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.