What happens when you make a mistake? Do you go back a bar, start from the beginning of a line… or do you go all the way back to the beginning of a piece?

Everybody makes mistakes

Playing the harp well doesn’t mean 100% correctness. It’s great when it happens, but I believe that playing well also means being able to work your way around the mistakes, if they happen.

When starting to play the harp, you begin with simple, SHORT pieces and you will quickly get to the stage where you’re able to play these through. When you do, if something goes wrong in bar 3 out of 4, starting again from the beginning feels just natural.

However, once you’re past these initial stages and get to play longer pieces, starting from the beginning may get in your way. What used to be 4 bars, may now be 4 pages… and if there’s a mistake on page 3 you need to know what to do!

You need to know your REPAIR POINTS

I learnt about this method from a teacher who called it a strategy of “emergency exits”, but another name that is much more common is “repair points” and also “rescue points”.

Works on every level

This practice strategy is one that EVERYBODY needs to have in their toolbox – even complete beginners!

It will help you on SO many levels – starting right from the moment when you begin learning a new piece, through memorising music, and finally – giving you confidence when playing for others.

“Please locate your nearest emergency exit…”

Knowing your rescue points is a total game changer, and so in today’s episode you’ll learn…

• how to find out where they need to be if you don’t know a piece well
• what questions to ask to find them
• how you can mark them in your music
• how many you need

…plus a few fun ideas on how to practise them!

Watch the video