This week, upon being gifted a big bag of wool, I decided with glee that I was going to finally learn how to crochet! I chose my yarn, picked a crochet hook and dove into the first ‘beginner crochet’ YouTube tutorial I could find! It started off well, so I decided, hey, why not jump right in and make a cardigan(!) Before long I had my first ‘chain’ but 45 minutes later I was in a total mess. I couldn’t remember my ‘single’ crochet from my ‘half double’, I kept dropping stitches somewhere, and my technique for feeding wool was definitely not correct. What I had ‘made’ was certainly wooly, but it was full of errors and uneven rows and frankly, it looked a mess.
I gave up for the evening, but the next day I decided to tackle it again, but this time I stopped and thought, ‘what advice would I give my students if this was the harp?’. And of course, the answer was, master one technique first before jumping on to another!
So I spent the next 25 minutes just ‘chaining’ until it felt natural and easy and all the stitches were the same size. Then I allowed myself to progress on to a ‘single crochet’ stitch, and again, several hours of only doing that one stitch passed, until I had a pretty respectable looking dishcloth! Today, I’m focussing on just the ‘double crochet’ and then maybe by the end of the week I might be able to alternate the two. Maybe by Christmas I’ll even have managed to crochet that beginner level cardigan!
So how is this related to the harp? Because it’s human nature to try and run before we can walk! I see this all the time, particularly with adult learners – they do something a few times, think it’s ‘done’ and then move on to the next thing, whilst never really taking the time to get any action truly comfortable and fluid. And this applies at all levels of player – bringing in the left hand too soon, assuming your scales are fine because you can play them at a moderate pace, doing a few technical exercises before flipping to the next page.
I always go on and on about muscle memory but it’s really the key thing here – we have to give our muscles the chance to get used to a motion over and over so they can really consolidate it.
So this week I’m going to suggest to you, that you pick one thing, and really stick with it, and work it over and over until it’s truly so comfortable you could play it with your eyes shut, in front of 100,000 people and feel 100% confident! Give your muscles a chance to build that memory that they need!
