I need to take one of those Candace Dunham workshops at Somerset - get rid of your sloppy habits, practice carefully, etc, etc. Is there anyone else here who gets a little ADHD-ish when they play? I make promises to myself: no you can't move on to another song until you can play A Fig for a Kiss at a pretty good clip with absolutely NO mistakes. But honestly, I want to hear how Kiss the Quaker is doing, what's one or more little mistake? I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not very disciplined. Which is what I will try to work on this week, and I think my knee needs 3 more days at home, so it's the perfect time to be more careful. I would like to play 4 songs perfectly at a moderate speed: Fig, Quaker, Geese in the Bog, Lisdoonvarna......argh, too much, I know..........
Sunday - played for more than an hour, skipping back and forth between those 4 songs, as well as my regulars. Wondered: if I played from memory and watched my hands, wouldn't I be more accurate? Seesaw humidity makes tuning difficult and me fractious.
Monday - played more almost 2 hours, and was extremely dedicated about checking fingerings instead of doing whatever I wanted. Husband asked if we wanted to take our guitar/harp duo into a recording studio to make a demo CD. Nervous but excited at the possibility. We worked together on Swan Lk 243 and Ashokan, were pleased with our duet decisions and the parallel harmony we worked out. Wish it took something other than knee surgery to get me time enough to play this long on a weekday.
Tuesday-slow Pracrtice Day, so of course everything went well. Since I'm home recuperating, spent a lot of time on YouTube, listening to versions of Fig, Geese, etc. Everyone's playing is so fast! JP has reserved local recording studio time to make a 3-tune demo, useful for bookings. Since I don't think we've played Swan Lk 243 even once without fixing or changing something, this sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen, but still I am excited. I thought his idea about wearing 'click track' headphones to keep our tempo regulated was for the birds - who wants harp music to run like a well-regulated machine??
Wednesday- Concentrated on the 3 songs we'll record (swan lk 243, Ashokan, Planxty Drew), doing a lot of re-arranging of Ashokan in particular. A good rehearsal with JP after dinner, although he would rather sub. Trip to Sligo for Planxty Drew, and I guess I've agreed. Since 2 of these are NOT dance tunes, I will appreciate the rhythmic freedom. Have moved the harp from the upstairs 'music room' to the dining room; now it's my job to re-position it every day, to get used to different placement. Of course, moving means tuning....and retuning....and retuning......
Thursday - A crappy AM Doctor visit, and then home to just read and lie down. Evening rehearsal with the guitar dude, made some great changes to our arrangements. Picked CD cover or labels, still not sure how this works. Watched details of Massachusetts madness and read a great L. Bernstien quote: This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. Decided that this is my new motto.
I don't know. I think you *can* move onto another tune before you've perfected 'A Fig For a Kiss' or whatever. I mean, your brain needs time to assimilate new info, your neurons are making new pathways, but that means you've got to take a break and do something else for a while.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm working on something new or re-visiting something old that needs polishing up, I always reward myself after a little while with playing something else just for the fun of it. Then I go back to what I was working on before. It gets a bit better each time, but won't happen in a day. Why neglect the rest of your repertoire just because this other thing you're working on isn't perfect yet?
It's a balancing act. As long as you're not seriously all over the place it's fine. Enjoy your music, don't make it a dredge!
Haha, I enjoy my music so much that I could care less about the mistakes....I just need to care more and go slower! I know I'll get there, with a little more DIS-CI-PLINE. Thanks for your words of encouragement.
ReplyDeleteI learn a lot of the tunes I play by ear, and have note or letter music as a reminder, to get me started or keep me straight. I also learn the melody cold before adding any accompaniment, whether it's mine or something I've learned from Grainne. I often play the melody for a couple of weeks. You might want to try something like that? I have found, weirdly enough, that when I work on things that way, memorizing them, I stay focussed. The minute I start fooling around with sheet music, I start jumping around the way you describe.
ReplyDeleteI do a similar thing, but don't think I wait two weeks before adding the left hand. I still write everything out in my own ABC type format as a reminder of the melody if I need it and what the chords are or any variations on melody / left hand.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I remember you do that - I sometimes do that too - esp. when I've got a recording that is kind of fast and then sheet music - the letters are sort of and in between help.
ReplyDeletePam that's great about doing a recording with your husband!
ReplyDeleteYes, we'll, thank you! But we'll see.......
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your recording!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could do the click track thing *or* practice with a metronome (have tried that with little success). I probably should though. I think with the tunes (it is dance music after all) the tempo should be steady. But I agree Pam, it shouldn't sound mechanical (I have heard one or two Celtic harpers who sound stiff and mechanical).
ReplyDeleteDoes your harp go out of tune that easily, just from moving it to a different room?
ReplyDeleteI am a lazy tuner married to an anal tuner, and I moved the harp from a moderated room with humidity control to an open room next to the kitchen Here in NH, spring means varying humidity levels,so yes, if we are playing duets, until it settles in, I tune every day. Whine, whine, whine:)). Which I certainly shouldn't be doing, because compared to tuning my virginal this is a piece of cake!
ReplyDeleteInterestingly..... the Fisher stays in tune for days often, unless the weather is wildly changeable. The Dusty sometimes stabilized for a few days here and there and the Camac sometimes needed tuning twice a day! The little Dusty is amazing, just stays in tune no matter what. We have radiant heat and the Camac did behave a little better with that - it keeps things steady and no hot air blowing around - and the Fisher likes it even better. Loves it even.
ReplyDeleteI had to used a metronome when I was a kid, playing the piano..... so I am comfortable with it. Kathy cracked everyone up by declaring that her metronome was useless 'cos it just kept changing its pace.