Career, Music

Spring Update

No Comments

Hello and welcome back to the blog.

A new season is here and I am pretty excited about it. Mornings and evenings are already so much lighter, and winter is far off in the future. Happy days.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to update you on what’s being going on here in York since my last blog post – all the way back in January!

Tim and I have been sprucing up the house a little bit more, we now have two lovely sofas to relax on. The tiles on the front and the back of the house have been replaced with UPVC cladding (in grey, of course) and we’ve had to invest in a new fridge freezer as well.

I’ve started teaching privately at home, on both the harp and the piano – I’m so excited to get my private teaching up and running here in York. If you are in the area and would like harp lessons or piano lessons, do use my contact form to get in touch, or email me angelinawarburton@gmail.com.

I also have started teaching a couple of online harp students, which is a fantastic option for those who live far away or perhaps aren’t able to travel to a teacher. This is a new area of teaching for me and presents its own challenges, but technology makes it so much easier.

In terms of gigs during the first quarter of this year, I’ve been working mostly in Yorkshire, which is absolutely fantastic and shows that moving here was a good decision. I’ve recorded some beautiful music by Jonathan Dove, I’ve met Andrew Carter and taken part in a performance of his Benedicite. I’ve received a fine for driving in a bus lane trying to find a concert venue, and my car has been locked up for the weekend after I failed to realise the car park locked its doors from 6pm on Saturday til 8am on Monday. Oops.

My quartet – CLOUDS – is busy with planning our tour in May as well as the release of a new CD, to be announced very soon.

In other news, I’ve taken part in a Yoga Teacher Training Taster Day here in York, and am going to another one in Manchester soon. I’m not sure which YTT I’m going to do, but I plan to start this year. This is massively exciting, yoga is a huge help to me in my life, both for helping my body stay vital and healthy, but helping my mind become less anxious and calmer in general. I don’t chat on here too much about yoga because I try to keep things separate, but if you’d like to follow my yoga journey you can do so on my instagram page Acomb Yoga.

 

So it’s all go, and I’m doing my best to stay on top of everything and not become overwhelmed with the amount of things there are to do, with owning a house and running my business, but also wanting to spend quality time with Tim and our families and friends, and sometimes I even want to chill out and do absolutely nothing, imagine that.

That’s probably enough from me for this post, thanks for reading, keep in touch, I’ll be back soon.

A x

 

Continue Reading

Career, Lifestyle, Music

Setting up my Harp Practice Space

No Comments

As I may have mentioned recently. I have now moved to York (hurray!). So the focus of today’s post will be setting up an ideal harp practice space in the new house.

I absolutely loved setting up this little space, as I feel it helps to set my intentions of all the focussed work and teaching that will happen here. I wanted it to be organised but still pleasant to be in.
When we were house-hunting I was determined to have my own ‘music room’ to put the harp in, but we ended up falling for the charms of this house. I think I’ll be just fine in this space between the living area and the kitchen. What do you think?
I’ll start with what’s on the walls:
  • a portrait of Spyder
  • a robin, hand-stitched by my godmother, Auntie Janet
  • a little harp decoration – when I played Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols with the Leeds Guild of Singers last Christmas, a member of the choir had this attached to his shirt button. I complimented him on his effort and harp-appreciation, and he gave me the little ornament as a gift. I recorded and movement and put it on my YouTube channel, you can watch here.
Here’s a look at what the space looked like before – arghhh clutter!  I don’t know about you but my mind can’t think clearly in a cluttered space. I’d much rather have a tidy and serene environment than a messy and chaotic one.
The first thing that needed doing was to install Auntie Janet’s old set of desk drawers ready for my music. These drawers will also double as my table while I’m doing my harp practice:

Supplies for a useful harp practice table

On the table we have:
  • two 2B pencils
  • a pencil sharpener
  • a pen
  • a tuning key
  • my diffuser – I like to create an ambience and the refreshing scent of essential oils will help keep me focussed
  • a coaster for my tea/hot chocolate/coffee – a gift from Elfair and a reminder of Manchester
  • little photo of Auntie Janet that I found in one of the drawers – a reminder of her and a reminder to be grateful and appreciate all the ways in which she has helped me in my life. I think she’d be happy to know how much all her things are going to be used and loved. I think about her and miss her every day.
convenient table with harp practice supplies
I’ve sorted the drawers as follows:
Top drawer
  • Things I’m working on right now
  • iPad – which also contains music that needs practising, as well as a metronome, spotify, imslp etc.
organising music in my harp practice space
Middle drawer
  • teaching materials
  • harp hire leaflets
  • notebooks
  • syllabuses (syllabi??)
Bottom drawer
setting up my harp practice area
  • hanging files to sort my music alphabetically by surname of composer (I’ve been ridiculously excited about hanging files – no more piles of disorganised music for me!)
I found that there is no way that all my music is going to fit into this third drawer. Ha – I wish. I have put solo music in there for now, and left the orchestral and chamber music to be sorted at a later date. I may need a full-on filing cabinet at some point (don’t tell Tim).
There was something really satisfying about setting up this little corner. I know I didn’t do much, but I believe that putting a little bit of thought into the placement of things really sets the energy of the place and the intention that this will be a place of happy productivity.

Final harp practice set-up thoughts…

When you play a large instrument like the harp, I believe there is a tendency to almost apologise for its size – to put it in a corner and hope it’s ’not too in the way’. I am happy to report that I now live in my own house and no longer have to worry about this (I checked with Tim of course). Apologising for the presence of your instrument cements the fact in your mind that your instrument is an inconvenience, that it’s in the way and that the room would be better without it. Not great, is it? So, from here-on-in, the harp has centre-stage in my little harp practise space, and in my life – unapologetically.
Musicians: what does your practise space look like? Are you like me in that you need a tidy and tranquil environment? Or can you practise in less-than-perfect surroundings?
What do you think of my harp practice set-up? Am I missing anything? Let me know in the comments, in the meantime, if you need me I’ll probably be practising…
If you are interested in learning to play the harp, you can read more about it and get in touch here.
Ax
p.s. Thanks to Eira Lynn Jones for inspiring this post. You’ve been teaching me the importance of being organised and thorough since 2005. Thank you so much.
Continue Reading

Lifestyle, Music

2019 Goals – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2 Comments
Hello and a belated Happy New Year. How was your first week of 2019?

The House.

As I’m writing this, a plumber is replacing our boiler, which of course packed in just days after Tim and I moved in to the new house.

So it’s been a cold few days for us.

Nevertheless, it’s taught me to be very grateful for our usual way of life – have you ever thought about just how amazing it is to have hot water on tap? How wonderful it is that our houses heat themselves automatically? How blissful it is to have a hot shower and dry yourself with a warm, dry towel?

I’m feeling very grateful for these little things today.

This is a time I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time. Tim and I are in the house, and things are finally starting to settle down into a rhythm. The only things missing right now are a washing machine (lost by the removals company *sob*) and internet (being installed on Friday *yay!*).

Life.

My plan going forward is to put these blogs up on Mondays, but as you can tell, this week’s is a little late due to not having sufficient internet/spending all my time doing laundry at my parents’/trying to stay warm in the freezing-cold house.

Last year I feel like I made a lot of progress with procrastinating less, achieving most of what I set out to do and generally staying a bit more organised. In 2019 I want to continue all of that, but I want the increased productivity to result in more income, please. It sounds shallow, but my goal is to make more than I spend. I don’t want or need loads, just enough to pay the bills and have a bit left over for a rainy day/doing up the house/getting married.

I’ve signed up for some extra work online – teaching English to Chinese children – which is actually really fun and will hopefully tide me over while I find work as a harpist and harp teacher in York. I’m very grateful to a friend of mine for recommending this to me – you know who you are – thank you babe.

My piano will be brought over from Congleton in the next week or so, at which point I can start giving piano lessons in York too – hurray! I am also starting to give harp lessons online (when I have internet) so that is a super-exciting new venture.

Health.

Another 2019 goal of mine is to prioritise my physical and mental health, I’ve gone back to the beginning with my running and starting to work my way through the Couch 2 5k app, I’ll be practising yoga and meditation regularly and trying to eat as well as I can – nothing too strict but my long-term goal is to have a good, healthy quality of life for as many years as I can. Of course, once our garage gym is all set up, Tim and I can do our strength training in there as well.

This may be the subject of another blog post (let me know if you’d like to hear more on this), but the life of a freelancer can be a little chaotic (just a little), with late nights, early mornings, disrupted meal times etc., so keeping our bodies on a schedule when it comes to eating and sleeping really helps our bodies and our health. So, as I’m reading The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda at the moment, I’m trying to stick to a regular eating/sleeping/waking up schedule to see if that results in an increased amount of energy. Fingers crossed.

So, that’s probably enough from me for now. I really hope you are well (and warm) wherever you are. Check back next week for another post.

Chat soon,
A x
Continue Reading

Career, Music, Places

Countdown to Christmas – 2 weeks to go

No Comments

I can’t believe how close we are to Christmas. Present buying has started and some gifts are wrapped and ready but there’s still a long way to go and not much time to get organised.

I am actually at home this morning! Having a chilled one with a cup or two of Lady Grey tea and Spyder the cat. In a little while I’m going to hop on the mat for some yoga and meditation, before packing for another trip to York, only this time I’m not 100% sure when I’m coming back, but more on that later.

This past week has been another mad one, I got some hang-out time with CLOUDS, which is always lovely. We managed to get all four of us plus four harps in one lift – photographic evidence doesn’t really do it justice but I’ll just leave this here:

harpist, harp quartet, clouds harp quartet

The gig of the week was on Sunday at a church in Adel, just north of Leeds. A real treat for me as it was Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols with the Leeds Guild of Singers.

leeds harpist, harpist in Leeds

I was also asked to play a solo, so I played an arrangement of Divinum Mysterium – people often know it as Of the father’s love begotten. One of my favourite Christmas carols. The Leeds Guild of Singers sounded really lovely so do go and see them if you live in or around Leeds.

So from Leeds it was then time to drive back to Manchester ready for my final shift at Chetham’s School of Music on Monday morning. I’ve been a member of the Practice Team pretty much since leaving college, but now that our big move is just around the corner it’s time to stop my regular shifts there. I’ll still go back to cover shifts here and there if need be but it will only be from time to time.

It feels so strange to be cutting my ties with Manchester. The massive things for me were saying goodbye to the choir of St. Ann’s Church, where I’ve been singing since 2012, saying goodbye to my Manchester private students, and, of course, Chetham’s. I know I’ve made friends for life, and I’ve had the time of my life in Manchester but it’s time to close this chapter and start a new chapter in 2019. As sad as I am to be leaving Manchester I am so excited to be going back to my Yorkshire roots, setting up a new home with my partner-in-crime and seeing what opportunities I can grasp east of the Pennines – and if you’re reading this, you’ll be coming with me every step of the way. Thank you.

So, from the new year I will be scouting out work over in Yorkshire so please do use my contact form to get in touch if you need a harpist in York for music lessons, or for background music for your wedding or social event. You can also email me – angelinawarburton@gmail.com.
As always, thanks so much for reading, here are my social media links if you want to follow me or say hi.
See you next week!
Continue Reading

Career, Places

Countdown to Christmas – 3 weeks to go

No Comments
Well this feels retro, I’m writing this in the break between a rehearsal and an evening concert. I’m sitting in the cafe of Leeds College of Music, having rehearsed with the Wind Orchestra before their concert tonight. We are playing an arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (amongst other pieces that don’t require a harp). Here’s a photo of the pitched percussion section – harp, piano, celeste.

harpist in York
harp, piano, celeste

This weekend has been exceedingly busy, it began on Friday and finishes on Tuesday evening. Today (Monday 3rd) me and the harp are in Leeds, we were in Sheffield last Saturday and then there’s a CLOUDS meet-up tomorrow. Do you like how I’m including Monday and Tuesday in the weekend? Wednesday I will chill. All day. Burning the candle at both ends can only be sustained for so long.
Things actually calm down a bit from then on, which is unusual for December but not surprising as most of my teaching has now drawn to a close ready for the big move to York. Speaking of which, I’m still clinging on to the hope that we’ll be in our new house by Christmas, we just need to sign contracts and complete. Keep everything crossed. Our journey to a home of our own has been 18 months in the making and I cannot tell you how excited I am to get a bit more settled. Congleton is so lovely but the amount of driving Tim and I are both doing is crazy.
December is a great time to think about the year ahead and start planning and getting organised. What are your goals for 2019 – musical or otherwise? One of my goals will be to keep on schedule with my social media. That means weekly blog posts – pop your email in the box if you’d like to join my little crew (what shall we call ourselves?) and receive these posts into your inbox. It also means weekly videos on my YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to here.
The current plan with the videos is to alternate between a performance video and more of a vlog/life update video. I really enjoy making these and I hope you enjoy seeing a little snippet of what’s going on over here, any feedback is always appreciated.
In the meantime, from the new year I will be scouting out work over in Yorkshire so please do use my contact form to get in touch if you need a harpist in York for music lessons, or for background music for your wedding or social event. You can also email me – angelinawarburton@gmail.com.
As always, thanks so much for reading, here are my social media links if you want to follow me or say hi.
See you next week!
Continue Reading

Career, Music

Moving to York

No Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you here on the blog, and as you can see from the title of this post, I have some big news…

Tim and I have been house-hunting since we got engaged in May 2017. However, it was only recently that I started to feel the call to move closer to home. York will always be special to me, it’s where I grew up and went to school until the age of 16. The thought of moving back to York makes me so happy and excited for the future. Tim is going to move his busy Personal Training and Sports Massage business over to York too, so our home is going to be a hub of activity!

So, we started looking in York and found somewhere we like in the Foxwood area, made an offer and it was accepted – hurray! Our solicitors are currently crunching through all the searches and finer details but the crux of the matter is, hopefully we’ll be in our new home by Christmas. Everyone keep your fingers and toes crossed.

This means it’s time to put my Yorkshire feelers out. If you live in York and are interested in having harp lessons, piano lessons, or music theory lessons, please do get in touch. I plan to start teaching in York as soon as possible after the new year, and I would love to help you reach your musical goals.

In the meantime, I do offer lessons via skype, so if you live in York and want to start right away, maybe we can start online and then move to offline lessons when 2019 comes around.

I cannot tell you how much I’m looking forward to going back to my Yorkshire roots.

As always, here are the ways in which you can contact me should you so desire:

https://twitter.com/harpistangelina

https://www.facebook.com/angelinawarburtonharpist/

https://www.instagram.com/angelinawarburton/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQzzApriMcGEdE1ZxjkWMdg

I also have a Patreon page if you are interested in supporting me in that way:

https://www.patreon.com/harpistangelina

Thanks so much for reading, let’s chat soon,

A x

Continue Reading