Katya Herman

This is the very very first draft of my new whistling-harp...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 13:06:00 +0000

This is the very very first draft of my new whistling-harp project!

note to self - come up with catchier name than ‘whistling-harp project’. Shouldn’t be too difficult - anything would be catchier than that)

The basic premise is this:

I love whistling

(Semi-relevant Digression: I can’t touch type, which is neither here nor there, but being a two-finger-typist means that

a. I don’t appear dissimilar from how I imagine a bear would look like when I type. Flurrying paws, lots of growling and a near-constant desire for honey

b. I am prone to a high frequency of typos - which, of course, I meet with CONSTANT VIGILANCE - but when I first typed out ‘whistling’ it came out as ‘shitling’. Thanks a LOT, Subconscious!)

Whistling is among my greatest joys and talents. Not that I have that many talents, but I do have a lot of joys. Yet there isn’t really much of a forum for whistling. No place for little old me.
It is confined to the world of old men and Disney animals - a crowd in which I wouldn’t necessarily have placed myself.
So one of my long-term goals is to record a series of songs, tunes, and ditties - whistled by me, and accompanied by my good self, on the harp. (Directed by, Executive Produced by, Starring and Guest Starring … Me. Spot the cameo by who-is-it-oh-wait-it’s-ME)
The harp accompaniment is more out of necessity than choice. If I had the funds or the professional capital to have a symphonic accompaniment, I would go for that. But for now, it’s just me at the harp, me on the whistles and.. that’s it.
All this MeMeMe-ing acts as a nice segue into the nature of my very first whistling recording: it’s whistling of an operatic nature!
The Aria (I know it sounds ridiculous to talk about Arias when it’s whistling, but go with it) is O Mio Babbino Caro, by Puccini. Or, at least, a very bald arrangement of it.
That’s the other VERY important thing: this is a first draft. A totally imperfect version of something that I care a surprising amount about and wanted to share - because it can be fun, interesting, meaningful or sometimes just plain funny to hear something before it’s ready - or even before it’s a thing.
By all this I suppose I mean that it’s just some Primordial Warbling at this point but that’s half the fun.
Half Baked is my favourite ice cream flavour and it’s my favourite flavour of shared endeavour. Coincidence? Perhaps — but this’ll the kind of trivia worth its weight in gold when I’m a super-famous-whistler-whizz-extaordinaire (I’ve already had the stationary made so that’d better happen)

So I hope you like it - or are at least tickled by it. I’d love some feedback and/or if you can think of a great tune or a song that you love that would suit being whistled, do tell me! That would be so much fun. I semi-secretly hate when people ask me for requests on the harp, but to whistle people’s requests would be my greatest pleasure.

Many thanks to Ralegh Long for helping me record this first thing. And more importantly, for laughing with me, not at me. Right now, I realise that I am the Florence Foster-Jenkins of whistling. A more flattering likeness I could not wish for.

p.s. You can read my blog about my first on stage whistling experience here, if you do so wish.

p.p.s. Schönberg said that he wanted to write tunes that postmen would whistle. He can dream on.

The Royal Court sent out a tweet this afternoon asking for...

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:39:00 +0000

The Royal Court sent out a tweet this afternoon asking for people’s suggestions of ‘Lesser Films’

Here are the first ten* I could think of:

PhD Student Faustus
Prime Minister Lear
Antony and Cleopatra’s Friend
Timon of Peckham
Krapp’s Penultimate Tape
The Tame Duck
MiddleGame
Angels in Canada
Two Sisters
A Bit of Ado of Nothing

I know this is supposed to be a Top 10 sort of thing, but I want to throw in Quornlet too, just for good measure.

And the answer is yes - I will do ANYTHING do avoid learning ‘Kissing You’ by Des’ree, which was this afternoon’s task (one of the many joys of being a harpist).

*Obviously that’s a fib. The very first one I thought of was ‘The Assistant-Who-Sweeps-The-Hair-Off-The-Floor of Seville’, and that was hardly going to make the cut.

A pinch and a punch (or the cruelties of January)

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:46:00 +0000

Today is the first day of February - the perfect time to fortify my New Year’s Resolutions. Or perhaps to edit them, as the glowing optimism of December has dimmed somewhat.

I am a big fan of resolve and resolving. If you read my blog last year about Woody Guthrie’s wonderful New Year’s Rulin’s then you will already know this. If you didn’t, then read it now - not only for my vanity, but because I think Guthrie’s 33 commandments are Mount Sinaian in their sagacity. Yeeah I just made up that word, ‘Sinaian’. A coinage! And so early in the year!

I know it sounds like I may have made up ‘sagacity’ too. But I didn’t. I wish I did - what a humdinger of a word.

Sagacity is ‘the quality of being sagacious’* — I have just decided that my tip-top February resolution is to be sagacious AT ALL TIMES.

Person A (let’s call him Englebert, just for fun): ’Where’s Katya?’

Person B (Mildred): ‘Oh, she’s just over there, being sagacious, like usual.’

Leaving my soon-to-be perpetual sagaciousness aside, let me tell you why I hate January. That took a negative turn quickly didn’t it? Quick! Look at this kitten falling down!

Despite my unabashed love of resolutions (I love resolutions almost as much as sticky buns, and that is really saying something) and the fact that they should be the very mechanism to bring about positive change, they somehow have a way of infusing January with misery. It seems to me that in January, everyone feels cold, fat and an irrefutable non-piano-virtuoso-linguist-zen-master.

I shan’t pretend that December didn’t see me making overzealous resolutions:

Cutting down on meat - though I am an unrepentant carnivore, this has been a moderate success
Stretching every day before breakfast - obviously an unmitigated failure. It takes a stronger will than mine to resist the siren song of toast & marmite and/or Special K.
Growing fingernails as long as my arms - I don’t think I’ve seen a single friend this month without shrieking “Look! Talons!!” and wiggling my paws at them. That’s not to say I have succeeded, it’s just my new ‘cool’ way of saying hello.

But January is too cold, too lean, and too sober (not for me, although there is nothing more sobering than people expatiating on their decision to plump for a lemonade) to try and bring about self-flagellating change.

When you are cold to your bones, you need more fat on them, more brandy, and more lie-ins with a fleecy blanket.

With this is mind, I wanted to share two poems with you - don’t worry, I didn’t write them.

They are actually both in an anthology called 101 Poems To Get You Through The Day (And Night) edited by Daisy Goodwin: a surprisingly restorative collection. My Grandma gave me this book eleven birthdays ago, and it has been propped up on the various bookshelves of every room I’ve lived in since then. I think that’s nine.

The first one is called Song on Being Too Lazy to Get Up, by Shao Yung (and translated by Burton Watson). If staying in bed for an extra 15 minutes, give or take, is OK for 11th Century Philosophers, then it is a-OK by me.

Half remembering, yet not remembering, just waked up from a dream;
almost sad, but not sad, a time when I’m feeling lazy,
hug the covers, lie on my side, not wanting to get up yet —
beyond the blinds, falling petals fly by in tangled flurries.

How beautiful is that?

Not rhetorical. The answer is Very.

And the second poem is Against Dieting, by Blake Morrison. I love this poem so much I would almost go so far as to hand over my soon-to-be-title of Chief Sage to Blake Morrison. I think it’s an excellent (Gin &) Tonic for one of January’s many cruelties - the world alliance that, for reasons unfathomable to me, got together and decided to make women feel bad about their loveliest squidgy bits.

I decree (as soon-to-be Chief Sage - this is happening, people): take Morrison’s advice, and have a sticky bun. Or at the very least, share one with me.

Please, darling, no more diets.
I’ve read the books on why it’s
good for one’s esteem.
I’ve watched you jogging lanes and pounding treadmills.
I’ve even shed some kilos of my own.
But enough. What are love handles
between friends? For half a stone
it isn’t worth the sweat.
I’ve had it up to here with crispbread.
I doubt the premise, too.
Try to see it from my point of view.
I want not less but more of you.

So now that January is well and truly behind us, I encourage you to make like Woody Guthrie, and come up with some corkers for your February Resolutions.

*I’m sure you already knew that but it never hurts to refresh the old vocabulary. I used to go out with someone who thought that ‘Resting on your Laurels’ meant sitting down, and that Laurels was a fancypants (so to speak) word for bottom.

You can bet your laurels I set him straight.

Crumbs, I haven't written anything in quite some time

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:49:00 +0000

I could say that I’ve had too much on my plate, or that I’ve been away snowboarding (neither of which are true) or - more honestly - I could say that I have been wearing my procrastination pants.

This sort of thing

What’s more, to find that excellent picture of enormous pants, I had to type ‘massive knickers’ into Google (a pretty loose application of ‘had to’ there, but I’ll press on) which, as you can imagine, took me down a whole different rabbit hole.

“Can you fathom the infinite mysteries of Google Images ‘Related Search’?” Job, 11:7

I cannot, Job. I simply cannot.

Perhaps you are beginning to get a sense of the problem. The procrastination one, not the ‘infinite mysteries of Google’ one, pressing though they both are.

So what to do?

The only thing for it is to just get started.

In fact, as luck would have it, I’m reading a fantastic book at the moment called just that: Just Start

A Quick Aside:

This book was very kindly recommended to me by Dr. Noa Kageyama, who writes and runs a magnificent blog called The Bulletproof Musician. If you are a musician, there is not a single reason in the world for you not to read it. If you are not a musician, ditto. Applying the practices of an unrelated discipline to your own life and work can be utterly invigorating. That’s why I wear a full beekeepers suit when I practice the harp.

Quick Aside Over

This book, Just Start, or Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future is written by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B. Brown, and deals with achieving both creative and entrepeneurial goals in a rapidly changing business environment.

I will admit, this is not the sort of thing that usually gets me going in the mornings, BUT I found their tenet of Taking Action - just that - and throwing aside the frustration that comes with almost constant uncertainty, really helped blow away the cobwebs, and get me off Google Images, for a blissful hour or so at least.

The thing I love most about this book is that it is written with a gratifying, yet unpatronising simplicity. In the first chapter, there is a section called Thirteen Reasons Why Action Trumps Everything When The Future Is Uncertain

Number 10 is my personal favourite:

“If all you do is think, you may end up being less interesting as a person. Who would you rather sit next to on a plane, someone who started a successful rock-climbing store (or even an unsuccessful one), or someone who only thought about it?”

There is an undeniable truth here: I have no desire to share a tiny bag of pretzels with someone who only ever thought about opening an unsuccessful rock-climbing store.

So there we have it - a little bit of inspiration for me and, I hope, for you. It is time to get back on the horse. Or even to get on a horse for the first time! (Having said that, don’t do what I did the first - and may I add, only - time I went horse-riding: When a horse bends its neck into a pool to take a drink, don’t let go of the reins and slide down its neck into the water. And whatever you do, don’t get back on right before it shakes itself. I learnt this the hard way.)

Naked Harp Lady knows best / the only way to practise in this...

Wed, 30 May 2012 10:46:53 +0100

Naked Harp Lady knows best / the only way to practise in this weather

New Year's Rulin's

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:26:00 +0000

It is January 22nd, and my 2012 Resolutions (The Resolutions To End All Resolutions .. Look Out World! and so on and so forth) have already fallen by the wayside. Oh woe.

Luckily, I am a big believer in making my resolutions realistic and, more importantly, making them regularly.

January 1st. Rosh Hashanah. Chinese New Year. The Academic Year. Monday Mornings. … Tuesday Afternoons. Thursdays, around about 11am. Ok, 11pm. Fuck it. FRIDAY!

I used to have a bottle of pearly white liquid hand soap that read ’Wash Your Hands, It’s Time to Start Afresh’. I loved that. I would go as far as to say that was my favourite ever soap. (I know — I can’t take that back)

So you can imagine my excitement when, this morning, I discovered Woody Guthrie’s ”New Years Rulin’s” - an extract from his diary, dated January 1st, 1943.

As you can see, they were written on the page in ‘The Middle of The Book’. That’s a great page. You can write anything on that page, and just — tear it out! No problem! Luckily, he decided to keep these Rulin’s in, and I’m so glad he did, because they have given me a great deal of pleasure, on an oh so snowy sunday.

1. Work more and better
2. Work by a schedule
3. Wash teeth if any
4. Shave
5. Take bath
6. Eat good — fruit — vegetables — milk
7. Drink very scant if any
8. Write a song a day
9. Wear clean clothes — look good
10. Shine shoes
11. Change socks
12. Change bed cloths often
13. Read lots good books
14. Listen to radio a lot
15. Learn people better
16. Keep rancho clean
17. Dont get lonesome
18. Stay glad
19. Keep hoping machine running
20. Dream good
21. Bank all extra money
22. Save dough
23. Have company but dont waste time
24. Send Mary and kids money
25. Play and sing good
26. Dance better
27. Help win war — beat fascism
28. Love mama
29. Love papa
30. Love Pete
31. Love everybody
32. Make up your mind
33. Wake up and fight

There is nothing that I don’t love about this. I think my favourite rulin’s (although this will certainly change, as they are all so heart-achingly apt) are:

Wash Teeth If Any

Help Win War - Beat Fascism

Make Up Your Mind

Stay Glad

So far I have changed my socks and washed my teeth. Look out, 2012!

Next on my To-Do List: Wake Up and Fight.

(Also, a note to anyone called Pete: try and cash in on #30.You can’t argue with “Rulin’s” — right? You’re welcome.)

In my last blog, I wrote about the making of a Christmas Grotto....

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:21:00 +0000

In my last blog, I wrote about the making of a Christmas Grotto.

Deborah Henson-Conant and I spent Christmas Eve playing carols in said Grotto, and this video was the result. Why, it’s a calypso version of Joy to the World, of course!

Although this was one of our less polished attempts, it was our favourite version, because it goes some way towards encapsulating the fun we had, playing the night away. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Just having fun?

*Gets struck by a lightning-bolt from a God/Zeus/Santa Hybrid*

Oh. I stand corrected.

Nonetheless, we did have fun, and, if that wasn’t enough, there are also certain angles in the video where Deborah’s Santa hat looks exactly like a Mozart-Style wig. Once we realised this, it couldn’t be unseen, and it brings me more mirth (as opposed to myrrh) than I know what to do with.

Merry Christmas One and All!

*Gets struck by a calendar, hurled down from the heavens, by the Spirit of New Year (embodied here as the guy who runs my gym)*

Bah.

Harpy Holidays*

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:58:00 +0000

*if you’re wondering ‘does Katya hate herself for writing ‘Harpy Holidays?’, then the answer is YES, desperately so, but what can I say? I’m a slave to the beat and a glutton for punishment. Boom Boom.

Now back to business.

———————————————————-

This year was my first Christmas away from home.

I was spending the holidays with my harp teacher Deborah Henson-Conant, a self-confessed Noel-Nonchalant, and her family were going away, so it would be just the two of us. Not doing Christmas. You may think this statement seems at odds with the picture above, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But I’ll come to that shortly.

In the run up to Chrimbus herself, friends and family became increasingly concerned.

‘But Katya!’ they cried (collectively) ‘Won’t you be lonely and sad, without family or turkey to warm the cockles of your stocking, and bereft of British Christmas telly?’

I think they all pictured my wizened, grinch-like form, nose pressed against the windows of nearby family homes, with eggnog-laced tears (or perhaps even just nog) freezing on my face as they fell.

(This is how I imagine Rudolph before his great redemption scene - pre-that fateful ‘foggy Christmas Eve’ but post-never being allowed to join in any reindeer games.)

Thankfully, it was not so.

What happened instead, was that Christmas itself was blissfully unfestive. I woke up late, and Deborah made us waffles and fancy coffee, different enough from my usual breakfast regimen (Trader Joe’s Multigrain Os - you gotta love those Os - with a milky tea) to feel like a special Christmas treat. For Lunch and Dinner, however, we feasted on Bran Flakes. Well, Raisin Bran Flakes. I do have standards after all. And we spent the day working, walking, thinking and talking. The least Christmassy Christmas ever, but pretty excellent nonetheless.

On Christmas Eve, however, we embraced the holiday wholeheartedly, and on our own terms.

At around 9.30pm, Deborah announced that she wanted to make a Christmas Grotto, and spend the rest of the evening playing carols. I was surprised to say the least - this was a turnaround of Dickensian proportions.

So, like the industrious little elves that we are, we set to work.

I strapped on my headlamp (sure, I have a headlamp, and what of it?) and went forraging in the basement for decorations. Mining for JOY.

When I returned, triumphantly wielding a box of twinkly lights and baubles, we peered around, and realised that our Grotto-Making ambitions would need to be somewhat reined in (ho ho ho) due to the noticeable absence of a tree.

But this didn’t hold us back for long.

‘What could be more tree-like than a harp?!’

‘Almost nothing, Deborah.’ I replied, Igor to her Festive Dr. Frankenstein.

Behold, the first stage of Operation Grottify (oh, that sounds less jolly than I thought it would. But I will not be discouraged!):

In the background here, you can see a little scene that if you squint a bit, could almost pass for a nativity.

In fact, it is a tiny orchestra made up of chess pieces, cardboard bits, and plastic animals. Deborah made it when she was planning a show with a symphony orchestra and wanted to be able to choreograph the show, in miniature (The show was called Invention and Alchemy - and went on to be nominated for a Grammy, which makes this funny little diorama all the more wonderful). The woodwind are turkeys (this is almost getting too appropriate), the brass are plastic pigs, the strings are an array of chess pieces, the harp, a giraffe the conductor is an Elephant. Deborah herself, as the orchestral soloist at the front, is a Stegosaurus. Standard.

Behold, a manger orchestra!

I defy you not to love this little guy:

If this doesn’t say ‘Happy Birthday, Jesus!’ I don’t know WHAT does.

A New Practice Plan (from your Friendly Neighbourhood Practice Plan Provider)

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:33:00 +0000

For those of you familiar with the (now mega famous) 10 Coin Practice Method, courtesy of my teacher, Deborah Henson-Conant, you will be THRILLED to learn that I have a new method to add to my practice artillery.

It has been deeply gladdening to receive messages from musician friends (mainly but not exclusively, there have also been some musician STRANGERS) over the past couple of months, telling me that they have been using the 10 Coin Method, enjoying it, and recommending it to others.

This has tickled me pink for a couple of reasons:

When it comes to writing about practice, and the perpetual battles involved therein, I have a deep-seated fear that people will respond along the lines of ‘Why would I need suggestions for my practice? I have NO TROUBLE with efficiency, time-management or discipline whatsoever. If you do, you’re just a bad person.’

This hasn’t happened. Yet.

It is always good to know that when you spend hours slaving over a hot laptop, people are having a little look, and thinking something along the lines of ‘Om nom nom, that’s some tasty practice blog! I’ma try making that at home!’

This is my hope.

And it seems to be happening! Except the bit about people saying ‘Om nom nom, that’s some tasty practice blog! I’ma try making that at home!’ - that bit was pure fantasy on my part. FOR NOW.

What HAS happened, however, is that people have written to me, saying that they like the idea, and some have offered their own additions and experiences!

My favourite suggestion so far is from Alex Feldman, a phenomenal performer, virtuoso recorder player, unicyclist and Jester, among other things:

“I find the coin technique fore rehearsing very effective. I usually use beanbags or rolled socks myself (I like to ceremonially toss them, or spike them to the ground).”

Ceremonially tossing rolled socks as a gesture of triumph definitely adds a bit of much-needed grandeur to proceedings.

(I’m sure I will write more about Alex soon, as he recently choreographed and coached me in my first ever harp-dancing experience - to which I was VERY resistant at first, as he will testify - but in the meantime, do take a peep at this video to see what he can do.

Also, for those of you who read my blog on learning to ride a bicycle at the tender age of twenty-two, I have been thoroughly put in my place by Alex’s unicycling sons. THIS VIDEO nearly made me implode with joy.)

Unicycles aside, today’s blogulation is about THE NEXT STEP. Read on, if you dare.

When I moved to Arlington, I decided to join a gym. This may seem unrelated to the trials and tribulations of daily practice management, but bear with me.

I have never been a particularly athletic creature (if you know me, you might be stifling a laugh at this point, or you might be laughing, long, loud, and clear) but there comes a point, when you’re shlepping a harp around all the time, up and down stairs, and over hills and dales (in America, a harp trolley is called a ‘Dolly’, and ‘carrying a Dolly o’er a dale’ makes it sound much more romantic than the muddy, sweaty reality) that your back and shoulders start to revolt. MUTINY IN THE RANKS!

So when the going gets tough, the tough get a sports bra.

I LOVE my gym here. I love its friendly small-town feel. I used to go to a gym in London, where everybody had special gym bunny workout wear, and bodies that looked like they’d never met Ben and/or Jerry - pumped, primped, and preened to a level that made me feel profoundly uncomfortable. I love the friendly staff, the inspirational murals on the walls, and the fact that there’s a big dish of free candy on the reception desk for a post-workout treat (welcome to America, folks). What I love most about my gym, however, is the fact that if there are ANY members who are either female, or under the age of sixty, they have yet to show themselves. The new gang I’m rolling with make me feel like the henchest person this side of the Hudson River. Plus they all call me ‘honey’ or ‘dear’ (which I can only assume is an attempt to befriend me, and hide their fear/awe inspired by the majesty of my guns.)

However, the ego boost I get from working out with those more wizened than myself can take a turn for the mortifying, when I come to a weight machine and have to take the weight level down, sometimes by SEVERAL pounds. Come on! Am I really that much weaker than someone in dentures?? At this point, I am forced to remember that I do, in fact, have a long way to go, fitness wise, and that I am still the athletic version of a yoghurt.

BUT I SHALL NOT BE DISHEARTENED.

And my reason for this wilful optimism and perseverance in the face of press-ups (woe is me) is this:

That’s right, my friends, a Workout Chart, courtesy of the ‘Mush to Muscle’ program (hey, who you callin’ M*U*S*H*??) at my dear old gym. The P stands for pounds (don’t laugh. That would not be kind) and the R stands for Repetitions. Just so’s you know.

So every other day, I pop in, do me a bit of cardio, and complete one or two circuits of weights. After each machine, I note my progress (or lack thereof). The thing I love about this system is that, even when it feels like I’m getting nowhere, and wheezing through every set, I can record what I’ve done, in black and white (or grey and yellow, but come on now) and lo and behold! the glimmer of progress IS there. Kinda. I just have to keep going. And stretch afterwards. These are my golden rules of gymming. That and, if you have an iPod, a cracking playlist won’t hurt any.

Decision making and self-doubt make me falter. Pre-planning, little targets and determination make me feel like a champ.

So why is it so difficult to apply this to my practice routine?

The Ten Coin Method was the first step in the direction of ‘Just Getting On With It’

The second step is a touch more radical, but so far, it’s working for me.

It is this.

Decide how long you want to practice for that day.
Scrap it. Make it REALISTIC. If you make a five hour practice plan, and end up only doing two hours, you’ll feel disappointed, and that is the worst. Finding an amount of time that’s on the right side of realistic AND the happy side of ambitious, is tricky. So I normally go for two hours. That way, I can feel like I’ve achieved a respectable amount of time, and then if things go well, I can use the page a couple of times and feel UNSTOPPABLE.
Divide your time into mini sections. I like six minutes. I have finally reached the point where I am willing to admit that I have a terrible attention span. Six minutes is a short enough time that I won’t lose focus, AND it will leave me wanting more. Which feels good. I experimented with ten and twenty minute time slots, but they felt too long, five felt pathetically short, and neither 7 nor 8 fit neatly in a 60 minute hour (another kind of hour, maybe). But SIX minutes, for me, is perfect. That’s ten mini sessions in an hour. Which somehow manages to feel simultaneously like something substantial, but effort-wise, like NOTHING.
Take a piece of paper… (I feel like the weird talking statue on Art Attack. In so many ways.)
Mark out your mini sections. For two hours, I draw out twenty little rectangles, happily waiting to be filled with practice GOLD.
I set aside the first two or three slots for warming up (12-18 minutes, depending on the weather. Warm hands make light work. Cold hands make Katya a dull boy.)
Then fill in each remaining rectangle with a thing you want to practice.
Mine for today looked like this:

That’s just what it looked like. If you want to know, the piece of paper is just a bit smaller than my hand. Small pieces of paper make things seem VERY manageable (I also use an A3 size drawing pad, for making BIG practice plans on days where things need a bit more oomph.)

Things I like about this system:

A ‘No Ifs Not Buts’ approach works well for someone like me, with a crippling procrastination habit.
It helps to keep things manageable, and the 6-minute timer I use makes everything feel like I’m on Ready Steady Cook. In six minutes, what CAN’T I make with a courgette, two Kinder Eggs and some coriander?
It makes me REALLY AWARE of how much I can actually achieve in a set amount of time.
I can schedule in snack breaks without feeling like I’m wasting time, because it’s out of the practice time-zone. (What happens Out of The Practice Time-Zone, stays in the Out of The Practice Time-Zone. Or something to that effect.) And there’s nothing better than a snack break - my PracticeSnack (or Übungimbiss - it sounds like a real thing if you say it in German, right?) of choice at the moment is a cup of tea (PG tips, with a generous splosh of milk), some chocolate covered ginger (amount undisclosed) and a couple of Triskets (I had never met these until I came to the US - they’re like savoury shredded wheat, and super tasty).
It forces me to confront the things I would otherwise avoid tackling. For example, improvisation is something I always dread working on - it feels like a tunnel of never-ending doom and inadequacy. If I set myself an hour just to work on improvisation, within four minutes, you can find me in the foetal position in my harp cover. However, I usually find that, at the end of six minutes, when my timer beepedy-beeps (you don’t know, but that was a GREAT impression of my timer) I’ve eased myself in, and I’m looking forward to when it comes around again on my schedule. And for me, that feeling of anticipation, and the exciting little glow of achievement, no matter how infinitesimal, is the aim of the game.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must get back to my harp. I’ve only done one hour today so far, and that will NOT look good on my time-card. Beepedy-Beep.

Deborah made this poster for me, just in case I forget who I...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:50:00 +0000

Deborah made this poster for me, just in case I forget who I am.

If you ever wanted to know what it look like if a man balanced a...

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:49:00 +0100

If you ever wanted to know what it look like if a man balanced a harp on his nose, it would look like THIS!

Disclaimer: It may not look exactly like this - every nose is different.

A Visit From The Loon Squad

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:56:00 +0100

Last week, on a particularly grey wednesday, I had a harp lesson at 4’o’clock and a gig I was going to at 8, so I decided to while away the harpless between-hours at the bookshop around the corner from Berklee, on Newbury Street.

After three years studying Literature (with a big L) at university, I am still overwhelmed and overjoyed to be aboard the good ship ‘Choose What You Want to Read, and It Doesn’t Really Matter What You Make of It, Just Have a Jolly Time.’ (Big flag)

I spent about half an hour pottering about the shelves, partly for aimless pleasure, and partly to put care into my selection, so as to maximise my jollity.

My criteria for choosing a book were as follows:

Classics that I’ve always been meaning to read but never got around to, were out, for today. Hasta la Vista Dostoyevsky, and Buh-bye Bröntes. And no guilt trips allowed, thank you VERY much, Mill on the Floss (if in fact that is your real name).
A criterion of a similar ilk: no crummy attempts at self-improvement. One day, I may learn French, commit to memory the difference between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns AND discover how to make all varieties of smoothie for a happier, healthier me, but this was not the day. Titles like ‘The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun’ were DEFINITELY out.
I wanted fiction. Preferably a novel.
And a jammy one at that.
It had to be something new (to me, not necessarily new to the world).

I idled a while around my favourite authors, cozying up to familiar titles. So comfortable, these old friends! But this is my problem with [not] being well-read. I often shy away from the term ‘well-read’, not only because I consider it to be both tricksy and entirely relative term, and therefore relatively meaningless, but also because I am secretly certain that I am not well-read. I blame this largely on my love of re-reading, which means that the books I have read, have certainly been read well (does that count? ‘Oh, she’s well read, that one!’ - if said in a Northern accent could pass for a glowing reference, in a pinch) but those that I haven’t read, well and truly, or even at all, are far greater in number. This is obviously the case for everybody - Coleridge, I believe, was the last person who claimed to have read everything, and even then it was a bold claim - but by far greater, I mean FAR greater. Again, I am lost in the mires of relativity. Oh well. ‘KBO’ as Churchill would say, and as many members of the Herman Family would repeat delightedly: Keep Buggering On.

So there I was, hovering around Dave Eggers, wrestling with my impulse to sink into the blissful familiarity of his short stories, when I spotted Jennifer Egan, sitting snugly beside him. I’d never heard of her before (shame on me. Or maybe not so much. No guilt trips allowed, remember?) which played no small part in her appeal.

There was also the gold ‘Winner of the Pulitzer Prize’ sticker, winking shinily at me from the front cover of ‘a visit from the goon squad’. The title tickled me, the cover was jangling with critical acclaim, and the book was of a good girth (an underrated quality in book choosing, I feel).

There was also something in the LA Times’ accolade ‘The smartest book you can get your hands on’, that felt almost like a challenge. I guess the combination of ’can’, implying permission, with the suggestion of a prize (to get your hands on something connotes a struggle, right? Or an ability, an opportunity…

I CAN get my hands on it! Look, look LA Times! Here I am - with my hands on it! Regard my grubby little paws, they could not be more on this book if they tried!

(It’s ok, my paws were only a bit bicycle-chain-and-subway-grubby, AND I bought the book, so it’s really no biggie, LA Times.)

So without further ado, (well, there may have been a BIT more ado. A little ado. Dr. ado-little. Except rather than talking to animals, I was just minding my own business, and looking at books. That said, I’m sure if this particular jaunt were to be made into a film - and what a film! - Rex Harrison or Eddie Murphy would do a fine job of playing me) I bought the book.

After a bit of light back-and-forth with the lovely man at the till (my faithful, but garish backpack is always a talking point amongst the world’s more garrulous folk) I got myself a table and ordered the biggest sandwich I could imagine (it’s called the Cape Codder, and if you’re ever in the area, I heart(attack)ily recommend it. Can you go wrong with MASSIVE wedges of grilled Challah, turkey, cheese and bacon? No, good sir and/or madam, you cannot) and some sort of delicious fruit juice.

So anyway, there I was, nibbling away merrily on my stonker sandwich, and getting stuck into my new book.

There’s nothing better than reading the first few pages of a new book and realising that you’re having a great time. This realisation is often a little, glimmering minnow of a feeling, because it is, in my experience, more of a non-thought, than a thought. That is, rather than thinking ‘Am I enjoying this?’ ‘How does this character make me feel?’ ‘Do I like that person?’ ‘Should I like this person?’ ‘What’s THAT metaphor all about?’ and so on, the soothing absence of the running narrative (usually panting and sweaty) usually heralds a total and immersive sense of enjoyment and engagement.

Or so I thought.

I had decided to spend the evening taking a break from my harp-shaped life. I wanted to spend a pocket of time eating a delicious sandwich (which came with a PICKLE! Sometimes the gods are generous) and reading a book about which I had no preconceptions, and in which I could submerge myself, allowing thoughts, of whatever flavour, to marinate in peace.

I had spent that morning practising the harp, the night before, practising the harp. The night before that… and so it goes. That day I had rode the subway listening to harp music in preparation for my lesson. Then, my harp lesson - very harp-related. It was a great lesson and I left feeling buoyant and full of resolve and plans for long-term improvement and, in the shorter-term, my next practice session. But all this could wait one evening.

So imagine my surprise when, near the top of page seven, I read this:

…a set of goals she’d scrawled on a big sheet of newsprint and taped to the walls of her early apartments:

   Find a band to manage

   Understand the news

   Study Japanese

   Practice the harp

Wait, what?

WHAT?

I know it’s a cliché, but I think my heart really did skip a beat.

I looked again, just to check (at the book, not my heart).

The story so far had been about a date and the therapy sessions of a lady who was also a kleptomaniac. I felt fairly secure that I was exploring unfamiliar territory, not knowing, waiting to be told…

Then THIS!

There was no lead up to this.

Perhaps if the cover had been this one (below), I might have divined some intimation of music-shaped things to come. The guitar even looks a bit like a lyre. There’s a bit near the end about Orpheus and Euridice, so maybe that was intentional. Maybe THAT’s the point! Hmm. But I digress, THIS is not my point, nor was it the cover I had seen.

The cover I saw was this:

Looks fun, exciting, bold, not harp-related in any way, good girth, and so on.

And sure, it was an innocuous detail. A throwaway designed, presumably, to add texture to the character. (Or maybe not! see Orpheus revelation above)

But this tiny, deft touch of shading (ditto) really made me wonder if I had lost my mind.

I looked again at the page.

I took a mind-clearing bite of my sandwich, then allowed my eyes to drift casually back to the book. It was a bit like playing ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps’. You know, that very slow turn and peer? Except instead of trying the thwart the approach of giggling children, I was turning, slowly, expecting to find full-blown insanity tapping me on the shoulder, giggling.

This is one of the rarer situations when it’s weird to be on your own. When reading a new book, and a tiny reference to playing the harp forces you to question your sanity. In these situations, it’s handy to have a second opinion (just so you know for next time). I considered seeking the counsel of the friendly looking man at the table near mine, but it’s actually quite difficult to phrase ‘Hey, can you just tell me if these words on this page are, as I believe them to be, referencing someone’s need to practice the harp? Juuust checking is all.’ without sounding like someone may have spiked your sandwich.

These are the hazards no one tells you about when you take on a multi-month intensive harp apprenticeship. You know??

A few days later, when we were in the supermarket, I casually mentioned my fear of harp-madness to Jonathan. He asked to see the book and I dutifully fished it out of my bag.

‘See? It’s weird, right? Isn’t that weird?!’

‘Um, Katya… I don’t know what to tell you, but it DOESN’T say anything about the harp.’

If you want to know whether this joke was well-received, I can assure you it was not.

Existential crises aside, A Visit From the Goon Squad was utterly wonderful. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I finished it this afternoon and had to sit down for about an hour, just reflecting, pondering and luxuriating in the buzzing after-glow that comes with proximity to such ferocious intelligence.

Best served with a dose of mind-melting paranoia, and a pickle. Maybe now I’ll go for the book about smoothies.

What’s your favourite weird and inexplicably amusing harp...

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:00:00 +0100

What’s your favourite weird and inexplicably amusing harp album cover of the day? Mine is this.

In case you can’t read the title, it’s ‘The Harp Wears a Lei’. Does what it says on the tin.

A Battle of Wits

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:24:00 +0100

There are birds currently tweeting VERY LOUDLY outside my window.

To make matters worse, they are very much NOT in time with my metronome.

At this point it is unclear who will back down first.

So now we play the waiting game….

(The metronome, relentless and bold, is giving this game a very ‘Countdown’ feel. I like it a lot.)

One Hour Later

Both parties still going strong.

I’ve just noticed there’s a ‘Tweet’ button underneath my blog. Sure, I’d like it if you ‘Tweeted’ this, but I’m worried it might look as if you’re ON THEIR SIDE.

Quite the conundrum, isn’t it?

Soon the duet will become a trio

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:56:00 +0100

This is the third, and final instalment of my blog triumvirate. The first was about a man in Lederhosen. The second was largely about my deeply uncool, but unabashed love of The Sound of Music. Now, as we reach Blog III, Return of the Killer Blog, it’s about my first concert in Arlington.

September 25th was, for me, a day of many firsts.

It was my first concert in Arlington, at the magnificent Regent Theatre.

It was my first time performing a duet with Deborah Henson-Conant, my longtime harp-hero-now-teacher.

It was my first time performing with a strap-on electric harp. You can see in the top picture below, that I appear to be buckling under the weight somewhat (either that, or the stage was very windy), but then, in photo #2, I’ve readjusted, and we’re having a great time.

It was also my first time playing an impromptu trio with Deborah Henson-Conant and an International Whistling Champion (I’ll come back to this)

AND it was the first time I saw a man juggle three garden chairs on stage.

There he is: one, two, three…

And UP THEY GO!

Isn’t that fun! Not so much for you, because you weren’t there, but as your man on the scene, I can report that it was, in fact, very fun indeed.

Now for a bit of backstory.

The Harp

Two days before the concert:

‘One of the fun things about having a harp named after you’ Deborah tells me, as we wade into what appears to be a BIG box full of bubble wrap, ‘is that you get free stuff.’

To me, free stuff means a complimentary mint, perhaps a drink on the house, a promotional biro, an ice cream at Old Orleans that time I found plastic in my pudding (what a day!)

But Deborah’s ‘free stuff’ is a harp, sent over from France. A DHC Blue Light, in a VERY handsome bronze finish.

‘Let’s play a blues duet!’ Deborah says, excitedly, hoisting her harp around her waist and gesturing for me to do the same with this sparkling new toy. ‘We can do it in the concert on Sunday!’ (today is Friday)

I have now been learning the blues for the best part of a week, so getting up on stage to play a duet with one of the world’s best harpists, in a style with which I am barely competent, on a harp that sways when I move, and swings away when I move my hands towards it, should be noooo problem.

We would practise it once, and decide on the form (who would solo when and so on) in the dressing room before we went on. Yup. Noooooo problem at all.

Deborah is a big believer in learning by doing, and I’m really coming around to it. I think this is how she gets so much done, this fearlessness. Or rather, her way of harnessing fear into output - straw into creative gold. (Actually, we were talking about Rumplestiltskin just the other day over lunch - Deborah feels him to be a much maligned character, and put forward his case excellently and with the dazzling originality of thought that I have come to accept as typical - but this is a story for another day) Having always been a disciple of the ‘Learn by WATCHING CAREFULLY AND NOT INTERRUPTING’ school, I found it a daunting concept at first. To put it mildly. To put it less mildly, I was fucking TERRIFIED.

So, over the next couple of days, I did a LOT of doing.

Two days later, I am a lever harp pro. Well, perhaps ‘pro’ is exaggeration. I can, however, after MUCH practice, get the harness on:

kneel down, clip it on the side, HOIK harp over the shoulder, stand up, careful, caaareful, clip it on the bottom, clippedy-clip, and tadaa! Girl, you are WEARING that harp.

(You can’t tell, but I just had to mime putting on an air harp to write out those instructions. Worth it though, right?)

Next step: moving.

On the day of the concert, I had a chilling realisation. Deborah would be doing a couple of solo numbers, then I would join her onstage for our duet. This would mean my entrance would have to be speedy, sprightly and IN FRONT OF PEOPLE.

It is harder than you might imagine to shimmy onstage with the effortless grace of a musical gazelle when you have a harp strapped between your legs.

Deborah makes it look utterly effortless - she can stride, she can dance, she could probably join a conga line if the mood so took her. But she generously reminded me that it has taken years of practice, as I was very much at the waddling stage.

So much of music is making the things we spend hours, days and YEARS working at, seem easy. (This is a thought I come back to every day and will, I’m sure, return to in a future blog.)

But I didn’t have years! I had approximately four hours.

No matter! I decided that if I took big enough steps (not figuratively, we’re talking lunges) I might just be able to make my Boston debut without looking like a I was walking with a balloon wedged between my thighs.

That’s all one can ever ask of a debut, really isn’t it??

Well, it turns out that you can also ask to be joined onstage by an international whistling champion (a.k.a. my ultimate dream come true)

Whistle While You Work

I have always considered whistling to be my only real talent. People always laugh at me when I say that, but I don’t think the harp, or anything else I do counts as a real talent because I never sat down at the harp and was like ‘HEY I can PLAY!’ Not so. I have to work hard at it all the time, not only to improve but also just to stay in good fettle. Whistling, however, has always been fun and EASY. And I’m not bad either! It’s not a liveable on-able skill, sure (being a professional whistler would be my ultimate dream career, but sadly I don’t think there’s much call for it. Unless I become a whistling plumber), but it’s enough to amuse myself and my friends. Also, I have discovered that whistling opera favourites and accompanying myself on the harp is the BEST way to make tips on a gig. Not so long ago, I got £40 just for one rendition of O Mio Babbino Caro. I think it was for the novelty, as opposed to the raw whistling magic, as my current opera-whistling status is Bel Can’to, but I’m not complaining.

Back to the concert.

So there we were, bluesing away, when Deborah suddenly says

‘Hey Katya! Take a whistling solo!’

My eyes were like saucers, but I managed to lift my jaw off the floor in just enough time to purse my lips into a premium whistling position. It turns out it’s impossible to transcribe the sound of whistling into roman characters, so I can’t really give you anything about how it went, all I can tell you is that it was FUN.

THEN Deborah remembered that there just happened to be an international whistling champion in the audience (talk about getting upstaged) In the time it took us to get through an eight-bar chorus, he was up onstage and ready to go. And boy did he go! He went low, he went high, he raised that fourth like nobody’s business.

And I got to practise my walking bass!

I wish my real walking had been as successful. At the end, as I went to lunge offstage, I realised my harp was still plugged in and came hurtling back. Nuts. Unplug. Lunge away, with both harp and tail very much between my legs.

After the show, I asked Eric how he learnt to whistle so well, and how he practises.

‘Well, I guess it’s because I never stop. My wife says the only time I’m not whistling is when I’m asleep!’

She quickly cut in:

‘Honey, don’t believe a word of it! He whistles in his sleep too.’

The Concert

So all of this came about because The Regent Theatre was celebrating its 95th Anniversary. To mark the occasion, the theatre’s director, Leland Stein, decided to put on a variety show as a callback to the venue’s vaudeville origins.

There was singing, there was dancing, there was juggling, jiggling, bluegrass and electric harp(s).

The final group of the night was a twelve-voice, multi-instrument extravaganza called the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra. They played songs by Queen, The Who, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, all with serious gusto.

The Regent soon after it opened in 1916

The Result

In my previous blog, I was trying to decide whether to go and see The Lion King 3D or The Sound of Music Singalong. Or, more specifically, which would be sadder to go to on my lonesome. Although the general consensus has been that it is more pathetic to go solo to a singalong (thanks guys), I have decided to kiss my pride goodbye and go for it anyway.

Not only because I know I’ll have a great time, but because The Sound of Music Singalong is taking place at the very theatre I have been telling you about. DOUBLE BONUS! And would it not be churlish of me not to support this fine institution, this stalwart champion of the arts? It would! It would! She cries, lacing up her dirndl, pre-emptively. The wonderful people at The Regent put on FUN shows at good prices. They won’t let you take in your own food (no siree bob) but they will show you an excellent time. So I’m going. Best get cracking on my yodeling.

TWO FUN THINGS:

I’m meeting up with Eric tomorrow for a whistling lesson and jam session. I’m unbearably excited.

and Sal, who runs the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra has asked me to play in a show with them next week!

So, if you take a look at their videos, you will see that this story may well end in ME wearing leather shorts.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen…

I just hope no one gapes at me on the subway.

On Lederhosen and Being Lonely (or not)

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:55:00 +0100

So to bring you up to speed, in case you’ve just started reading, and think this is a blog about German fashion and its impact on the Emo sensibility, I can’t emphasise enough how much it isn’t that.

It is in fact a blog about moving to Boston, and learning to play jazz on the harp. In disguise.

This is the second part of a blog trilogy. A triblogy, if you will. I wouldn’t blame you if you won’t. Scroll down for the first bloglet, this blogette will be about the moving bit, and the next blogino will be about the jazz harp bit. Phew!

I’m here in Boston, and I pretty much don’t know anybody here. Let’s see.

I know my teacher Deborah Henson-Conant, who I am living with, and her husband Jonathan, who is very kind, and bought me apples yesterday (Thanks Jonathan!)

And I know a very nice family, who took me to the cinema last week to see Moneyball - my first American cinema AND baseball experience all in one! (American audiences, in turns out, are MUCH more responsive, emotive and audible in a cinema situation - a trait that I personally find very endearing. In other news, I drank a root beer the size of my head.)

Now that I’m taking classes at Berklee, I’m also meeting all kinds of interesting and talented people there, the fun times and good conversation flow and so on and so forth BUT there are two events coming up, for which it is my belief that new friends, no matter how jazz-competent, just won’t cut the mustard.

Activity #1 THE LION KING 3D has just come out in the cinema
Activity #2 At The Regent, my local theatre, they are hosting a SOUND OF MUSIC SINGALONG.

Today I had to make an important decision. I am currently spending a hefty chunk of every day on my own. Before I left, I thought this might prove to be a problem. I have a rich inner life, sure, but up until now, I’ve always been happiest in good company. HOWEVER, it’s actually surprisingly jolly. I spend most of the day practising, and its BLISS being able to play for as long or as little as I like, have a little amble, then get back in the game. My ten coins are veritably ZIPPING around. And when I need a little break, I have found places that keep me happy and focused: the pond by my house, that is almost absurdly serene; the wonderful bookshop/café near Berklee where you can get a coffee as big as a head-sized root beer, or better yet, bubble tea with ginger ice cream, and eggs of many styles. They also have the best and most thoughtful book selection I have ever come across; there’s a bench in Davis Square (half an hour away by bicycle, which, for me is child’s play now), underneath a particularly handsome tree, where you can always have a brilliant view of consistently excellent buskers. In fact, much more so than London (and I never thought I’d say this), Boston really is alive with music all the time. More often than not, the air is thick with the slapped hum of a double bass, or the purr of some distant saxophone. On a more jarring note, there’s an ice-cream van parked outside my window every day at four (Arlington is that kind of town) and his song is very syrupy INDEED.

This brings me back to my pathetic quandary re: The Sound of Music Singalong.

I LOVE The Sound of Music. I love Liesl, I love Friedrich, Marta, the whole gang. Well, not the whole gang, actually. Rolf can take a hike. But his role is valuable in terms of the film’s valuable social realism, so carry on. Likewise, Maria’s haircut.

I especially love Captain Von Trapp. Is there a more handsome man than the young Christopher Plummer? I think not. The scene where he and Maria are dancing in the garden (is it a Ländler? I’m going to say it’s a Ländler - do correct me if I’ve got my Austrian folk dances mixed up. AGAIN.) and he straightens his gloves and says ‘Back off Kurt, this is a man’s game’ (I paraphrase) - swoon city.

I’m not ashamed to tell you that The Lonely Goatherd is on my iTunes Top 25 Most Played (cruelly appropriate, given the title of this blog). It’s the modulation on ‘Oh Happy are they’. (around 2:34). Gets me every time. FYI, I didn’t even have to look that up. Is that impressive? I just don’t know anymore.

Find me a montage in the history of cinema better than the Von Trapp children learning to sing! Not even ROCKY can compete with the juggling oranges, the new clothes, the carriage zipping around Salzburg, and the frolicking, oh! the frolicking. It’s a bit weird when the children start walking towards Julie Andrews on their knees, bobbing up and down like happy little clowns, but I’ll forgive them anything! I can even forgive Charmian Carr for releasing not one, but TWO autobiographies with the word ‘Liesl’ in the title.

AND The Sound of Music taught me solfege! Moveable do-a-deer is an INVALUABLE learning tool. And I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

Where was I? Oh right! Not having any friends! (it’s circumstantial, yeah?)

It is one thing to ask in a local Italian take-away place if they do small pizzas, and to be told, with a withering stare, they only do family size, but you’re really admitting something to yourself by going to both the singalong AND The Lion King 3D, as a lone wolf.

And I COULD try and drag and unsuspecting new friend, BUT would I rather have to look cool, laid back, and do ironic dancing throughout ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?’ or would I rather let my hair down and get seriously stuck in to the weird cuckoo song, complete with all the ridiculous bobbing? I think we all know it’s the latter. And, frankly, I’m not sure any of my fledgling friendships could take the heat.

I sought the counsel of my dear friend Keith. He kindly suggested that a solo singalong would be sadder because I’d have nobody to sing with , and I’d have to find a singing buddy, so I should cut my losses. Not exactly the Judgement of Solomon… (But if it had been, I would have said CUT LIESL AND RAFIKI IN HALF, AND FORM ONE SUPER FILM WE CAN ALL SHARE! You keep Kurt and Nala, I’ll take Zazu and Cousin Max!)

I know what you’re thinking - If only I’d made friends with Mr. Lederhosen! Hindsight. 20/20. You know the score.

Coming soon: MY DECISION (worthy of capitalisation? YES! … MAYBE) and the great concert that prompted it!

Suspicious...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:04:00 +0100

Today has been a busy day, and I’ve had a lot on the boil. Not literally, because I don’t have a stove here, but to say ‘I’ve had a lot going on in my mind-microwave’, pairing my cerebral and culinary states with greater accuracy, is not a phrase I want associated with my good name. I thank you.

I am therefore going to break up today’s main thoughts into three consecutive bloglets.

As I’m already cracking on with this one, this can serve as bloglet the first.

It concerns an incident that occurred on the subway. Actually it was more of a sighting than an incident, as the only verb involved in my role was a bit of peering. I don’t mind telling you that as peering goes, it was pretty full on, but regardless of the angles of my neck and eyebrows, the act of peering (or the art of peering as I like to think of it) is not the stuff great anecdotes are made of.

I’ll tell it to you straight:

There was a man on the subway wearing Lederhosen and carrying a baguette.

I couldn’t say which of us was more confused.

He wasn’t even holding the baguette in his hand, defiantly, as if to say

‘Yeah, I’m going for a pan-European sort of vibe, and what of it?’

Not so, the baguette was in his bag, just poking out, mysteriously. If you want to know what else was in the bag, there was NOTHING else in there. I never thought I would see the day when I would describe a baguette as ‘mysterious’, but there it is. October 6th, 2011.

Fortunately, for that anecdote of less-than-Ustinovian sparkle, it serves as a helpful segue into my next blögchen, which regards The Sound of Music, and a difficult decision. Lederhosen agogo.

VFAQ

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:09:00 +0100

On my website (coming soon! WOW!) I have an FAQ section. This is mainly for enquiries regarding weddings and events – you know the drill. What I really want to put up, however, is a section of VFAQ.

VERY frequently asked questions (in case that wasn’t obvious from the acronym)

Oh, now it looks like WOW was an acronym. It wasn’t. It was just the word ‘wow’.

I feel like the VFAQ might save me a lot of time, but I also worry that it might make me come across as a bit hostile and unaccepting of the world’s more curious peoples. Which is far from the case. I love curiosity in its many forms; it’s just that my least favourite form is when the curiosity beam is directed at someone pushing a large, heavy thing, and who, judging by her speed and sweat levels, is evidently running late.

So here they are! My VFAQ! WOW!

What kind of harp do you play? A full-size pedal harp – a Lyon & Healy Style 23, in ebony and gold. I fell in love with this model when I saw one belonging to a very kind man called David, who works at Holywell Music, a harp shop in London. He named his harp Margo, after the character on The Good Life, because ‘she thinks she’s a bit posh.’ I just love that. My harp was made in Chicago, and arrived in a box bigger than my bedroom. I haven’t given it a name, because I wanted to name it after Harpo Marx, who I love, but Harpo seemed a silly name for a harp, so then I was going to use his real name, but that was Adolph, so I decided against it.
How do you get that thing around?? I lay it flat in the back of a large car. For this reason, my mother wants me to drive a hearse – ‘SO practical! And you’d never have any trouble with road rage!’ - But I don’t think I’d much like people nodding at me, solemnly, wherever I go. Although I wouldn’t mind the occasional salute…
OR I push it along in a trolley with pneumatic tires. I have walked with my harp for up to an hour and a half, through crowded streets, and over cobbles and hills – to which my biceps are testament. If only. ’Knots on a piece of string’, as my gym teacher used to say (not letting that one go, it seems). It’s my poor back that takes the heat. And my thighs, but the less about that, the better.
How much does it weigh? 81 lbs (37 Kg)
How much do you weigh? Not relevant. Next!
What’s that? It’s a harp!
Is that a piano? No, it’s a harp.
Is that a cello? No.
Is that a guitar? …Yes.
That’s a big guitar! That’s not a question. Get out of this section!
Do you ever wish you played the piccolo? Hey, thanks for asking! Every day. Is how often I get asked that question. Never, is how often I wish I played the piccolo. I wish it NEVER.
What made you choose the harp? The ‘truest’ answer is that I’m not sure. I remember desperately wanting to play it as a child, but the whys and wherefores elude me. It was probably for as simple a reason as my coveting its beauty. This is a feeling that hasn’t gone away. Sometimes I think of my harp as an inanimate thing – be it a big heavy burden or a masterpiece of human craftsmanship. Sometimes I think of it as a friend, sometimes, an enemy. But I don’t think I have ever looked at my harp without marveling, for the tiniest of moments, at its beauty, and the incredible fact that I am allowed to touch it. My harp and I need to get a room. A PRACTICE room (jeez louise!) Anyway, I think this feeling of awe can be pinpointed to a particular moment in my childhood…

[Sweeping, Misty Recollection Music (that doubles up as dream sequence music, and that ideal-scenario music you sometimes get in American sitcoms – more bang for your buck!) played on a harp, obviously. But not by me. What? Am I expected to star in AND accompany my own flashbacks now? I know I just said ‘more bang for your buck’ but Come On!]

When I was about eight, my mum took me to see the London Symphony Orchestra play at the Barbican, in London. They were doing a special concert for children, and during the interval, they announced that you could go up and have a go on your instrument of choice. No contest. Screw you, Tuba! Off I toggled to get my little paws on that harp. However, I had not accounted for the fact that the harp might be a popular choice, and during the looooong time it took to queue up, I started feeling a bit unwell. Maybe it wasn’t even that long, eight year olds have quite short attention spans, as I recall. But I persevered. Must… touch… harp…! THEN, just as I was in clutching distance of the strings, my mitts had formed a harp-touching claw and —- I fainted. Out cold on the floor. (The harpist was probably pleased to have this little Grabbing Gollum carried away, unconscious, by a security guard.) Was it excitement that made me faint? Nerves? Boring old Dehydration? To this day I have no idea. BUT I do know that I had the last laugh, (if you can call carting a harp around for the rest of my life ‘having the last laugh’) because I think it had a little to do with my parents finally giving in and saying that, yes, I could have harp lessons.

CUE MONTAAAAAAGE! [What? I have to make my own montage?? Ah, forget it.]

That last one was perhaps a longer A than the Q warranted, but there you have it. My VFAQ!

(I think that acronym might just catch on, you guys!)

A curious encounter

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:22:00 +0100

I was speaking with a man at the supermarket today. He asked what I was doing here in America, and when I told him I was studying the harp, he said:

‘The harp! YES! The cello of the opera!’

I have no idea what that means, (as I pointed out, VERY firmly)* but I know that I like it.

I think that’s what I’ll tell people from now on.

Next time someone asks me whether I wished I played the piccolo, I shall laugh merrily, shimmy over their feet with my MASSIVE harp, then tap them firmly on the nose and say, ‘But I do! The harp is the piccolo of the roller disco!’

And then walk away, harp in tow, with a stride far more majestic than fits the situation.

*No, I didn’t really. But can you imagine??

…

’The harp! YES! The cello of the opera!’

’Nono. That doesn’t mean anything. I think you’ve got what you just said mixed up with something that makes sense. Good day sir.’

End Scene

p.s. I realise I used the word firmly twice in a very short space. But sometimes you just have to do things firmly, and no other word will do.

Some words on the ever elusive art of practising

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:01:00 +0100

For those of you thinking ‘When the #*$% is Katya going to write a blog about her new practice techniques?!’ – you can now relax.

I am working with some new practice methods, and I’m going to tell you all about them! [the crowd goes wild]

Credit where credit’s due, these are not my inventions, but have been given to me as practice gifts by my teacher, and harp-goddess Deborah Henson-Conant.

URGENT DISCLAIMER: my computer keeps auto-correcting my use of practice/practise. If any incorrect usage occurs hereafter, you can assume that it is my dick-computer-dictionary making grievous grammatical errors, to try and make me look like an IDIOT.

WARNING (who knew there’d be so much pressing admin to get out of the way before nestling down for a good practice blog?!): This blog contains slightly more niche material than the universally appealing issues of adult cycling and skunk problems addressed previously.

and by ‘niche’ I mean this-is-really-my-life-don’t-judge-me—but-actually-I-don’t-mind-if-you-do-because-I-LOVE-my-new-practice-methods

but really, do get stuck in if you want the SERIOUS inside scoop on practice scheduling. Don’t pretend you’re not brain-freezingly curious.

Wow, I think I just wrote brain-freezingly because I’m drinking a delicious icy coffee as I write this. No need to thank me for keeping you in the loop.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll offer up my new systems in delicious mini-blog instalments. (Hahaha ‘mini-blog’ makes me think of those delicious little chocolate swiss-roll things. I think it’s the ‘mini’ and ‘log’ elements… Mm, I could really go for one of those right now. What was I saying? Oh right, BREVITY!)

Method #1 THE TEN COIN SYSTEM

(I know. Try to stay calm.)

Sooo the system is relatively self-explanatory. But that would be a very short and boring blog if I left it there, so I’ll power on and walk you through it.

Put 10 coins on a chair (or, say, a table) in your practice area. In my case, that means a tall stool, within easy reaching distance from my harp.
Easy reachability is crucial, and I’ll come back to the experiments that led me to this conclusion.
Do a bite size section of the thing that you’re working on.
~~If it goes wrong, weep uncontrollably~~.
If it goes wrong, try again. S L O W E R. And perhaps take a smaller chunk.
If it goes well, sliiiiide 1 coin away from its minted friends.
Repeat until all 10 coins have done the victory slide.
For the hardcore (i.e. Me. … Sometimes) if the thing you’re working on goes wrong, even as far along in the game as coin #7, #8 (or even #9!!) slide em all back and start over. Frustrating though this can be, I find it helps me to be more careful, and to take things at the pace where I can really do my best. At the moment, I’m braving all kinds of co-ordination challenges (and those of you who know me well may remember that co-ordination is not my dearest friend) like rhythmic comping in Bossa/Swing/Bebop styles in one hand, with melodic improv in the other, singing and playing, speaking and playing (even harder! why??) and other such delights. I’m finding these supposedly straight forward things fist-shakingly difficult (I might even stomp on my bicycle helmet just for good measure) so it makes a world of difference to go gingerly & break things down to a manageable size rather than trying to jump ahead and impress myself. Seriously, that’s a thing.
A confession: I use a mixed selection of English and American coins, and I slide them along in order of size, largest to smallest. I know this is ridiculous, but at the beginning, when I need some extra motivational oomph, sliding a big coin (50p coins go first, then 2ps, and so forth) makes my progress seem all the more satisfying. THEN by the time I’m starting to flag, I’ve reached the little coins – this makes me feel like ‘Pah! I only have those TINY coins left! They wouldn’t even look that comical being rolled along by a Borrower! This can’t be so hard!’
I’m just saying that’s what works for me.
Oh, and the things I experimented with in terms of coins locations were as follows:
Near = very good
Far away, so that I have to do some kind of physical exercise in between each go, either something to amuse myself like a hop, or something beneficial, like a stretch, star jump or a tiny little jog = Less good. It tickled me at first, but it makes everything that much more laborious. And in terms of motivation and effective time-management, labour intensity is NOT the name of the game (it is The Ten Coin System – in case you have suffered a boredom induced stroke and lost track of what we’re talking about. And apparently it is a Motivation and Effective Time-Management Game. The best kind. Except for Guess Who. I fucking love that game.)

And there you have it! This may seem like a paltry choice for a topic (not worth writing home about, LET ALONE blogging about) but I really have found it to be a very interesting and beneficial process.

An invaluable piece of advice that Deborah has given me:

Make your practice program as mindless as possible (this applies to technical work, as opposed to musical decisions, before you all go nuts and burn her at the stake for practice heresy) so you can just GET ON WITH WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO without ANYTHING getting in the way. If you’re not constantly having to make decisions about what to do next, how many times to do it & so on, you alleviate a huge amount of mental pressure, and efficient ways of learning can become automatic and easy.

COMING SOON:

- More AMAZING practice plans, including my adventures with a really old metronome which I now love like a brother.

- Tales from my first show with Deborah: a national whistling champion, an acoustic rock orchestra and a man juggling lawn chairs were involved.

- And much, MUCH more!

p.s. If I seem extra enthusiastic today, it might be because I went to the cinema last night and got way overexcited by American movie trailers that make everything look SO INCREDIBLE. Also, it’s just my natural zest for life.