Harp playing is all in the hands! And this is the real story behind my hand care routine…
A thousand and one notes!
This Sunday I’m playing one of my absolute favorite pieces, Scheherazade, with the Elkhart County Symphony!
This pieces hits my two sweet spots, a great story and great musical word painting! Camels galloping, Ships splashing, Sultan’s shouting…
Rimsky Korsakov composed this epic symphonic piece to dramatise the arabic myth of One Thousand and One Nights. In the original book, a brave woman named Scherazade keeps her neck by telling the angry sultan a thousand and one stories. Each night, she would get to the most tense part of the story and the sultan would keep her alive to hear how it would end!
Korsakov dramatises several of these stories, introduced by the sweet tongued Scheherazade and stormy Sultan. And he gives the voice of Scheherazade to the first violin and the HARP.
Hear a sample of my practice on instagram or come here the full concert with the Elkhart County Symphony!
Practice With Me
My practice life has changed! Practice is the 90% hidden iceberg in any musician’s life. Recently on Instagram, I shared two glimpses into my practice life.
My 30 second glimpse into orchestra music has gotten more views than anything else I’ve ever posted!
All my life, people have asked me how long I practice each day. But this quote by the amazing Rachel Lee Hall transformed my whole perspective, “I aim for quality, not quantity practice.”
What do you want to practice with quality?
And this view behind practice shows just how messy it can be… wait, that’s why I’m practicing!
Easter Harp Crosses Denominations
I never know where I am going to spend Easter morning. Playing harp professionally, I’m often a special addition to a church service or background to 
an Easter Brunch. I’ve played for Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans, Mennonites and Missionary Churches. This Easter, I will be playing for Saturday’s Easter Vigil mass at St. Dominic’s in Breman. Considering the service doesn’t start til 8pm, I might have a bit of trouble making it to any sunrise service the next morning. . .
You’d think that the latest I would stay up performing is for a fancy fund raiser or rousing wedding reception. Nope. It’s for Catholics.
I’m not Catholic but recently I played at St. Dominic’s for another event and I was struck by the bishop’s pronouncement of the creed, “Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. This is our faith.”
And I realized that faith is exactly the point. I cross so many denominations on Easter because Easter is what all Christians hold in common.
Christ Died.
Christ is Risen.
Christ will come again.
Happy Easter.
No. 1 Thing to Look For in a Wedding Musician
The best DJ I’ve met didn’t play music.
At least he didn’t when I met him. I play at lots of weddings and meet a lot of DJs that I’ve enjoyed working with. But at wedding shows, I hope that I am far far away from their booths! All of the vendors give out samples—the bakeries give out cupcakes, I demonstrate harp music, and the DJs blast dance beats from the massive speakers they hoist above their booths. Now, I like DJs. I like electronic dance music (don’t tell any classical musicians!) But blasting it at my head makes it hard to talk to any brides.
So when I was setting up for last week’s wedding show and saw large overhead speakers in the booth next to me, I groaned. I double checked that I had ear plugs with me. I exchanged pleasantries with the DJ hoping he would be kind and not turn it up very loud. But when the wedding show started, he didn’t turn any music on it all. His speakers and gear became his backdrop. Because he didn’t have music blaring, I got to overhear his pitch.
This DJ didn’t talk about the wattage of his amplifiers. Instead, he offered brides and grooms a service. He promised every bride total control over the song selection, the volume, even over what color suit he wore to the wedding. He talked about making sure that the father’s toasts could be clearly heard even though he couldn’t guarantee what the father would say. He explained they can choose their favorite songs and artists or rely on his 20 years of experience if they weren’t sure what they wanted.
He was a servant.
I kept my ears peeled and during the break I finally asked him why he didn’t have a soundtrack playing. He said there were two reasons. The first was that whatever tracklist he put on, someone might dislike that song and therefore subconsciously dislike him. He didn’t want to start off with a bad impression. The second reason was that he wasn’t there to sell music. Nowadays you can get music just about anywhere. He was there to sell a specific service: being a live DJ.
I walked away thinking that was one of the best DJs I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and I never heard him play a single song. That is the kind of servant I want to be.
When I play harp for a wedding, I am providing more than harp music. I am providing a service. I play prelude and postlude music, helping the bride entertain her guests before the wedding starts. I can customize the length of the processional songs in the moment to account for how fast or how slow every flower girl walks. I enable couples to customize their music playing favorites from Pachelbel’s Canon to Christina Perri. And I invite them to a free consultation to make all of the selection process fun and pain-free.
I am there to help them create those memorable and musical moments during their wedding. Sometimes the best way to introduce that musical service is by not playing any music at all.
Learn more at my Weddings page or contact 574 875 0795 get add live harp music to your wedding or event!
Harp Love Songs, Where We Learn to Dream
“You’ll love me at once the way you did once upon a dream,” the classic Disney song danced around my fingers on the harp strings.
This month I took my harp to the movies playing love songs like Unchained Melody from Ghost, Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and As Time Goes By from Casablanca. I even snuck in some Disney.
These cinematic songs are favorites across my audience. Little girls twirl to Disney. Seniors sigh delighted at Moon River. Last week I saw a gentleman visiting his wife at an Alzheimer’s unit holding her hand and crying into a large white handkerchief during “As Time Goes By.” Movie music sticks in out minds and our dreams.
In fact, these movies and songs are often the source of our dreams in the first place. We first hear about love in love songs, or see it in Disney princesses. We’re told to “Dream a little dream of me” and the stories fill our imaginations whether we’re as sound asleep as Sleeping Beauty or just day dreaming to Mr. Sandman. We’re told love is a dream and the people we love will fill those dreams.
But if you’ve been in love, you know it’s not all like the movies (here my audience of eighty year olds nod knowingly). Sometimes those dreams just feel like movie moonshine.
It’s not that our movie dreams are too big but too small, just an echo of a larger love that neither tongue or pen can ever tell. Sweeping the last notes of Sleeping Beauty’s waltz to a close, I introduce my last love song for February, The Love of God is Greater Far.
We need a love that’s bigger than the movies and bigger than the songs, that can last longer than a lifetime and is wider than our wrong turns. We need a love “measureless and strong,” as it says in the hymn.
But just as I finish that resounding romance on the Amen chord, a gentleman who has been sitting in the front row, hunched in his wheel chair, raises a trembling hand to ask me to play Jesus Loves Me. It’s one of his favorites. It’s one of my favorites too. Maybe the love of God outstrips our description but it’s still described very well. “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.”
And that’s a wonderful way to wake up.
Happy Valentine’s Day! If you have a favorite love song or movie theme you would like me to play, add a comment and pick up my recording of Jesus Loves Me on my CD, Hymns and Variations here or on iTunes.