Staying productive all day.
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:
- Practice is done first thing, no guilt, yay!
- Two hours of harp & admin per day is good going
- 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
Alderley Edge, Prestwich, and the 10k that didn’t happen.
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
Live YouTube Concert and life update.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I did a live ‘concert’ on YouTube last Sunday evening. I finished playing feeling rather pleased with how it had gone, only when I watched it back I realised that the sound quality was nowhere near what I’d like it to be:
So have a watch if you like, but chances are I’ll switch this video to private shortly as I can definitely do better than this. Thing is, I don’t know where the issue is, was it the internet connection? Was it the microphone on my laptop? I’m not tech-savvy enough (yet) to be able to livestream from my digital camera. Maybe someone who knows about these things can explain it to me in words of one syllable?
Currently, I have a couple of options, scrap the idea of a livestream and just record a video on my camera to upload later, still in a concert format, but not live, or just go back to videos of individual pieces. What do you reckon? I’d love some feedback on this.
No gigs to report this week (thanks, January) but plenty of teaching is happening, which is good. Have you ever thought about having harp or piano lessons? If yes and you live in or around Manchester, please get in touch and we’ll have a chat about harp or piano lessons.
In other news, the house hunt continues, and to be completely honest, it’s been an emotional week. We put an offer on a house and it wasn’t accepted, by which point I’d already decided how I wanted to decorate it and how I wanted to arrange my new music room:
But we’re having to leave it and have found a couple of other houses that we’re very interested in, so I will try to remain detached and just see them as piles of bricks until I have a set of keys in my hand.
I’m learning a lot about patience in this process. We thought we’d found our home last July but it wasn’t meant to be. Now I’m glad that house fell through because we’ll end up somewhere much better for us.
Moving on, I’m currently in training for a 10K race in March. I signed up for it last year thinking it’ll be a great deadline to make me get out and do some running over winter. Ha. I’ve never been ankle-deep in mud so many times in a single month than I have this January, but my partner Tim (of Chorlton Personal Training) has devised a programme for me and I’m pretty much sticking to it. It’s hard but I just think to myself that the harder the training runs feel, the easier the actual 10K will feel, right?!
I think I’m becoming delusional.
So on all these training runs, I have to admit I was getting pretty sick of my ‘Gym’ playlist on Spotify – although do feel free to check it out – it’s all songs I love but by now I’ve just heard them too many times. In a quest for something different to listen to, I’ve signed up for Audible and downloaded my first audiobook – The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. I’ve almost finished it and am loving listening to it while I’m out and about. If you have audible (or if you just love books) please leave me some recommendations that I can add to my wishlist.
As ever, thanks for reading and don’t forget to give me a follow on instagram, facebook, twitter & youtube! I’m currently halfway through a 30 day practice challenge on instagram so I’m posting a little video each day of what I’m working on. Maybe I’ll catch you there?
Let’s chat soon,
A
x
10 Reasons to Love the Freelance Life
As you may have seen in this week’s YouTube video, I wanted this post to be a list of reasons to love living and working freelance.
Having recently quit my part-time retail job, I can now safely say that all the work I do is either self-employed, or, if it is employment, it’s still music related, it’s still helping my career.
If you have any additional points to add to this list – let me know in the comments, why do you love the freelance life?
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Effort put in is directly proportional to Results & Success.
When you’re working for minimum wage, it’s easy to feel like you’re just paid to ‘be there’. You get paid the same amount as the colleagues who perhaps don’t pull their weight, leaving you to pick up the slack. However hard you work, your hourly pay is the same.
Not exactly motivating is it?
What’s your incentive to work hard if you’re getting paid just as much as if you literally do nothing except stand there?
When you’re working freelance, the amount of time and effort you put in is directly proportional to your success. You’ve gota put in the hustle, baby.
2. Financial freedom.
You decide your pay at the end of each week/month. For example, I like to put all my earnings into a separate account (my accountant likes it that way) and then pay myself a set amount each Friday. That works for me because I like the feeling of having constant, regular income. If another way works for you, do that. We decide how it works.
I also use what’s in my business account to reinvest in my career with new music, gear, and keeping my harp and car in tip-top condition. My profits go back to me and my business, not to a boss, CEO or shareholder. Imagine if more companies did that? Reinvesting the profits rather than lining other people’s pockets is just the sensible way to go and it increases your intrinsic value.
3. Setting your own schedule – or not setting a schedule at all!
Some people (and by some people I mean me) absolutely love working to a schedule. Other people work best when they can go with the flow. Some people do their best work early in the morning, for others 2am is ideal. When you’re freelance, you’re not bound by anyone else’s schedule and can work at a time that’s best for you.
I’m currently experimenting with the Pomodoro Technique and will let you know how I get on with it.
4. YOU ARE THE BOSS.
Have you ever had a job where you hated your boss or a particular colleague? It’s pretty difficult to hate yourself to the same extent.
I’ve worked for bosses before and luckily most of the time we’ve got on fine, but the feeling of being your own boss is pretty difficult to beat.
5. The possibilities are endless – no need to convince anyone except yourself.
If you have an idea for your business, and if you are confident you can pull it off, nothing can stop you going after your goals. Want to move in a different direction? Narrow down or change your niche? As long as you can convince yourself, go for it!
6. You choose your clients and set your own fee, plus you only accept the work you are happy to take on.
This may not exactly be the case when you’re starting out. But as you get more and more work you can start being selective with what you take on (if you want). If someone doesn’t want to pay your fee or says it’s too high, just let them go. If you believe that your rate is reasonable (and I hope that you do) then trust that if this particular client won’t pay your fee, then you can politely decline the work and leave the date free for someone else who is wiling to pay for the value that you are offering.
7. You choose your own holidays.
I’ve worked jobs before where there’s a flat-out rule of ‘no holidays in December’. I don’t really enjoy having my time dictated to me like that. When you’re freelance, if there’s an important event (a family wedding for example), if you have enough notice, and it’s important enough to you, you can block that day out and say no to anything else that comes in. You don’t need to worry about fitting your holiday in between those of everyone else at work – all you need to worry about is what’s best for your situation.
8. The satisfaction of knowing that your success is down to YOU.
When I pay myself at the end of every week, that money goes into my account and I feel so proud that I created that income. I found the gigs, I wrote the contracts and invoices, I spoke to the clients and got to know them, I did the practice, I performed, I handled any logistics necessary. Maybe I’m just fiercely independent and hate relying on anyone else, but it’s a great feeling to be steering your own ship.
9. You’re never finished. There’s always more you can do.
Freelancing isn’t for those who just want to leave work ‘at work’. It follows you everywhere, it’s always on your mind. It’s a lifestyle. All you can say is ‘I’ve done enough for today’, and know that tomorrow, you’ll pick up where you left off. Let’s not even talk about how much more practice all of us musicians could be doing. I’m choosing to see this as a positive. If you’ve got the drive and the energy, nothing can stop you.
10. FREEDOM.
The idea of freedom encapsulates everything I love about being freelance. You choose the work you take on, you choose the days you take off, you have total control over every aspect of your business. From what time you get up to how much you get paid, it’s all up to you.
As ever, thanks for reading. Don’t forget to pop your email in the box to subscribe and get future posts in your inbox (never more than once a week).
Catch you in a bit.
Ax
HARP DIARY | Mytholmroyd & Stockport
Last weekend was another packed weekend with gigs on both Friday and Saturday. This December is proving to be one of the busiest ever and I have to say that I’m loving being busy with harp-related activities:
Friday’s gig was so last minute – but I suppose that’s often the case with funerals. The church was in Mytholmroyd and was flooded last year, so has had a complete re-furb and is all pretty new. My job was simple: a touch of background music while friends and family gathered, and then Debussy’s Clair de Lune during communion. I do find funerals difficult to play for though – they are never easy are they?
Saturday meant Stockport Symphony Orchestra, and a lot of notes. And I do I mean a lot! I’d been sent the music a week or so before the concert with a little note from the other harpist saying ‘impossible bit! Play what you can!’ I personally hate being told something is impossible so dutifully worked on the notes until I could play them, only to find that once I was in the rehearsal it went about triple the speed I had been practising. Oops. It was unfortunately a case of ‘grab any strings you can’. You can see from the video that the inside of the Town Hall is very pretty – and the orchestra had made it suitably Christmassy by putting tinsel on the music stands and several instruments. Christmas hats also featured in the second half of the concert. Unfortunately I missed that memo.
So another busy weekend! Do check out the video and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos of my harpy adventures. Please also sign up to receive these posts in your inbox by popping your email address in the box when asked.
Watch this space for next week’s video and post – it’s going to be a good one!
Ax
HARP DIARY | GIGS ALL WEEKEND
Last weekend was a busy one. As well as having gigs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I was busy making a new video too:
If you have yet to visit Don Giovanni’s restaurant in Manchester city centre – make it a top priority. It’s been one of my favourite restaurants for as long as I’ve lived in Manchester (longer than I care to admit). Although I will say that playing whilst hungry is not a good idea when you are literally surrounded by the sight and smell of your favourite food (garlic bread).
Friday’s wedding in Lymm was a relatively short gig as I was only playing for the ceremony. Big congratulations to Amy and Peter for a beautiful day. Amy’s dress was stunning and took up the whole aisle. I actually thought the staff were kidding when they said I would have to move my harp to make way for The Dress.
Saturday’s gig was an orchestral concert in Southport. I mention in the video but I want to say here as well that, after learning the cadenza from Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers years and years ago, playing it with an orchestra is always such a treat. It makes me so happy. What also made me happy was the children’s choir who were also performing. To see them utterly mesmerised by the music was absolutely wonderful. Hopefully the orchestra will have inspired them to carry on with music and to keep learning.
December 2016 is shaping up to be one of the busiest ever. Watch this space for more exciting projects, videos and gigs.
To get my posts in your inbox (never more that once a week), enter your email in the Subscribe box when it appears. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Cheerio for now!
Ax
Sounds of the Cosmos II
On Tuesday 9th June I had a gig in Sheffield, playing with Sheffield’s Rep Orchestra conducted by a good friend of mine – George Morton.
The ‘rep’ we were playing was Gustav Holst’s The Planets as part of Sheffield’s ‘DocFest’ or Documentary Festival.
The concert was in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, which was exciting in itself – we used to take school trips there to see plays from time to time. Í’ve played The Planets in Sheffield so many times in the past few years, but this was definitely a special gig.
Behind the orchestra was a big screen, showing visualisations and photographs of outer space, the planets, and different types of star. It was completely fascinating. This visualisation in particular just blew me away.
As is becoming my habit, I arrived in Sheffield an hour and a half early so I grabbed a quick coffee and a pain au chocolat in the nearby cafe Marmadukes – it’s a small but lovely place just around the corner from the theatre. The staff were great and talked me through their extensive choice of coffees. I sat for a while and caught up on some reading (Needful Things by Stephen King) before heading back to the theatre to set up and tune.
We rehearsed for just over an hour then had some time to get ready for the 8.30pm concert. Quite a late start but I heard there were over five hundred people there. There are two harp parts for the Holst and the other harpist was the lovely Alley York:
The performance went really well, we even got a little standing ovation, but as it was a late start it was well after midnight when I finally got home to Manchester. Long day but so worth it.
Edinburgh International Harp Festival 2015
I’m spending four days up in Scotland this week to take part in Edinburgh’s International Harp Festival 2015 with my harp quartet CLOUDS. Today is Sunday, day one.
I took the train up from Manchester. So I’m here, with no car, and no harp – totally at the mercy of my fellow CLOUDS members to look after me – they’re doing a brilliant job so far I must say.
It was awesome having some alone time on the train, time to read my book, time to stare out of the window, time to get very annoyed by the drunk hen party trying to get us all to do shots at 2pm.
I arrived in Edinburgh and shared a lift to the festival with Bec and we had some snacks and quickly got to rehearsing for our concert on Tuesday.
Great thing about a harp festival – you can go shopping and you know it’s all useful stuff. Ergonomic tuning key for a fiver? We’ll take as many as we can thanks!
There are so many harp-related things/music/t-shirts/postcards/jewellry/CDs/mugs/aprons! I need to remember not to spend too much money while I’m here.
Speaking of dilemmas, here’s one:
I have so much practice to do – seriously – I have a very important audition next month and sooo many notes to learn. So what do I do? Experience the festival properly by going to everything – knowing that I have all the more work to do when I get home – or hide myself away and try to practice? Maybe I’ll try and find a happy medium tomorrow.
But for now, I’ve eaten a lovely dinner thanks to Esther’s mum and am now tucked up in bed – let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Monday – Day Two
Today has been a long one. We arrived at the festival just after 10am, my fellow CLOUDS were booked in for a masterclass with the lovely Eleanor Turner but I:
a) wasn’t organised enough to get a ticket
b) actually quite wanted to just hang out at the festival, see the exhibitions, go shopping etc.
So until lunchtime I visited the showroom and looked at lots of new harps & harp accessories (my weakness!) I bought some awesome tape that has manuscript on it so if you want to re-write something enharmonically you just tape over it! What a find! I also bought some nice arrangements of wedding music that’s bound to come in handy. I think that’s all I bought today (not including food – oops).
I also went for a little walk down to the village of Colinton, about 15 minutes walk from the festival – I saw a couple of very nice looking restaurants that I’d love to try if I was staying for longer.
Anyway, we all met up for lunch – it’s so nice to see lots of RNCM harpists here – then CLOUDS went along to the class Esther was teaching to demonstrate some of the improvisation we do in our music. The class were so lovely and appreciative!
I’m ashamed to say that after the class, more shopping took place. We were shown some amazing carbon fibre lever harps (try saying that out loud – it’s hard!) which are unbelievably light and seemingly impossible to damage. These harps are the future! You can lift it with one hand easily, which we did, several times:
There is so much to see. Listing all the stands would take forever! There’s harp makers, harp music, harp cases, harp insurance, harp amplification, jazz harp, baroque harp, harp jewellry, greeting cards, stools, stands, tuning keys, bags, tuners, the list goes on and on and we want all of it!
Oh and there seem to be pots of Haribo everywhere too – what’s going on?!
I managed to squeeze in about half an hour of practice (shameful but better than nothing!) before CLOUDS began our last big rehearsal before our concert tomorrow night. We are borrowing beautiful, brand new harps from Holywell so we’re a bit nervous about doing all our usual extended techniques in case we break them! But we do it to our own harps all the time and I’m sure the lovely folks at Holywell trust us completely (cough).
At around 7.30pm we called it a day and headed back to Esther’s place in Peebles, lovely Peebles! I wish I was here for longer to spend some time just walking around and take in the breath-taking scenery – but we’re at the festival all day and when we get back we just have dinner and crash.
Tomorrow is concert day! Yayyy!
Tuesday – Day Three
For most of Tuesday morning/afternoon we took it quite easy to save our energy for the evening concert. We rehearsed for about an hour but for the rest of the time we mainly ate and chilled out. Bec and I found a lovely pub called the Spylaw Tavern so we thought we should take the opportunity and eat while we still had time. All the harps were moved for us by David from Holywell – which was brilliant.
The concert itself went really well. We had a great time and the hall was almost completely full. We got lots of lovely feedback too. After the interval we helped ourselves to a celebratory glass of wine and watched the second half of the concert – Eleanor Turner – who was fantastic, we are all in awe of her amazing playing!
Immediately after the concert the festival had laid on some wine and snacks for us. All my favourite foods were there: goats cheese, houmous, coleslaw, it was brilliant!
We then decided to carry on the party in Edinburgh at The Jazz Bar, where we stayed and danced to live jazz until just after 3am. Some of the current RNCM harpists came too and we had a really good catch up on all things harp/life related. I am slightly worried that we were a little rowdy when we got back to our rooms, we did our best to be quiet! Kind of…
Wednesday – Day Four
All of this brings us to Wednesday, day four. We knew we would need breakfast this morning but they only serve food until 9am – so this means we got around four hours of sleep. All we could do this morning was eat, pack, check-out of our rooms, and get to the city centre ready for my train.
So here I am at the Waterstones cafe on Princes Street, Edinburgh. My train is in a couple of hours and then I’ll be back in Manchester and it will be time to get back to work!
This has turned into a mammoth post – but these past few days have been great: lovely people, inspiring music and performances, great setting.
Harpists, if you are debating whether to go to this harp festival, I strongly urge you to go! There is something for everyone, whatever standard you are. If you like the harp, you’ll fit right in, trust me!
