thank you xx

[@kristenbarry_Bardic_Non-Scents]

Guilty! I do play the whole thing through a lot but I also chunk it if that makes sense. You are the one that taught me chunking though. I did that when I was learning Evenstar on my own in January but I tend to choose larger chunks than you do in your courses sometimes. I have difficulty with really short transition practice. I need whole phrases to practice. I listen to your music track on repeat a lot when I am not as familiar with a piece. I find it much easier to learn rhythm by playing along to the slow play through at a faster speed. 1.25 speed usually. That is often my comfort speed. I get messed up with counting and metronomes. I often spend the time to input the music in Musescore and I can speed up or slow that to play along with too.

[@LearningtheHarp]

It’s ok to play through the whole piece as well, but it shouldn’t be the main way you practice. So if you’re chunking to iron out the kinks and get it fluent, that sounds great!

[@johnywong7136]

It’s hard because I am not used to playing with both hands. I recently picked up the harp and transitioned from the violin.

[@myladyswardrobe]

My dream since I was 3 years old was to play the harp. I have a 19 string harp (no levers) now and am trying to learn it. Its very different to my learning and playing the lute. And I am more limited on what tunes I can play. But its getting there. At least I can recognise what note is what string now....thanks to your videos!!

[@moniquemanspeaker7803]

Thank you don’t have music back ground 😊❤

[@SS4Xani]

I can actually vouch from personal experience concerning your practicing methods (granted my instance is regarding piano rather than harp in this case since I grew up playing the piano). I took a song that I thought would be impossible for me to play given my problems with fine motor skills yet (after practicing for a couple hours a day for a few weeks) I managed to get the piece into my hands' memory so that I was able to play the piece perfectly for a college exam nearly 3 years later. To this day, I can still remember how to play a rough version of the song (despite not actually keeping up with practicing it but if I were to bring out the sheet music and try again I could get back to where I used to be with it). Granted, it takes me much longer to learn a piece via sheet music than it does by ear most of the time.

[@LearningtheHarp]

That’s a great story! Yes once you’ve got a song properly in your head and muscle memory, it’s amazing how long it will stick there, and how quickly you can get it back if you forget.

[@SS4Xani]

@@LearningtheHarp That’s part of what inspired me to try the harp as well. :D

[@sleepbootbianca]

So true! As student of the learning the harp community it is something you tell us ‘ over and over again’! So helpfull!

[@Denise-SA]

Excellent, educational and ever-so-helpful!

[@inthedaysstillleft1257]

Guilty:(. But thank you so much for these great tips!

[@LearningtheHarp]

The great thing is they’re not hard to fix, it just takes some self control. You can do it! 💪🏻💕☺️

[@inthedaysstillleft1257]

Thanks!

[@loharchan]

🙋🏻‍♀️#8 for sure🤦🏻‍♀️I might need to practicing more on placing as well.🫢

[@elizabethjesenko3098]

These are great tips!

[@youareloved]

I need to work on placing! I find that I keep stopping to look so my rhythm is not consistent =)

[@LearningtheHarp]

Ah yes, proper placing makes a huge difference!

[@KathyLoweHarpist]

Terrific tips here! I've found I do most of these things because of prior training on other instruments, but for me, the tip about playing bracketed notes altogether so that I'm placing my fingers properly is one that I'm going to focus on. I also should spend more time focusing on those small sections that I continually have problems with. Thanks so much for these important reminders! 🎶 💕

[@JeepingMo]

Im always impressed when someone can make music.

[@LearningtheHarp]

Hehe thanks! I believe everyone can make music if they’re motivated to try! 🤗

[@mrswadlinger7752]

Can you discuss having dyslexia ?

[@abigailregan9790]

Thanks for the information!

[@robertowarren7007]

Great tips! All of them!

[@LearningtheHarp]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tzw290]

Very useful advice, thank you 😊

[@vehrkalia]

Thank you. Actually, I made a lot of those mistakes. I have not enough time to practice, so I try to do as much as possible when I practice. And it's a bit frustrating to see how I am slow in improving my playing. 😥 But I do the most on my own since I cannot take lessons too often (I have a quite expensive teacher!). It's sad that I can't take lessons from you due to my poor english understanding. I' d love to study with you! Maybe you could learn speaking italian, Christy? 😁😁😁😝🥰

[@LearningtheHarp]

Aw, sorry I don’t speak Italian!! I’m so impressed by people who can communicate in multiple languages. I wonder if you would be able to follow the demonstrations in my courses since I show very clearly what to do? You can try one course free and see if you can follow the videos? 😃💕 We have some students of other languages who enjoy the courses because they can slow down the video or repeat if they don’t understand the first time 😊

[@vehrkalia]

@@LearningtheHarp I really would like to make a try!

[@LearningtheHarp]

Great! You can go to www.learningtheharp.com/free-trial/ and choose any course to get free 🤗

[@feliciastuddard755]

Will these tips work on other instruments as well?

[@LearningtheHarp]

Some will definitely translate across 😊 Like some examples would be that it's really good to not rush through a piece, and to focus on problem areas and ensure you're finishing pieces you started 😁. xx Nicole, LTH Team Member

[@user-nm6dr4uy3d]

For some reason, I find it really hard to follow a metronome, but when my teacher counts for me, I'm able to follow the rhythm really well. The metronome, ironically, is not very musical. It's like a machine 😩

[@LearningtheHarp]

Hi J! I agree, I’ve found that with many of my students who just don’t enjoy practicing that way 😅 That’s why in my video courses I include a Slow Practice Video where I play and count out loud so the students can play along with a friendly voice, instead of the incessant ticking of the metronome 😵😆