Books, Career, Lifestyle, Music

June Life Update

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Hello and welcome back to my website. June is here and summer is well on its way (hurray!) so I thought it was time for another life update.

Wedding Season has officially begun and that means me and all the other harpists I know are gearing up for a summer of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, several renditions of A Thousand Years by Christina Perry and maybe even some Ed Sheeran thrown in there. For me, my next free Saturday is August 18th, I’m not sure how it happened but my Saturdays are completely booked up until then. I’m already taking bookings for 2019 and even 2020 so if you are planning your wedding please do get in touch and we’ll have a chat about what you would like for your special day.

My private teaching is really building up at the moment too and I seem to have had an influx of new students recently, which is so lovely. Hello if any of you are reading this. The more I teach the more I love it so if you fancy trying out piano or harp lessons and you live in or nearby Manchester please get in touch. In a rather geeky way I also love teaching music theory so I often teach that alongside our instrumental studies. 

Moving away from music now, so much is going on at the moment. If you know or have spoken to me before, you’ll probably know that I absolutely adore greyhounds and would love one as a pet one day. That day may not be anytime soon however, as my cat would definitely freak out and I live in rented accommodation. So, in order to get my contact hours with greyhounds I’ve started volunteering to walk to greyhounds at a local shelter. I had a lovely time and fell hopelessly in love with all the dogs (obviously) so I really look forward to adding that to my weekly schedule. 

This urge to walk dogs that aren’t mine came from reading Rebecca Campbell’s ‘Light is the new black’. Some of the book was a bit ‘out there’ for me but the parts about answering your soul’s calling really resonated with me. Of course music is my life and how I make my living, but there is so much more out there that I’m passionate about and it’s time to start jumping into these passions with both feet, finding what lights me up and doing that. I owe it to myself to live as authentically as I can. When I was little I always wanted to be a vet because I was just obsessed with animals, So to take action and indulge my passion for animals while actually doing a good thing is something of a no-brainer.

Going back to the topic of books for a second, I highly, highly recommend Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Big Magic’ – she delves deep into the subject of creativity. Listening to it on audible was so powerful and I feel like parts of it could have been written just for me. Grab a copy and give it a read (or a listen), let me know what you think. Perhaps I should start a book club? I just love devouring non-fiction, especially when it pertains to being our best selves. On my bed-side table currently are The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and the Calm book by Michael Acton Smith and Alex Tew.

Some of you may have noticed that I’m not on Facebook anymore, I really am loving life without it and honestly haven’t missed it at all. I am still on twitter and instagram though so feel free to pop over there and say hello. My Facebook harpist page is still active but I hardly check it and have made my partner Tim the one and only admin. My thoughts on life without Facebook could (and probably will be) a whole blog post on its own, but I feel so much better now I’m not in the habit of scrolling through endless nonsense content, and love that I have to ask what people have been up to rather than already knowing through Facebook. Creepy.

Right, that’s definitely enough for now. Do leave me a comment and say hi, and if you’ve read any of the books I’ve mentioned let me know what you thought of them. Also, tell me what lights you up, what does your soul call you to do?

Let’s chat soon,

Angelina x

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Career, Lifestyle

Bank Holiday Monday

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It’s the Bank Holiday! It’s sunny! These two events almost never occur at the same time, and this post is here to remind you to enjoy it.

One of the joys of freelance life is that you get to make your own schedule. One of the pains of freelance life is having to make your own schedule.

I’m now 29 years old, seven (seven?!) years out of college and I’m only just learning what my actual ideal daily schedule is and how to properly GYST (that’s Get Your Sh*t Together). Giving up alcohol, getting more sleep and exercising are a huge part of it, as are motivation and self-discipline.

Once we get into these habits, it can be hard to switch off into relaxation mode. For me at least, my harp lives in my living room and my computer is my office, so emails are just always there, waiting for an answer, and the harp is always there, looking at me accusingly as if telling me I should be practising. It’s easy to slip into the mindset of productivity being the most important thing (and a way of putting value on ourselves, yikes), and time off is seen as sacrilege. Why rest when there’s money to be made?

This type of thinking leads to burnout pretty quickly, and gradually we become less and less productive, and more and more self-critical. Not good. Today I’m making the case for working to live, not living to work.

Bank holiday weekends mean pretty much nothing to most gigging musicians, I had a concert yesterday – The Dream of Gerontius with Oldham Choral Society – honestly one of my favourite pieces ever. Students still came for lessons, I still answered emails.

But here we are on Bank Holiday Monday, no gigs, no students, and I’m going to give myself the day off emails and practice. Switching off allows us to return refreshed and keen to GYST, whereas working through every weekend leaves us exhausted and uninspired (or is that just me?).

You could argue that I’m here, writing for my website, isn’t that work? But I’m literally writing this in the garden, in the sunshine, plus, I love writing so this feels good. I want to fill the day with things that feel good. I officially give you permission to do the same. Emails will still be there tomorrow.

Have a great Bank Holiday Monday everyone, and, if you need me, I’m out of office til tomorrow. Go and enjoy the sunshine.

A x

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Career, Music, Performance videos

Chasing Cars Harp Cover | Snow Patrol

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I hope you enjoy this video of my Chasing Cars harp cover, music by Snow Patrol. It is one of the most requested wedding songs of my career so far.

Chasing cars harp

If you haven’t already, please do subscribe to my Youtube channel, where I upload new videos… from time to time. If you have any requests for future videos (playing or just chatting) do let me know in the comments below. I want to create content that we both love, so leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Brides often ask me what music they should choose for their wedding ceremony. My answer is usually the same, whatever you want! The more personal a wedding ceremony can be, the more memorable it will be in the years to come. Some couples want to keep things traditional, and that is beautiful too.

This Chasing Cars harp cover works so well because not only is it a beautiful and romantic song, it sounds really lovely on the harp and adds that extra touch to the day. Personally I think it works especially well for the Bride’s entrance music. For your exit music, it is wise to choose something upbeat and loud, as your guests will be applauding as you walk back down the aisle.

I am now taking bookings for 2023 and still have a few slots available for the rest of 2022 – although it is looking like a busy year! It’s so wonderful to see couples finally tying the knot after months and months of cancellations and uncertainty. Let’s hope that’s all in the past now and we can move on. Contact me here if you’d like to enquire about having harp music at your wedding.

What music are you going to have at your wedding? Leave a comment below, you might just inspire other brides too.

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Career, Lifestyle, Music

Staying productive all day.

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When you’re a freelance musician, all the responsibilities of organising yourself fall on you. So you’d better have it together. I’ve done posts before on productivity, the benefits of getting up early and keeping a realistic schedule, but I recently had a bit of a break-through in this area and I wanted to share it with you.

I had been thinking that I can get the same amount of productive activities done at whatever time of day. So theoretically, if I can’t practice until after dinner, so be it. I saw my energy levels as a constant, horizontal line on a graph that spans my waking hours. Sure, I feel groggy and tired mid-afternoon, but that’s just too bad and I need to get on with being an adult and actually sorting my life out.

I’m starting to see that there may be another way.

Having recently discovered that I am in fact, a morning person (I haven’t drunk alcohol in over 100 days, I think that has something to do with it), I find that the morning is the best time to get important stuff out of the way. For me, as for most musicians, that means morning practice. I’m finding that if I do anything reactive in the morning, replying to emails, checking social media etc., my energy dwindles and I’m left feeling like I don’t have the energy to practice later. I mean, I still do it of course (most of the time) but it’s not the golden, focussed, immensely useful practice that happens first thing in the morning.

This article probably explains the idea much better than I can. But the basic idea is to do the most important, focussed tasks when our energy levels are highest (probably between 8am-11am) so that would be my best time to practice (sorry, housemates) then while our energy levels are ok, we can do tasks that aren’t as crucial but still need doing, replying to emails, making calls, running errands etc., then, when our energy dips further, we’ve reached chill time, time to read, listen to podcasts, do any housework that needs doing.

So time management becomes energy management. It’s time management, but also remembering that we are human and we aren’t robots who go through the day feeling exactly the same and always willing to knuckle down to that tax return we’ve been meaning to get to for months.

I’ve been thinking of how I can take and use this technique in my own day-to-day life. Schedules, of course, are subject to change, but I’m thinking here of a regular day at home, no gig, maybe a few private students in the evening, but basically, a big chunk of the day to do with as I wish.

My priority needs to be getting practice done in the morning. I already have a rule about screen time before 9:30am but maybe I can extend this to no phones before I’ve practised. I will try this and report back. I’ll try and get a decent pomodoro of harp in before lunch time (a pomodoro is made up of 4 lots of 25 minutes of focussed work, with 5 minute breaks in between).

These mornings need to be sacred, I’m going to try to limit other activities encroaching on this time. I feel so good on the days where all my practice is done before lunch. This needs to be the case most days. 9am-11am – where possible – is harp time.

At that point it might be a good idea to get some exercise in, either going for a run or doing some yoga before lunch. Then after lunch will be admin time, emails, sorting through paperwork, and starting my tax return. Maybe another pomodoro of this? I realise that I’ve fallen off the blogging (and the vlogging) wagon recently so this is a good point to jump back in to that.

Then, any housework that needs doing, and chill time has arrived (unless I’m teaching).

Angelina’s ideal schedule:

7:30am – Get up, get ready and have breakfast

9am – 11am – Harp

11am – 11:30am – Break

11:30am – 1pm – Exercise

1pm – Lunch

2pm – 4pm – Admin

4pm – 5pm – any housework that needs doing

5pm onwards – Teaching / Dinner / Chill time

Good points about this schedule:

  1. Practice is done first thing, no guilt, yay!
  2. Two hours of harp & admin per day is good going
  3. Plenty of time to relax in the evenings

Crikey, this has been a long and rambling post. My apologies, I find it hugely helpful to write these things down, I do love lists and schedules (as anyone who has met me will tell you while rolling their eyes). But I’m really going to try this and will report back with how I’m getting on.

How do you organise your life if you are freelance? Let me know, let’s share the wisdom.

Chat soon,
A x

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Career, Music

Thoughts on teaching.

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Can you believe I’ve been writing this blog for over six years now??! I can’t. I began writing it when I was fresh out of college, had no idea if I could ‘make-it’ as a freelance musician, and had a bar job on the side to supplement my income. My RNCM days were just behind me, and Chet’s was not too far in the past either.

I did bits and bobs of teaching here and there but felt like I wasn’t experienced enough to teach with much authority. Maybe I had imposter syndrome. I thought, why come to me when you could go to someone who’s been teaching for longer than me? Why come to me when I don’t have that many students and am obviously not in high demand?

It’s pretty hard starting out.

Slowly though, confidence grows and I started to see my students doing well. I thought, they must be enjoying my lessons because they keep coming back. Some took exams, some did really, really well in them. Some don’t want to take exams, they just have a passion for music and love the harp or the piano, and these students are every bit as rewarding as the conventional high achievers.

I feel so proud of the little group of students I have, every, single, one of them. Thank you for choosing me to help guide you through this part of your musical journey. I learn from you just as much as you learn from me. Thank you for working hard, thank you for forgiving me when I make mistakes. Thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for sharing your love of music with me.

There is one student who I’d like to give a little mention to. Isabelle Halstead. Earlier this year I had the idea that she should apply for Chetham’s School of Music. I attended Chets for sixth form and going there was one of the best decisions that has been made in my life (at this point I’d like to thank the teachers who prepared me for my Chets audition, Rachel Dent and Honor Wright). While at Chets my playing transformed under the tutelage of Eira Lynn Jones, and it proved to be a spring-board into music college and beyond (and it was a lot of fun). Plus, as one of the best music schools in the country (and maybe even the world) it doesn’t look too bad on the old curriculum vitae either.

So you can imagine the pride I feel when, as a teacher, one of my students is offered a place there from September this year. I’m absolutely over the moon for her, and grateful that I was trusted to guide her on this path. She’s worked so hard, with a lovely and supportive family behind her, and she thoroughly deserves her place there. I’m so excited for you, Isabelle!

It’s easy to slip into a funk sometimes and think how far I have to go in my career. Here I am, almost seven years after graduating and almost thirty years old, still no full-time playing job, bank balance still far from healthy, still living from month to month, no ‘big breaks’ and plenty of failed auditions under my belt. But, just for now, I’d like to look at the positives. My student has been offered a place at one of the best music schools there is. And that’s pretty awesome.

As ever, thanks for reading.

A x

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Career, Lifestyle, Music

Alderley Edge, Prestwich, and the 10k that didn’t happen.

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I’m writing this week’s post in a Caffe Nero in Alderley Edge. I’m here to play with Alderley Edge Orchestra for a concert tonight, we are performing Holst’s The Planets and Elinor Nicholson and I are the harp section. 

We arrived early to get good parking spots (harp life), warmed up, and are now both catching up on some admin over cups of tea/coffee.

How’s everyone coping with the Beast from the East? Where I am in south Manchester it hasn’t been too bad, and I’m thrilled that I haven’t lost out on any work due to snow. It can be super frustrating when snow means cancelled gigs, which means no payment, not ideal.

The 10k race that I’ve been training for however, that has had to be cancelled. I can totally see why the organisers took the decision as lots of people were no doubt travelling from a good distance away. It’s a bit gutting to have trained in snow, wind, hail and freezing cold to end up not doing the race, but training is never wasted is it? I’m still fitter and stronger than before and that was the whole idea of competing. I’d decided to treat myself to some new gear after the race, so when I heard that it was cancelled I went ahead and ordered them anyway, maybe I’ll chat about them in the next post. Totally off-brand but exciting anyway…

On the house front, I do have exciting news, a house that we viewed back in January has finally accepted our offer! Hurray! The house is in Prestwich – north Manchester – and I’m keeping everything crossed that this time everything goes smoothly. This is the third house we’ve had an offer accepted on so hopefully it’ll be a case of third time lucky… I’m simply far too excited about actually having a music room/office, and I know Tim is looking forward to having his own gym in the garage.

Could this be the new music room??

I wasn’t expecting buying a house to take this long and we’ve certainly learned a lot along the way. But maybe, just maybe, we’ve finally found our home.

I think that’s all from me this week. Thanks for reading as ever, and if you’d like these posts to go straight to your inbox, just pop your email address in the box at the top of the page. I’d love to connect with you that way. These posts sometimes get sent out a day or two early to my email list – so if you fancy that then do sign up.

As always, you can follow me on Patreon, Instagram, Twitter & Facebook to keep up with harpy and other shenanigans.

Ax

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Career, Lifestyle, Music

Harping, Running, Yoga.

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I can’t believe another week has gone by. I spent a good few days relaxing and taking it easy on myself following the events of the week before, and my car also needed a bit more work doing to make sure it was 100% safe.

I had a gig on Valentine’s Day in a lovely little restaurant in Blackburn called Gioia Italiano:

It was so nicely decorated, and not too crowded either.

The following day I decided to record a video. I want to be uploading to YouTube more regularly than of late. I’m quite pleased with this effort because it’s the first time I’ve attempted more than one camera angle:

Please subscribe to my youtube channel if you haven’t already – I’m closing in on 100 subscribers, which is rather exciting.

Aside from music, I’ve been keeping up with my 10k running training. I can’t believe that this time in two weeks I’ll have done the race. Eeek! I can definitely feel my legs getting stronger and my endurance is getting better as well. I’m still probably the slowest runner you know but that really doesn’t matter that much to me. If anything, I’ve stopped exercising to try and look good, it’s more about my mental health now. Running and yoga offer me peace and quiet from my mind, which never seems to switch off. That voice in my head telling me I should be practising or working, that I should be further on in life than I am, that I’m failing, that I’m not earning enough, can’t get to me if all my attention is on keeping my body in motion out on a run, or keeping my body and breath calm and still in yoga.

I’m also trying to get into the habit of meditating daily – starting with just five minutes – so I’ll let you know how I get on with that.

Speaking of yoga, last Saturday was day six of the British Wheel of Yoga Foundation Course that I’m enrolled in. I’m absolutely loving it and seriously considering taking my studies further into Yoga Teacher Training at the end of the course. All I can say is ‘watch this space’!

Thanks as always for reading and supporting. I’ll leave my social media links here in case you want to see what I’m up to until the next post!

Bye for now,

Ax

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Career, Music

La Bohème – The Opera That Goes Wrong

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This past week I have been playing for La Bohème with Leeds Youth Opera, conducted by Tom Newall. It’s been a bit of an unbelievable week, so I thought I’d take you through it day by day.

Day 1 – Monday

I got into my car on Monday morning ready for my weekly shift at Chets, only to find that my car’s battery was completely dead. Victor wasn’t going anywhere. Time to run for the tram.

This was very concerning as obviously I needed to get my harp to Leeds for the dress rehearsal that night, and it wouldn’t fit in anyone’s car but mine. Luckily, Tim’s client that morning is a car mechanic and he agreed to look at Victor that afternoon. He diagnosed a dead battery, and ordered and fitted a new one that day! So I was able to take my harp to Leeds. Hurray!

I agreed to give three members of the orchestra a lift back to Manchester that night, and as I was putting the back seats upright in my car, I managed to drop my car keys down the gap between the seats and the floor of the boot. Time for another mini-panic. Managed to eventually get them out and off we went. I just assumed this was ‘one of those days’.

Day 2 – Tuesday

It snowed all day on Tuesday, and I hate driving in the snow, luckily for us it didn’t settle and we got to Leeds and back with not too much drama. Really enjoying the music and being back ‘in the pit’.

Day 3 – Wednesday

Wednesday was performance number one so everyone was feeling a little nervous. We had pretty much a full house at the Carriageworks Theatre and it went really quite well for a first night. Puccini melodies are swimming around my brain and probably will be for quite some time.

Got home around midnight, straight to bed.

Day 4 – Thursday

Another morning shift at Chets, and I was definitely beginning to feel like I was burning the candle at both ends. The car starts but the battery warning light is on, and that meant the battery wasn’t charging, which points to a faulty alternator. I tried to ignore it. I’d agreed to give Sara, Elliot and Ethan a lift to Leeds and you can’t bail just because a warning light comes on.

Amazingly, the light went off as I was going home at lunchtime so I just put it down to the light coming on for no reason.

I picked up my passengers and off we went. Once we hit the motorway, there it was again, the battery warning light. I wasn’t sure how long the battery would last without being charged, maybe we could make it to Leeds?

Nope.

Firstly, the heated back window stopped working, then the car’s heating failed. Not good when there’s four people in the car and it’s misting up fast. My windscreen wipers stopped working, that’s really not what you want going over the M62 in the pouring rain. The lights on my dashboard went out and finally I lost power steering. Time to pull over and assess our options.

Try not to panic.

Try not to cry.

I’d never broken down before, and I’d never ever been unable to make it to a gig because of my car. I felt awful, like I was letting the orchestra and the cast down, but there was nothing I could do except call my breakdown cover. They eventually arrived around 7:30pm (the start of the show) and told me they couldn’t fix it by the side of the road, where did I want them to take the car?

I could only see one option here, to get the car back to Manchester, what good is a dead car in Leeds? Where would I sleep? How would I get it fixed? We decided to head back to Manchester (at a cost of £90) and performance two happened with no harp, no bassoon, and one fewer violin and one fewer trombone.

I got in touch with Paul, who fitted my new battery on Monday, and he let me drop the car at a garage in Chorlton, ready to be looked at in the morning and fitted with a new alternator. Paul is a hero.

Unbelievably, around this time, a coach I follow on YouTube released this video, is she psychic?

Seriously, go and follow her, she’s amazing.

 

Day 5 – Friday

I asked Tom to give me a lift on Friday as my car was clearly going nowhere. I quite enjoyed the novelty of not being a designated driver. I’m so used to being the driver, it feels weird to not have that control and to just let someone else do it for a change.

I was really feeling very zen about it all until we got about half way home after the show (which, by the way, went really well). Tom’s car started making a weird noise. It got louder and louder until he had to pull over.

Flat tyre.

I mean, what? Stuck on the M62 two days in a row how did this happen?! We waited in the freezing cold for over an hour while a new tyre was fitted. Got home at 1:30am. Am I cursed?

The funny thing is, we could not stop laughing about it. You literally could not make it up. I’m glad that I wasn’t on my own when my car broke down, and that Tom wasn’t alone when his tyre punctured. When you’re with people it’s easier to see the funny side at it and just marvel at why the universe might be doing this.

 

Day 6 – Saturday

The final show! Feeling pretty tired and drained by this point. Managed to get there in my car with no warning lights or other drama. Gave Sara a lift home and drove through some pretty horrid fog, wind and rain, but by that point I felt like if I could handle the week up until then, I can handle this.

Home by 11:30pm. Time for sleep and rest. I need rest.

La Bohème is a fabulous opera and it was a great show. I so enjoyed being a part of it. Here’s the funny thing though, the music, and the playing, are the easy bits. It’s the bits in between that provide the biggest challenges. I laugh too at the idea that people in the audience see me sitting behind the harp looking serene, have no idea of the drama involved in actually getting there.

 

Just one more thing to mention in this week’s post (well done for getting this far!) For those of you who support me on Patreon, they’ve released Lens – part of the mobile app that acts like Instagram Stories. I love Instagram Stories, as you probably know if you follow me, but the idea of stories especially for Patrons is fabulous!

So if you haven’t already, download the Patreon app and have a look. In line with my intention to be releasing more content over there, I’ve changed the structure from donations per video to donations monthly. This means patrons will only be charged once per month, even if I release more than one video. Patrons also get early access to these blog posts and my videos.

So there we are! What a week. I’m spending Sunday recharging and taking it really easy on myself. Cooking some wholesome food, doing some yoga and having a long bath will all probably occur at some point.

I hope your Sunday is a restful one. I’ll see you here next week! Don’t forget to follow me on twitter, instagram and youtube too.

Chat soon,

A x

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