How to Make Your Playing Less STIFF (And Your Body Too!)

How to be more relaxed and less tense when you play the harp, for a more beautiful flowing sound!
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Do you ever listen to harp recordings, and even though you might be playing the notes right, it still just doesn't sound as flowing and natural? This is something most harp students come up against at some point - and I definitely did when I was a student, too.
Sometimes, we end up trying so hard that our body becomes stiff, and then our playing does too. There may be several things going on when it comes to stiff sounding playing, but a very good place to start is being more relaxed in your body!
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[@2dbuy]

I appreciate this, I often bring a lot of tension from life with me when i start to play. Often focus on the physically off playing, so we might do stretches to our body. I closed my eyes while doing that with you and I felt like that was mental "stretching" to get your brain in the right place to play.

[@xtaasiedua7826]

Hi Samantha Please can you teach me..I’m from Ghana

[@mr_moss205]

In short: don't press so hard against the harp and just chill

[@SamanthaBallardHarpStudio]

Haha, that sums up a lot of it 😊 Easier said than done sometimes though

[@Xeweros]

In the past i was sitting on my sofa playing my harp. Obviously my knees were way to high for that. Now i switched to a chair and my harp started to sound a lot better :D From your videos I noticed that I am still sitting to low, because my hands need to reach a bit up, as specially my right arm. It starts to hurt after a few minutes... BTW. I had to play "Down by the Salley Gardens" a bit again, because i heard you playing it :D :D What a nice song. I love it.

[@SamanthaBallardHarpStudio]

Oh that's a great observation! Sitting height can make a huge difference. And I totally agree, Salley Gardens is a lovely tune :)