Happy thumbs...

All the effort in a thumb goes into mantaining it's weird shape and that is what exerts pressure on the string. Thunbs have to be upright and I think easiest if kept slightly curved - think how bridges work and what an excellent weight bearing shape that is.

Thumbs nearly always have a drier sound as well. They are higher on the string, the digit pad is aimed at a different angle and the different positioning compared to the string all make a difference. You can put more thumb pad on to counteract this.

The most important bit about thumbs is keeping that useful little c shape between thumb and hand - gives your thumb space to move, stops it cramping, keeps it within normal joint range so it doesn't lock, prevents you from bringing it too far back (can do weird tension things in lower palm of hand).

Oh yeah - cut your nails...!

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.

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.

Harp technique - striking versus plucking

There are two main harp techniques: striking versus plucking. They loosely correlate: striking / folk / unprepared and plucked / classical / prepared. Here is a bit more on each technique.

Plucking:

• All fingers are placed on the strings before they are needed
• The strings are put under tension and the sound happens when the strings are released (think archery)
• Sound comes from a negative action (though you could argue that 'releasing the string' is a positive action)
  
• Your fingers are always completely prepared, this works best for complete, fixed arrangements (classical performance practice)
• This is a very consistent systematic method of playing - great for learning from score and for sight-reading
  
• Very close attention is paid to hand shapes
• Process for each note takes longer - place => pressure => release => relax
• It's important to have a good contact on each string before you play for security and...
  
• You have lots of sensory feedback from the string for tone and volume

This is particularly important for heavier strung instruments - you need this technique to get the sound out. For pedal harps, the tension in strings is equal to the weight of double Decker bus. Extra strength is needed to make the string vibrate well - hand shape and overall preparation is more critical. The hand shape is squarer (thumbs up fingers down), fingers work in parallel to your forearm, thumb works at right angles. Every digit always fully articulates.

The modern lever harp was initially a pedal harp primer with pedal harp tension. Gradually lighter strung lever harps with more in common with the traditional clarsach have evolved. In Scotland there is lots of crossover between classical and traditional players. Many harpists play both. The received Scottish technique reflects this. I learnt my harp technique from Scottish harpers so I have a technique that basically classical.


Striking:

• Hover fingers near strings you need or lightly place finger tips, when ready strike
• Placing not so important - placing shapes less important
  
• The sound happens when you strike (no pre-release pressure required)
• Sound from a positive action (like every other instrument in the world!!)
• Hands are more relaxed, looser
• Thumb may pull into the palm not above index finger
• Ornaments (especially triplets) encourage a twistier hand shape - less square
• Lighter tension means less strictness re: hand shape - more fluidity
• Often played with nails - gentle placing is with finger tips, nails create the 'strike'

This is technique is used for wire strung and other harps with very light stringing. This includes Paraguayan harps and triple harps / arpa doppias. The narrower the string spacing, the more you have to hold your hands sideways and classical squareness is of no use. Triple harps in particular force you to turn your hands sideways, otherwise you cannot get into the inner row of strings for chromatic notes. I think improvised music may be easier with this technique as you don't have to prepare so much - you get an extra split second to think and of course when the sound comes when you do something, not when you don't. I also wonder if this is more suited to ear learning.

You definitely get a different sound quality from each technique. Playing plucked harp uses the pads of your fingers and gives you a rich, rounded sound with lots of control over volume and tone. The downside is the attack noise as you leave the string and the damping sound when you place your fingers for the next set of notes.

Playing struck harp or with nails gives you a much brighter sound with a really crisp attack. I find the attack a much more attractive sound, especially for recording. I think the crispness also makes for better ornaments.

One of the things that drew me to the harp is I love the feel of strings under my pads. I've discovered that I love the sound of harps played with nails too. Can I do both? You can partially file finger nails to allow you to use pad or nail at the same time but apparently real nails tend to catch on gut strings. Mmm time for a new harp...!

Sessioning and harp technique

For various reasons I spent the weekend in sessions without a harp. This proved very interesting as I realised many of my tunes were in my fingers, not so much my head. How very frustrating. This, plus various conversations, makes the mechanism of playing folk music much clearer:

tune in your ear (supported by memory, imagination)
=> tune out your fingers (supported by your technique)

as opposed to the classical

dots on the page (supported by your ability to fluently translate code i.e. score and imagine how to phrase it nicely)
=> tune out of your fingers (supported by your technique)

The last part is the same, it's just the musical intake and subsequent memory load that is different. You either have to learn to sight read or learn to memorise and develop your inner ear.

While performances allow time for preparation, sessions are fast, furious and for a harp player can be a bit of a nightmare if you don't just want to accompany. This means that your technique has got be good enough to cope with 'on-the-fly' playing - something that harpists don't naturally do. Generally, we find our tunes, figure out the version including ornamentation we want, and then finger and learn it (lots of prep). I think is because we have to think so far ahead with each tune (we have to place, then pluck) and the double action for each note gets too complicated to do on the fly.

This is where I think striking strings (one movement to get a sound) is inherently more folky than plucking (releasing the string to get a sound). Given that folk is so much more of a acquisition of technique to then be used unconsciously, striking (where you do not have to plan ahead so much) suits it much better.

As an exercise I think I might look at practising tunes in terms of building blocks, the little melodic fragments that add up to a tune. Those little blocks will be really well practised, the placing a well as the playing well rehearsed. That way I can have a rough and ready fingering at my grasp and allow my unconscious mind to take over without screwing up hand shape or creating loads of tension.

However, if I really want to play a tune for performance, that extra work to sort and assess and finger will still take place. It is through that extra conscious work and then unconscious wearing in of a tune that we make them our own.

Practise

The current practise plan:

lots of tune learning by ear, but using my memory and voice to check if I've memorised it
lots of very slow, gentle technique practise
a little bit of tune practise (so I don't go nuts)

I'm not someone who is naturally relaxed, so my main aim with the physical practise is to build in relaxation after every movement. This means slow practise - the slower you practise, the easier it is for your mind to learn how to use your hands more efficiently and prevent / correct mistakes as you go. As the body learns through repetition, getting it right the first time is very helpful.

This slowness doesn't mean moving as if through treacle, but allowing gaps between each movement (place or pluck) for yourself to relax, sense and process the physical feedback. I'm not brilliant at sensing my body either so taking the time to listen to which muscles I am using is pretty important. I'm doing it now as I type: legs relaxed, back and upper body working, neck working, right arm relaxed, left upper arm holding position, left forearm muscles operating each key stroke.

For figuring out your technique, I think there's nothing to beat slow, repetitive, careful sensing work. The best thing to motivate that work is get fascinated by how your body feels when still, calm and relaxed...