Harp Slow Practice is the key step to mastering learning to play the harp. During the process, you will pay attention to every note, understand the rhythm and melody, and establish good posture and relaxation. These are the basic skills for learning every piece of music, and the finer the basic skills, the better you can play the music. There are many benefits about Slow Practice.
- Understand each note and the rhythm of the song: When everyone independently understands the notes and rhythm of the music before class, it can greatly promote the progress of in-class learning. In addition, for particularly complex parts of a song, instead of glossing over them ambiguously, we encourage students to face them and overcome them by breaking them down step by step during the slow practice process, and correctly playing them.
- Fingering arrangement when playing: Everyone’s finger length and playing habits are different, and although there are no established fingerings, finding a suitable finger technique can improve the fluency of playing. During slow practice, everyone can plan the fingerings of the song well for themselves.
- Establish good finger posture: For harp beginners, it is very important to establish the correct finger posture. The principle when playing is to open the tiger’s mouth and then return to the palm of the hand. This can maintain a stable and full-string sound when playing. If the opening and closing posture of the fingers is arbitrary, you will find that the string sound when playing is weak and insubstantial. Slow practice can help everyone establish good finger posture when playing, making the sound of the harp more pleasant and beautiful.
- Keep muscles relaxed: Slow practice also helps to habituate the fingers and arms to stay relaxed. When we play the entire song in one go, generally everyone will perform it relaxed and easily at the beginning and middle sections, but the muscles will gradually become tense and stiff. Therefore, in slow practice, you can practice playing each section of the song proficiently and relax the muscles in every part.
- Feel the emotional information of the music: Generally, everyone’s goal is to play the song perfectly without mistakes, but they may neglect to feel the emotional expression of the composer. If we carefully feel the song, it makes playing more emotional, rather than mechanically learning to play. Through volume and speed, we can add our own emotional parts to increase the sense of the depth of the music.