Well, it's been a two week break from the harp, which a large part of me was tempted to stretch out even further. But the Tests have finished (cricket, dear people- very important) so without the excuse to lie around all day watching the Australians trounce Sri Lanka (nothing personal) and with gigs looming, it was indeed time to start back.
My general rule of thumb, and fingers, is that whatever time off I have, it will take half that time to get back to where I was before the break. I don't know if this is a hard and fast rule that applies to everyone- let me know how you fare.
So by that reckoning I needed a week to spruce up my muscles and toughen up the callouses.
Here's what I've been doing:
Day 1- A really good tune. The weather here has been shifting wildly from 40 degrees C to 15 degrees C so the harps are obviously feeling it. The cooling has been on. The heating has been on. Welcome to Melbourne. Despite this there have been surprisingly few string breakages. Either way, daily tune ups are required just to remind them what they should be doing.
I then played a light 15 minute session of technical work drawn from Yolanda Kondonassis's Warm Ups found at the back of her book 'On playing the harp'.With some Lariviere thrown in for good measure. At this stage just the scale exercises Nos 5-18
Day 2- After tuning I did one fifteen minute session, the same as yesterday. Later in the day I came back and did a 10 minute session based on the Lariviere arpeggio section Nos 19-35 as well as the arpeggio exercises from Salzedo's 'Conditioning Exercises'.
Day 3- And, boy, does it feel BAD. Definitely the hump day. My hands are just NOT working. So two fifteen minute sessions, still upping the challenge level only VERY slowly. Played through the Theme and some of the Variations from Lariviere No.2 in the first session, and then a very slow bash through Bach-Grandjany No.2, Lariviere No 36 and the Prelude from Bach's BWV 1006a.
It was interesting playing that last one slowly- I heard all these phrasing subtleties that it's really easy to brush over when going like the clappers. Does this mean that sometimes it's good to play badly? Mmm...
Day 4- Over the hump. Fingers moving much better, though I started back on trills today. Trills which could safely be used in a court of law as an unchallenged definition of the term 'lumpy'.
Day 5- And we're back in business- one hour straight of warm ups, technical work and repertoire.
Day 6- Increasing endurance and extending practice time, and it all feels good!
So what do you do to get back into playing?
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