Steampunk - adventures of the New Years Eve kind

I'm going to play for a steam punk event on New Years Eve. I've been doing my research and discovering that there is definitely a steampunk music scene. Apart from plenty of sound effects, it seems that part of the steampunk vibe is Regency dances: waltzes, polkas. Handy. Apparently there is even a band called Ghostfire who have a waltz called ‘Calibernus’ - it would be lovely to have something recognisably "steampunk" in my repertoire.

I will be playing while people enter the club for the first time and I've been thinking about how best I can add to the atmosphere. The main thing I need to do is to help create that sense of otherness and welcome and that costume may be as important as the music I make.

From my web-ventures, steampunk seems to be this mixture of victoriana, adventurers and exquisite brass gadgets with some grubbiness thrown in for good measure. The current costume plan is to look like a harp toting grubby adventurer but somehow also elegant? Now I own something corsetty, can find some blousey thing, and have glove and boot like items. I need to find an appropriate kind of skirt and then as many accessories in brass or leather as possible.

Not too far away from this image on the left (courtesy of Monika Gorka)

I should probably imagine what I would have if I was an adventuring harpist and think along those lines. Mmm. Practicality with a necessary contingent to remain looking elegant. Costume shops in Oxford here I come....!

Actually it's always been a bit of a dream to go adventuring, especially with my harp (though I think a small version may be in order). I met someone when I was at the fleadh in Ireland - he was amazing, he made his whole living from clowning and playing harp. He was awesome. I want my music to take me on a new adventure too!

Biographies

One of my least favourite things ever is writing biographies. They seem to be like ... dark magic.
I think the only thing to do is collect together your necessary points and attack the piece with vigour - I am never going to be happy with it but at least I can actually put something together. Also - you have to remember that each one has to be tailored for its unique purpose - rubbish!!

At the moment I have three to write:

• Something very short for the Clarsach society website
• Something longer for admittance into a harp teachers directory
• Redoing my web page about teaching.

This last one is particularly doing my nut in, so it can wait!

Christmas messing about

I'm messing about with a laptop, free recording software, rubbish mic and my old harp, recording stuff trying out ideas, listening back. Very handy. This helps me to review - feel how what I arrange feels to a listener. Very useful.

I think when you're playing a melodic tradition on the harp and intending to stick within that, your main arrangement options involve ow thick you make your melody - where you place accent notes, do you add harmony lines. What makes the melody suddenly engaging, what makes it suddenly float?

Definitely fun for post-Christmas work. I might even stick some up if I like them.

Music, magic and transformation

For me, performing music is making a little bit of magic. You go up on stage, take your excitement and inspiration with you and let your skills and preparation do the work. Whether it is a huge amazing experience or something sweet and intimate, music has the capacity to take you away from your present world into another state. I feel that transformative power is real magic.

Discussing teaching with a friend last night, it was brought home to me how different teaching is to performing. Totally, completely different focus. You might need the same knowledge but you have to understand that information in a completely different way and give your attention to different levels of it. Additionally, you need your teaching skills: the relatively selfless discipline of working with someone else, in their mind, for them. Whilst on stage you are also working for your audience, but you don't have to keep a calm and controlled state in the same way - in fact it's better that you don't.

Essentially I have trained to do two things - my daytime weekday job of teaching and my evenings and weekend preoccupation of performing, of creating those magic spaces.

However distinct I've just made those two occupations sound, I feel at their heart they have a crucial similarity: that magic of transformation, the slow revealing of how the world can be a different place. Some of my favourite times are quiet morning lessons, with many small discoveries and moments of magic.

Sting even uses melodeons

Now I wouldn't normally write about Sting... but the cd was on where I was working today. I spotted Mary Macmaster's vocals on one track and so read through the cd booklet. Sting has picked a musicians list of really excellent trad players - including most of the lineup of the Kathryn Tickell band! Sweet. On earlier tracks I was thinking that's a nice groove. Now I know why!

Holidays = thinking time

Gosh. I love music, I live it, I really do and am very glad to do so. I also love teaching it but right now I am totally looking forward to the end of term. There is a huge and fascinating world clamouring for my attention. Once I've allowed it to distract me for a while then the thoughts and sounds inside me will flow easily again. I even know what I musically where I want to go next... I just need the energy and space to do so.

This term has been a huge accumulation of experiences and thoughts and planning and lessons and playing - it's been great. It's been the most fun for ages. I haven't been bored (novel). I'm just really looking forward to letting it all sift through - time to reflect on everything that's happened. I have at least half a dozen drafts of blog posts waiting to be finished. Then the important bits will sift out and I be able to see my next steps clearly.

Knowledge... like folk tune repertoire... isn't inherently perfect

I feel that knowledge is not fixed or static but flowing, evolving, changing, new parts and old parts drifting into focus or becoming fuzzy again. Forgetting, moving on, becomes just as important and absorbing new material. In fact you cannot absorb new material without having a relatively clear head - so there is a need to leave the old behind whether tunes, ideas, music or phrases. You can go through phases of things though: I obsess over a problem, solve it, move on. That's one of the points of this blog. In recording the information, the problems, I can review them then move forward.

Just like folk tunes are popularised or forgotten or changed in the fallible process of aural learning and transmission, so ideas recur or vanish or change. Some become more permanent through changes adopted in our institutions, our structures. For instance: we need lots of 2 part jigs and reels for dances that are currently popular so there are more of those tunes well known. Or we've decided that a certain kinds of intelligence are important so our higher level learning institutions only support people with those kinds of ability. The ideas may still change and flow the but the human organised traditions lock us into certain kinds of paths.

While I was growing up our modern world felt so fixed, so completed, there was nothing more to add. It seemed as if those who had gone before had some almost God-like quality - their work (musical or academic) seemed so perfect and complete in conception. I feel the world is presented to us this way as well: it should always be safe, always be complete, if it's not safe then it's the fault of someone else and you can sue them, a Nanny state.

I'm realising: a, there's no real sense of life or in life without the acknowledgement of risk; b, no information is ever complete or fixed so don't worry about it, just get a good enough method for examining and review (your own and peer review as well).

Most of my thoughts are not directly about music, but about wanting to understand the world, for myself now. I want to read much more about he great thinkers who have directly shaped the world before us: the older I get the more I see the world as shaped by people. Once upon a time I saw it all as almost divinely mathematical: you should be able to calculate almost everything, all knowledge was at our fingertips, there was nothing we couldn't know.

Bizarrely, this made me feel like there was no reason to chance anything - nothing new to learn, if you know all the information and the world is still shit why bother? Gradually I have come to realise that it's just a succession of theories - I'm not even sure we could say that the ones we have now are better than the ones that went before. With respect to our lifestyles in the West yes we can say that we live longer, we have a more comfortable existence, we can devote more of our energies to non-essential activities. Maybe this is progress but I feel something has been lost.

What is there in our viewpoint of the world that renders it so hard to live with? Now should be easy, easy yet we have more and more people especially in the Western world succumbing to mental illness, we have obesity and violence and boredom and disengagement on a massive scale. That can't be right.

What makes music attractive?

One of the defining features of folk is that everyone is a soloist. Your own stamp, your own touch is one of the most important parts of this music. It's inherent in a music where phrasing, rhythm and gesture are the defining feature - your personal touch and connection through that is of prime importance.

Of course new rhythm and gesture and phrasing types can be learnt - but still the emphasis is hugely on personal interpretation. Just like a potter, you hands help shape your music and each persons' hands are individual. Everybody can bring their own touch. When well developed it's the most beautiful thing in the world and you don't need more than that. If you do, there's generally a very specific reason.

I feel there is a parallel with this in general life - we find someone just being themselves is attractive, that being well-coordinated, being 'in' your body is attractive. Often we also find that relaxed people are attractive - that sense of ease and flow. I think music is just the same.

Attitudes to composition...

I love composition. I don't do very much of it but I am always exploring a little bit more here and a little bit more there. I have a little voice recorder to catch ideas on. It's like... there is this whole world of music to explore, some that exists already and some that you can find and make for yourself.

I was such a music nerd when I was at school, I completely absorbed the idea of the classical canon. The canon is the "approved" pieces of classical music - those which are deemed memorable by the great and good of whatever musical society you live in at the time. I dreamt of adding something to this but gradually disabused myself of the notion. What I could make didn't seem to fit with those sounds, I felt I was not a good enough musician.

Then I got to university and met the modern approach to classical composition - all experimental and strange - and that didn't seem to fit either. I didn't get the point - this didn't seem fun or creating something I felt was worthwhile. It felt like all the fire I had was put into a box and shut off.

There is such a disconnect between the act of making a piece of music and the event of it being added to any "canon" - one is all about exploration and the creative process, the other about it being "approved" by the right people.

That said, the love of "composition", of creating music never died. The desire to do it my own way has also never dwindled, but the motivation, the thought that it was worth exploring did. I still find the prospect of getting responses from other people to my music fairly terrifying, but the importance of getting such feedback is not going away but getting stronger.

I used to think composition was almost some divine process - that it was only worth doing if you created something truely extraordinary, something worthy of being part of "the canon". Now I don't. What I do think is that you reach the extraordinary through a series of small tiny steps, that to do so you need time and energy. Maybe you'll reach something you think is extraordinary - maybe you won't. Maybe someone else will think it's amazing while you're still bored and maybe exactly the opposite. Only time and a bizarre kind of popularity test will determine what happens to your music.

I am really cross with my composition teachers - especially at university - especially when it comes to judging me - mostly about not being given feedback. Why?! What do you see in one that you don't see in another? Peer review is perhaps the most important feedback you get - while it might show you up it also gives you routes to see where you might want to be. But blind peer review where someone sits in judgement and you get nothing except a number back - rubbish.

At the same time I can see how deeply difficult it is to teach composition. It's so intensely personal that any criticism is incredibly difficult to give. You have to acknowledge that you are being judged subjectively, to someone else's rules. The question is maybe why would you want to be? Certainly within the community music movement, you're taught that the only person who can truely judge how well a creation has been executed is the creator.

More and more I feel that the act of creating anything is about gathering some tools together and knowing where to go for more if you need it, then letting your instinct about the thing you are making take over. As a teacher, you can present new material and methods, suggest people devise and research their own as well, but you cannot teach the instinct. I do feel I was presented with some material but I don't feel like that the connection about the process was made at all. The bit I feel gets particularly missed is how to connect with your instinct, that your instinct is important, and that all the tools are there just to help you explore that.


I read a quote recently -

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

Scott Adams - author of the Dilbert cartoons

I like this - it includes both the idea of researching / exploration (finding your tool kit) and then exerting some kind of judgement / instinct over what to use.

Dictionary.com definition of creativity:
–noun

1.	the state or quality of being creative.

2.	the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.

3.	the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.

I feel that "creativity" is one of those woolly terms. People can "create" something and you can think it very dull, not interesting at all. But they *have* been creative.

I also feel like something created has to have a point - it has to be written for something, for someone. It has to be fun. For me, music is like pure will - there is no reason to make other that you want to. Also, if you don't get something from it, whether interest or understanding or depth or enjoyment or whatever, there seems no reason to choose to experience it.

It can be so frustrating wanting to get to a particular place with something and not being able to find the tools to get you there. Right now I'm looking for how to get myself to a new place. I suspect I always will.

Creative process...?

My guts say this is the creative process:

inspiration - method - review

Something inspires you.

You start to figure out how to make what you want, get a bit of a method.

You review it - experience it - to see if it is as you want it to be. You are always working to the limits of your perceptions. It's hard to tell when to move on, so it's good if there is a point to this creation - so you can say - yeah, that's good enough. That will do what I want it to.

Instrument obscenities

I've just been to see Stevie Wishart at the Barbican. She does unspeakable things to a hurdy gurdy - putting her fingers inside the instrument, making slides glisses scrapes rattles - amazing sounds totally appropriate to her piece ("Transients"). A friend called her the "Hendrix of the hurdy world". Somehow though it just seems rude to put your fingers inside an instrument - far too intimate to watch!

Motivation within a group, improvisation and social music

I went on a community music "Group dynamics" course run by Music Leader a couple of years ago. One of the main things that stuck were ideas on what motivates people within a group, i.e.

belonging - competence - autonomy

So feeling motivated within a group is easiest when:

• you feel like you belong, there is a place for you
• you feel that you have something to give, that your skills are valued
• you feel that you have some choice over what to give, you're in charge of you

I feel that folk sessions fit this exactly. At a session, where you met voluntarily in the pub, if you turn up with an instrument you can become part of the session - belonging. Part of the way folk music works is you can subtly alter the music with ornamentation. This means that many people can play the same tune while all playing at different skill levels and all having responsibility over their own part - competence and autonomy.

I feel that all improvised music allows this balance - that you are playing with what you have, not what you don't. For me, this is a defining feature of social music - that it welcomes all without constraining any.

Planning a musical career

The most exciting but also most scary bit about being a musician is the immense freedom of how your career can work (or not!!). Most people I know have a portfolio of work, that is a mixture: a balance of performance, function work, teaching, workshops, funded projects... also merchandising sales: publications, cds, digital sales, merchandising itself (if they have a brand), licensing of music for film and tv.... Just figuring out how to make an income from music is extremely difficult and requires you to think creatively itself!

Anyway right now I'm just beginning to think about this. A friend sent me this link which I shall read with interest.

http://www.zoekeating.com/blog/2009/09/deep-thoughts-on-my-music-career.html

Meta

The thing about living with problems is that not only do you have to find new methods to get past those problems, sometimes you have to create new approaches to find those new methods. So, I think about thinking sometimes. I use this blog to reason a lot of stuff out, so from time to time there will be something a bit obscure tagged "meta". Ignore or read - your choice.

More mouth music

One of the great finds of Towersey for me was see JigJaw (http://jigjaw.co.uk/) -

"JigJaw combines the percussion and passion of dance traditions with vocal harmonies in a tight, scintillating quartet of singing and dancing talents!"

They were fab to watch. Also to their credit was the calm with which they experience drunken enthusiasts at a midnight spot in the ceilidh in the dance tent...

Anyhow these guys are probably going to be my next stop in looking for mouth music in English. Marvellous

The harp session and this September's concert

I run a harp session. In summer 2007 I suddenly got it in my head that I wanted to start a harp session. The sessions in Edinburgh were so much fun - that mix of playful music making, meeting other folk who loved harps and playing lovely tunes suited for harps is really a winner. I started the harp session in July 2007 and just over 2 years on we have more support than ever. The pattern we've settled into is I teach two news tunes in the first hour, thereafter it's an open forum for tunes. Initially working by ear was very foreign to some folk, the two years haven't always been as easy ride and I think I've learnt as much as they have! I'm very grateful that the sessioners have stuck with it, everyone is a much stronger ear player than they were and it's getting easier and easier to have fun with the tunes now.

Out of this session has come an ensemble. One of the most fun but difficult things I do is to facilitate / create a performance out of the ensemble. I'm trying to open it up to as many people's input as possible while keeping the final performance fairly good - a tricky balance to strike! The concert we're doing is about 50 mins long, so long enough but not too much. Each concert we're allied with a different charity, good for us and good for the charity. This time it's the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (www.torturecare.org.uk).

The first concert we did was pretty terrifying, certainly for me and I think pretty daunting for all of us. We got an enormous amount of support from the audience, as well from each other, it was lovely. This time round we are coming to the concert from a completely different place: there's an expectation to live up to. We've got more members and a different mix of repertoire. I expect next time will be very different again. I'm looking forward to it.

So: if you're free on the 27th Sept and can space £6, get yourself to the Quaker Meeting House, 43 St Giles, Oxford (opposite the Lamb and Flag pub) for 3pm. Hope to see you there.

New term ... new projects...

All very exciting but very busy!

New performance - harp duo with Tori Handsley - Harps Restrung...

Steph West is joined by Tori Handsley: two harpists with a shared love of dancing rhythms, vivid chords and a free flowing melody.

Each brings influences from her respective traditions: Steph - early music, English & Irish folk; Tori: Jazz, Latin and Classical. Together they explore a funky and percussive sound world of tunes, songs and groove.

Tori and I are going to play in Brick Lane as part of a 3 day festival:
"15 minute factory brings together new and cutting-edge acts from across all art forms, blurring the boundaries between performance, art and music."
http://15minutefactory.blogspot.com/
We're on early Saturday evening.

New teaching challenges too... more Irish harp classes, a new adult class and other exciting bits and pieces. Also: more time to reflect and plan. Hurrah.

Favourite compliment ever

I spent bank holiday weekend at Towersey festival. I bumped in a melodeon player who I'd done a ceilidh gig with a few months ago. We were chatted about operations etc and I mentioned my hand.

"Oh - I never noticed" he said. "You play like it doesn't matter."

Free improvisation

I met the Oxford Improvisers last night, went along to their Monday night session. It was great fun - like going swimming, an hour of being completely immersed in something so completely alien to the rest of your life.

Within the world of harp and folk all the sounds are fairly nice, not very aggressive, certainly not very discordant (even if you consider Irish fiddlers liking of flat C sharps). With this is was aggressive sounds, crashes, scrapes, extreme chromaticism (barely tonal centres), gestures and barren silences. There was a guy with an amazing bag of percussion *stuff* - pots, pans, anything. One particularly fine bit of bent metal. Not very lyrical at all - I brought some lyricism I think.

I was also singing and what a joy it was for it to not only be allowable but completely appropriate to make utterly horrible deranged noises. I found singing allowed me to follow the chromatic movement much more easily - on harp I'm still not mapped chromatically as much as I want to be.

So any - my new hobby - free improvisation. The players were all really lovely too, fun, happy people. In common with playing folk or trad (or maybe any aural music?) you had that sense of knowing them unexpectedly well afterwards. I think I have probably seen their faces in the street a few times but after such a session where attention flows so clearly I feel I will recognise them instantly now.

What can I do to improve my musicianship?

These are my notes for what I want to focus on working on now in each situation.

...in sessions....
playing fewer tunes
tackling specific challenges each tune
try to get the whole tune in mind before playing any of it
accompaniment improvisation.
following tunes players rhythm as closely as possible.

... in rehearsals...
lots of prep beforehand
close close ensemble work.
being brave with performance.
ask for feedback.
keeping an eye on time keeping

... in practise....
small chunks to good standards
perfect posture, hand shape.

... in background gigs....
stamina.
posture.
improvisation.
allowing the music to breathe in awkard spaces.

... in proper gigs....
audience focus.
allowing the music to breathe and really aiming for a great visceral connect with the audience.
story teling.

... in teaching....
have a very clear idea of what you are teaching & directing each time

Teaching music? Or being a guide?

I have a real trouble with the concept of "teaching" music. Much like art, it's so much about your own self and reference to yourself it's impossible for someone else to set out exactly for you. From everything from how your hands work to your taste and direction in music, it is something best found for yourself and there are many many ways to approach it. I can only hope to communicate a few good examples and the enthusiasm to continue learning.

What can I pass on?

• A received technique that has been tried and tested by many musicians
• Ways of developing your body awareness to manage and develop your own technique
• Ways of getting into listening, reading and processing music
• Ways of practising and improving coordination
• Give you signposts to what music already exists, point to what music can be but I have no intention of telling you what music should be.
• A positive attitude and an enjoyment for challenging yourself - how to make a game out of difficult things

Good learning states

Current ideas:

Figure the task out by yourself for yourself! It's your information, order it in a way that makes sense to you.

Take time, have patience and be calm. Learn in a way you enjoy.

Play games, explore, go on a whim.

Let the movement connect itself up naturally for you.

Little practice and often eases frustration.

Set up a good environment - easy access (instrument out) - not too much at once - timer (maximum detailed concentration is about 20 mins)

The hardcore part of music is often building the physical side, it's like a tree. Plant a seed then water in lots of little stages, return to see how it's growing frequently!

Life cycle of learning a tune...

1, Figure out notes and rhythm
2, Explore physical side - hand shapes , bowing patterns...
3, Make physical bits easy (play games with it - see below)
4, Re imagine music - add something new (left hand?)

Section 3 is the bit we really think of as "practice". All the normal rules apply - learn what you repeatedly do so you want to sort out small bits and get them right first time. However if you're really exploring the movement then little games are helpful to prevent the boredom:

Treacle practice - like you're moving through treacle - how slow can you play?
Taking a specific movement or pattern and playing with it - rhythm, accent, different expressions...
Re: harps you have block practice, practice finding where your fingers need to go in clumps

The main thing is play with it, improvise, explore through games. When you can mess about with and return to a data set you can understand it in a much more intuitive way, whether a movement or a pattern of notes. It's a great state to learn in and fun too.

Anatomy of harp technique...

The best technique is the set of movements that allow you to play what you want to play remaining comfortable, relaxed and free of injury.

I'm still adding to and researching this... basically harp technique is a very natural movement, it's all about getting the right posture. Playing the harp can feel great, a goo dhand shape feels really relaxed.


My ergonomic thoughts thus far...

• Your general body posture - upright, relaxed, balanced, the harp leans to you.
  
• Openess across shoulders supported by back muscles pulling shoulder girdles back into place
• Arms are held up by upper arm muscles and pectroal muscles - must be balanced by back muscles!
  
• Hands held somewhere around or just below heart level - it's better to play around with your harp height to find the sweet spot
  
• Positioning hands - you can change the angle of your arms and two planes and then the amount of rotation on your forearm
• Your fingers should work in parallel with forearms (no bend from side to side)
• Wrist should be held so there is as much space available for everything going through the carpal tunnel. This also affects the balance of strength in your hands (difference in ulna and radial muscle strength). Sweet spot is when closed thumb is in line with forearm
• Fingers work much more efficiently and relaxed when pulling under the hand into a flat (baby) fist, not clawing back. A hand shape where fingers are straighter but more bent at the knuckle enourages this more. Also bringing fingers that aren't being used in to the hand in flat fist position encourages the other fingers to follow.
• The wrist angle allows a backwards bounce in hand after each movement to release tension in wrist.
• Thumb needs to start open with space at all joints and close fully to curl over your index finger - gives it a hug!

Photos to follow!

In many ways it doesn't matter what movements or shapes you use, but the quality of movement is very important. You are looking for shapes that allow you to get a great contact on the string, fully articulate to follow through your movement, and then release any tension. It's all about all about the contact with the string and sharp ping away from the string - relying on finger weight, no effort needed.

Efficient practice

I'm collating any ideas about how to practice - guidelines for how long, what kind of stuff, techniques to tackle difficult corners, mental practise. Any more ideas please pass back...

How long....
little and often
regular - tied into routine
leave your instrument out - just dip in for 10 mins - timer
20min "learning spots" may be most efficient

General ability....
focus on individual hand patterns
interacting patterns (.e.g. scales in left, moving chords in right)
improvisation, playing games with shapes - pushing general coordination

Techniques for difficult corners....
block playing odd shapes (harp specific)
rhythm and accent practise

General rules....
slowly sorts it out!
play it right first time - then play it right 3 times
hands separately to start
small sections - target, achieve, move on
need method / diary to see what you are achieving

Mental practise....
imagining how you want the music to sound, in small detailed sections, in overall sweeps
imaging the movement in fine detail - see hand from 3 different angles

What is traditional harp music?

I'm going to do a couple of gigs towards the end of June. I'm thinking about all the different places the harp goes and I go with the harps - I feel like it's a complete meeting place / melting pot for music and musical traditions. Also I feel myself as a musician is also a huge melting pot... classical, early harp, Irish, Scots, English, Breton... composed, improvised, ensemble, solo...

The remit of trad harp within Britain and Ireland:

The harp has its own historical repertoire dating from 1000 - 1600 roughly, location specific:

• Ireland
  
• Scotland
  
• Wales
  
• Britanny (claims an early traditional though I know of no historical sources as yet)

New compositions for solo harp (ones here listed are all Scottish) e.g.

• Savourna Stevenson
• Corrina Hewat
• Phamie Gow

The harp as song accompaniment for traditional or "Nu folk" songs:

• accompanying trad song and folk song in general
• specifically associated with the Scots gaelic waulking songs (partially responsible for the revival of the clarsach in Scotland)

The harp as part of the dance tradition (a fairly recent invention)

• accompanying (rather like a continuo player but sometimes more involved / composed)
  
• as a leading melody instrument - first person to do this in Ireland was Maire Ni Chathasaigh in late 1970s / early 80s

The harp also accompanies spoken word - poetry and storytelling. The earliest documentation of the music for this is the Ap Huw Manuscript.


Historically the harp has always been more aligned with songs, storytelling, ceol mor - literally "big music" meaning music to be still and listen too. Despite it being a listening instrument, the aural nature of transmission means it's still traditional instrument, related very closely to the rhythms of the body and a pesronal touch.

Performance practises associated:

• Fixed compositions and arrangements whether solo or ensemble (like classical music learnt aurally with whatever sense of rhythm)
• Improvised accompaniments
• Ornamental improvisation on melodies (specifically Irish trad)
• Bigger improvisations on melodies (more of an English thing)
• Theme and variation (early harpers used this particularly)
  

It's valid to have a classical sense of rhythm (fits with "pop-y Nu folk") or a trad sense of rhythm. To me I only want to use a trad sense of rhythm - all ties back to this sense of traditional music "feeling right". That's what trad means to me - very human dance music. Even my songs have to feel like they are dancing.

Being able to play - what a relief

Gradually as time goes on I can play more as I want to - it's like the overwhelming drive is to be able to express myself within music through music, to be able to hear something in my mind and produce it through my hands. It's bizarre - I am not me if I cannot make music happen. What a bizarre need - why should shaping sound matter so much? Anyway it does. After just over two years of relearning to play harp from scratch to accomodate my right hand music is really becoming fun again.

I can improvise and think with the harp again. It's magic, like mercury flowing, all connected up. I can sense my links when I watch other players - now I can perform those movements at a similar speed I can feel them when I watch others players. That's very beautiful.

My sense of rhythm while playing has also improved massively. That really is a relief. This time last year I could not play a dance tune to speed to my satisfaction. Now there are some that I can and it doesn't take forever to get new ones to that point. Recently I even got my first freebie - when you suddenly can play a tune that you've never consciously practised, your fingers just know what to do. Magic.

Steph's crazy hand history and how it relates to her learning the harp

I started to play harp in Oct 2000. For about a year I tried playing from both sides and then decided that right hand top made much more sense (I'd played piano before and they have the same melody / accompaniment function). I really fixed that in my mind and got on with it from summer 2002. I started investigating harp teachers and got a very negative, cautious view point - faced with my right hand I had a harp teacher tell me to only play with two fingers (very limited!).

In March 2003 I first went to the Edinburgh Harp Festival. I met and heard loads of fantastic harpers, finally got some lessons from people who didn't write me off and who could see how much I wanted to play. I loved every minute of it and it completely set me up to carry on playing.

About two months later I really started chasing a hospital referral that had been hanging over me for two years - by the end of my first year at uni (summer 2001) it was clear that I had movement problems with my right hand, that the corrective procedures hadn't worked as the doctors had predicted. When I finally got the appointment that I'd been waiting so long for I was told fairly bluntly that corrective surgery on growth deformities (macro dactyly) didn't work, fingers were too complicated.

I was deeply unimpressed by the surgeon I'd been referred to, so started looking for other ways to get treated. I got referred to Royal Orthopaedic in Birmingham via my uni physio therapist - an appointment booked by my then boyfriend's mum for which I am very grateful. I was finally seen by my consultant in March 2004, in June 2004 I had an amputation of my extra large finger. The aim was to improve my overall hand function and specifically remove the mechanical problems I faced with harping.

In 2005 I went back up to Edinburgh, found a harp teacher to go to back south and got on with the job of building up speed and technique. I also started going out gigging where I could. By harp fest 06 I'd realised I'd maxed out my speed in my right hand for tunes and it wasn't enough. I dabbled in swapping hands but didn't fully until harp fest 07 - three x 1.5 hours a day for 5 days was enough to get past the initial pain barrier. I came home and realised that all the gigs that were lined up I was going to have to play left hand top - it was too confusing, seriously hurt my head to swap constantly.

So I stuck it and continued with the hard grind of technical work. Around this point I started sessioning massively and it paid off. However I also started getting soreness in my hands in general - a stiffness in the stump that was left from my middle finger made me almost use my hand in two.

Harp fest 08 saw me pretty depressed. In the months preceeding I'd been starting to build my right hand technique and getting pain and weird feelings. It was during this fest that I realised I needed yet another op - that I just couldn't sustain a wide enough range without being able to bend the middle stump, the hand has to work as a whole in order for the forearm to be relaxed.

So MayDay 08 saw me back at the consultants, after a month of absolute fear that there would be nothing they could do. I finally had a hand op Oct 08. During the summer I'd massively over played, and so banned myself from touching my harp for October. That's pretty much when I started this blog, out of sheer desperation to keep moving forward.

It was really really hard not playing, but going out to sessions kept me going and I started to perceive music in a different way - I'm a much stronger player now because of that enforced break.

It was a very difficult time because very close friends with whom I played a lot were suddenly cut off from me. A lot of our sense of closeness actually came from our playing - it's very intimate - and suddenly I'd completely backed off from it.

Oct - Dec was full of physio. During this time I also started sorting out my technique problems. I knew I had been setting myself up for a fall but the previous summer had been so mad - just head down, blinkers on. Now I started assessing and changing habits - sessioning less for a start. That's a bit of a sadness but not too bad - there is a balance in everything and if you aren't having fun doing something there's no point doing it to excess.

Dec 08 saw me meet a harper called Dominique Dodge. She's great - quick, accurate, loads of Scots repertoire and tunes, beautiful voice and sense for the Gaelic song. She pointed out one technical thing - where your carpal tunnel is most open - and just liked what I did. She gave me my confidence back. She also passed on the contacts for a chiropractor specialising in soft tissue overuse injuries. That has also been a major turning point.

So, for the past six months, I've been playing less, playing more slowly, but my overall speed ability has been going up. Wicked. It's finally finally coming together. I still have hand problems, I suspect I always will, but they feel managed and I'm calmer, not panicking. It's such a relief to be able to play how I want and there is still more to come. So the motto: be patient, be kind to yourself, be confident and keep looking for solutions: you'll get there in the end.

More music / movement links to follow...

Matthew Roger at Belfast University:
http://www.sarc.qub.ac.uk/~mrodger/Academic/
"I am interested in exploring the role(s) of ancillary body movement in music performance and how this develops over the course of skill acquisition.

Ancillary body movements made by musicians during performance (such as swaying, nodding, hand gestures, foot-tapping, etc.) do not seem necessary to create sounds, yet can communicate expressive or emotional intentions, relate to musical structure or facilitate co-ordination with other musicians. My research is into the origin and development of these movements during musical skill acquisition. This research project consists of three aims:

> Exploration of the development of ancillary body movement in musical skill acquisition
> Development of a theoretical framework of embodied music cognition
> Development of an appropriate human-computer interface to exploit characteristics of musicians' ancillary movements as augmented feedback in skill acquisition"

Frustration / inspiration

I've been writing this post and it basically comes down to me wanting to go back to study full-time somewhere, also that I think frustration and inspiration are different sides of the same coin. There you go - you can skip the rest now. If you're daft or bored enough... read on.

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I've hit a huge unhappy block of frustration. Not sure why exactly - I can feel this wall, can't see how high it is or how wide, or how I'm going to get over it - yet. Mostly it's to do with desperately wanting to get on with making some expressive/varied/intense/interesting music and taking it out somewhere and feeling like I don't have the people / finger skills / inspiration - whatever.

Does everyone involved in a creative process have points where they go mad from their own internal pressures? Where what they want to achieve seems so far away from their current point that they can't even begin to think where to go next? I expect so. Somehow though I've noted that it's often in extremis that I come up with something new - that difficulties push me into a corner and so I visit unexplored areas because I can't explore the normal ones.

Whenever I hit a wodge like this it's often because of something to do with my hand, though I'm realising that probably isn't accurate anymore other than needing to take time to build up my playing to a level I am happy with. Bizarrely I think this really will happen - not that my playing is in anyway perfect (or ever will be) but I'll get a set of songs and tunes together and be able to feel like they're hitting neough of the mark that I should take them out here. I think my benchmark is that I have to really enjoy them. Actually my plan is find the right kind of people who can judge that for me and push me off in the right direction!

Even though it has taken me several years just to get this far I feel so strongly that this is my instrument - I can't quite imagine gelling with another instrument so completely - even down to the fact that it's fantastically inspiring and wonderfully tactile but also ridiculously awkward to play on almost every level. And to play it properly is incredibly geeky.

I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to go down this path of trying to make a living from playing a few years ago - I wish I'd had the common sense to pick something else that I could do part-time and carry on studying along side it (hang on... I did... but oh yes it was another financially insecure but interesting job. Whoops). I'm feeling like I'd really like time off from this financial pressure, time just to play and learn and play and learn. Also that I'd really like musical input for me, inspiration for me. Time to listen and watch.

I feel like life is a series of crises and that you don't get prompted to sort things out in a way that will take you to the next stage until you hit that wall of frustration. I guess it's a good thing, even if right now I feel like breaking things. I just have to focus on the next goal more or less within target. Keep on finding the next solution and look for people who can help you along the way.

Movements / mirroring / social glue

I've been developing my ideas about how our bodies relate to music, how it is passed on. Central to this is the fact that when we see a movement performed, the part of our brain that controls movement copies it - as far as our brain is concerned we might as well be doing the movement. This is one way that we absorb new physical movements, also how we read emotions. We see someone else's expression, copy it, and then that posture tells us how they feel.

Also, our brains synchronise with any rhythm that they hear. I wonder if this is a separate device or an extension of our ability to mirror movement. As I've mentioned before this doing things in unison within a group promotes a sense of loyalty to that group. Music is social glue.

Drawing on the right hand side of the brain

In art we are told

"draw things, not nouns"

We have to look at the shape and see it as it is, not analyse it using words. It is this turning off of words that is key. Words are on the left side of your brain, and you need your right side for art.

I can't claim this link - my mum just came out with it - playing trad music, paying complete attention to the shaping of the phrase in a very sensory way is playing music with the right hand side of the brain. It produces completely different results in music making. We were talking about learning by ear and she just came out with this link.

I rather feel that playing from dots is like drawing nouns. It's not even painting by numbers.
So...

"play music, not dots"

Tool kits

When we make music there are many different mechanisms all going on at once, many different skills we need. Since I've been teaching I've been thinking about these as "tool kits", I want to give my pupils the tools to make music for themselves as well as see what I am missing. This is as far as I've got with identifying the different elements and what you can use to develop those skills. This is unashamedly biased towards learning traditional music.





Musical toolkit
immersing yourself and becoming incredibly familiar with the music you wish to make


Learn how the music you want to play works by immersing yourself:

Sources:

• Recordings
• Score
• Live music (gigs, sessions, playing with friends)

Passive learning / absorption

• Listen listen listen - on in the background
  
• Mp3 player for convenience
• Carefully managed set lists

Active Involvement

• Active listening - observe details
• Diddle along with it
  
• Clapping rhythm of it
  
• Dance to it (ceilidhs, your living room, the session)
• Practise

Mental toolkit
attitudes, hearing and reading clearly, recall,

Hearing music in detail and clarity:

• Practising listening and identifying elements by ear
• Listening to slowed down audio files to hear more detail, then listening at full speed again
• Recalling the music in great detail
• Transcription - make yourself notate all the detail
• Imagining how you want pieces to sound
• Being able to tell where the home note is and what note in a scale is being played at any given time
  

Retaining music and being able to recall it at will:

• memorising
• practise starting sets
• learn it more than one way - by ear, then in hands
• categorise what you know - mental filing

For any improvised art form:

Pre-set ideas

• Rhythms
• Harmonic sequences
• Melodic fragments
• Hand shapes

Knowing where the notes map on your instrument - i.e. scales, arpeggios

Performance:

• sense of drama
• presence
• communication with audience
  

Understand the mechanics of playing your instrument intimately - as much a mental skill as a physical one

• Fingering patterns
• How your hands work
• Ergonomic postures!!!
• Know the potential injury trouble spots and what to do
  

Attitudes:

Focus

• Being able to play under pressure
• Paying attention to other people
• Focusing on the music, blocking anxieties

Expectations

• Find out and set realistic expectations

If it's not fun then have a rethink - music has no other purpose than for us to enjoy it.


Physical toolkit

Condition

• Warm ups
• Relaxation exercises (so you recover from all the playing!)
• Stretches
• General exercise, rest, food - be generally well

Coordination

• Practise
• Mental practise
• Always look for unknown / unexplored shapes
• Improvisation
• Rhythm and accent practise
  

Mental interface - ears to fingers

• Improvisation

Hand shapes

• practising hand shapes, learning feel of each
• chunked practise - practising within placement groups

Touch

• Physical feedback
• Contact with harp
• Slow still practise
• Improvising with dynamics
  

Speed

• Clarity of movements (mental practice, aiming for beautiful movements at a slow pace first)
• Gradually building up speed 2bpm at a time
• Remember: the fastest safe speed is determined by how relaxed you can remain whilst playing

Anymore ideas are very welcome! This is just a start.

Hand update

Well it's four months on from the operation I had on my hand. My finger joint is way better, I have active movement to 90 degrees and passive to a little more. This has exceeded the aim of the operation. I have a stronger grip and I can get into playing the way I want too.

I still have to manage the workload on both my hands. While one hand was mildly disabled, the other hand had to compensate. Both were closer to their maximum workload. Even now I'm still building up stamina and rest and recovery time is very important. That said it's really positive and I can see loads of routes through any problems. I'm using mental practise a lot more and the best thing is... you can practise warm and cosy in bed!

Recreation

What is the point of an artistic activity? It doesn't feed us, clothe us or keep us warm. It might make us more healthy. It might provide us other useful skills.

I think the most important point is the arts give us a way of enjoying ourselves. It's fun, it's recreational. Through the arts we create a safe social space, we do activities that take us outside ourselves and give us a chance to forget the worries. It's important to forget yourself a little bit.

Artistic endeavour also gives us a safe space to re-engage, to try something new, to prove to ourselves that we can be more than we are now.

I can't think of a more useful social tool than voluntary for fun activites. So many of my friends come through music now, but if they didn't then they would come through some other hobby or activity. There's something in the mix of structure and freedom of expression that collaborative artistic efforts offer that is really good for people, that gives them a breathing space.

Recreation
Re-creation
Regrow, start afresh

Neuroscience of music

I went to university to study music because I wanted to know how it worked. In a fairly standard BMus degree this was never tackled or even hinted at (though I did manage to sneak the topic very briefly into an essay).

I'm delighted to find there is now a field of study of music from a scientific view point and even popular science books on the topic. I've also occasionally met researchers in this field and I'm really looking forward to hearing more as the study unfolds.

I find music as a phenomena fascinating - there are so many layers of processing to make it all work, none of which even necessarily tell us why it grips us massively. From a political / education (and financial) point of view, I hope proof gets found for why learning music is so important, what it can bring cognitively of benefit.

Time to introduce one concept - your mind synchronises with every rhythm it hears. Therefore in a room of people listening (or playing) the same music, everyones mind is synchronised. I intrigued as to what this does to us, particularly the fairly fanciful idea that those in the room might briefly be part of the same neural network. Triggering this synchronisation is certainly a powerful tool. This week New Scientist ran an article reporting that performing activities in unison within a group can increase your loyalty to that group (full article here How to control a herd of humans by David Robson).