Deborah Henson-Conant & HipHarpAcademy.com present
Do you search for arrangements at your technical level …
and then spend hours … or weeks … learning them?
What if you could create arrangements on the spot?
What if that suddenly gave you a repertoire of hundreds of tunes people love?
What if doing that opened your ability to improvise …
And built your confidence?
Hip Harp Toolkit ~ Fall 2018
This class is now part of the
“Building the Bones” Program
Hip Harp Toolkit is the Fall Class of my year-long “HIp Harp Academy”
To join the class, sign up for the 3-Month “Building the Bones” program
or full-yearlong Hip Harp Academy at the link below
Hip Harp Toolkit ~ Fall 2017
REGISTRATION is CLOSED for 2017
Hip Harp Toolkit is the Fall Class of my year-long “Hip Harp Academy”
To join the class, sign up for Hip Harp Academy at the link below
Join the First-to-Know List for the Next Academy Class by Downloading my Freebies
REGISTRATION ENDS!
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Already Registered for Hip Harp Academy? Then you’re already in “Hip Harp Toolkit!”
Log-In Here and look for the “Hip Harp Toolkit” Badge.
If you’re not a full-member of the Academy …READ ON
Feel the Power of YOUR Creative Spirit Unleashed in YOUR Hands!
The Freedom Begins NOW!
Create arrangements on the spot at YOUR skill level.
EXPAND simple tunes. SIMPLIFY complex ones. Learn to use improvisation to make it all sooooo much easier!
Stop worrying about the notes on the page.
Start playing the music you love for the people you want to connect with.
It’s all about CONNECTION – not perfection.
“If I had only read about this course, I would have thought ‘I would love to take that some day when I’m good enough!’ . . . I’m so glad I took it now!
At the beginning Deborah asked us what our personal goals were for the course. I said I wanted to have a “sense of play” with the harp. This has been the perfect course for me!”
Rachel Schlafer-Parton
How do some musicians create arrangements seemingly ‘out of thin air’??
How do others take a complicated piece of music and simplify it?
Are they just more ‘creative’ than others …
or do they have skills that anyone could learn?
Watch this video where I solve a real arrangement problem for a harpist.
Then sign up to learn skills and techniques like these – simple, effective, and FUN.
Best part? If you take it NOW in the Fall of 2025 – you get to be part of the same live Masterclass Chats that Academy Members attend – so YOU get this kind of direct feedback and training you apply these skills to tunes you already know… or wish you could play!
And with the new Hip Harp Academy Fakebook you’ll get my curated book of tunes that are easy to arrange so you’re not wasting your time on the wrong music.
This is about making Music for People – not Masterpieces for Posterity.
Create more than you ever thought you could –
with what you ALREADY have right now
“This course has been absolutely wonderful! The content is well planned, not overwhelming and very rich! ..
You have given structure to my noodling (along with accountability.) … AND finger independence (and also hands moving as one)…
Plus not having a teacher for about three years now, I neeeeeddddd the structure/accountability, but not in it’s classical form.”
Stephanie Evans
Ready to Break Thru to Creative Freedom?
This class is included, along with dozens of other classes, plus coaching & community in the Yearly “Hip Harp Academy” Membership:
Including Academy
Membership
Your Investment: $1997
(credit card or PayPal)
Payment Plans Available
Holiday Kit Bundle
Includes: Hip Harp Toolkit
Hip Harp Fake Book PLUS Fake Book Activation Sessions
Your Investment: $1197 $497
12 months access to Hip Harp Toolkit Classroom
(credit card or PayPal ~ Payment Plans Available)
Registration for the GUIDED version of “Hip Harp Toolkit” is closed for 2018
To Join the Self-Paced “Hip Harp Toolkit”:
Join the Hip Harp ACADEMY. Membership lasts for One Year and includes ALL courses in the Year-Long Curriculum
Learn more about the Full-Yearlong Academy Curriculum
and ALL the courses included, in addition to “Hip Harp Toolkit”!
About the Program Creator
About the creator of this program, Deborah Henson-Conant:
About the creator of this program, Deborah Henson-Conant:I’m Deborah Henson-Conant, and I’ve been composing, arranging and creating shows since I was a kid. I now play shows with symphonies and on solo stages with the electric harp that was created for me by CAMAC Harps, the “DHC Light”.
But I started on the ukulele, playing and singing my own little-kid arrangements.
And guess what? I use a many of the same skills and principles to arrange the music I record and perform today – including the Grammy-Nominated album “Invention & Alchemy” and the song that won first prize in the International Songwriting Competiton (ISC).
My mom gave me a musical toolbox —
and now I want to give it to you.
When I was a little girl, my mother taught me how to play ‘with’ music. She wasn’t trying to teach me to be a musician, she was just trying to show me how music ‘works’ so that I could play with it on my own — the same way she taught me everything else.
I honestly thought everyone knew the basics of putting the bones of music together to make a living piece of music. But in the past few years as I’ve taught more students and workshops, I discovered that many musicians are at the mercy of the written page, even when it comes to creating simple arrangements — and that’s true whether they’re beginners or professionals.
In other words, it’s not a matter of technical skill, but of understanding the concepts and knowing how to put them into practice.
I realized that these concepts are the foundation of everything else I want to teach harpists, from Blues, Jazz and Flamenco to how to create your own one-person show. So I created “Arrange Yourself” for my first online course so that harpists could start playing ‘with’ music immediately, whatever their skill level. Then I created “Blues: Harp-Style” to teach harpists the fundamentals of playing Blues.
And then … I realized that simply having the skills doesn’t guarantee putting them into action, and putting them into action is what helps us solidify them so they become a part of our own artistic expression.
That’s why I created “Hip Harp Toolkit:” So that once you have a handle on the basic skills, we can continue to work together, so I can answer your questions and coach you as you put them into action.
I’m excited to help you create a structure you can build on for years and years as you continue to grow as a musician for the rest of your life!
As Featured In:
“This has been the best workshop ever!
I like having plenty of alone time to work with the concepts in the lessons.
At other workshops I can’t hear myself think or play. I really like the online course.”
Dawn Penland
“OMG, Deborah …. I can’t even explain. It’s like all the icky stress that has built up over the last couple of days just literally melted away…
It went SO WELL! It wasn’t perfect, but who cares?? I got through the whole thing, I recovered from any glitches, and most importantly I had a great time playing!…”
Chris Kanowitz
8 Big Reasons Hip Harp TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
YOU GET MY SECRET FORMULA!
It’s the formula at the HEART of most of the music we hear from jazz to classical sonatas! You’ve heard it thousands of times – but it’s a secret because it gets so altered and embellished that you don’t hear its basic structure. So I’ve distilled it (Mwaaaa-haha!!) into a BASIC 5-Part Formula that YOU can use over and over and over – to turn any simple melody into an improvised arrangement of any length and any complexity!
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
YOU LEARN THE JOY of the GAME INSIDE THE MUSIC!
Most musicians are stuck playing what’s written on the printed page, because they don’t know how music works as a game. But once you learn my formula, each time you play a tune, it can be completely different! Music becomes a game! And the joy come when you pay WITH music instead of having to play the music you’re handed!
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
IT’S LIKE A CONFIDENCE ELIXIR!!
Face it, the scariest part of playing for other people is the first few seconds! So imagine what it would be like to have a wonderful, simple, INTRODUCTION that makes your audience “oooo and ah” and gives you time to get your musical bearings? It’s like taking an instant confidence elixir!
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
IT SOOOOO MUCH FUN!
IT SOOOOO MUCH FUN! Did I mention It’s really, really FUN — because you get to just let go of worrying about the notes you’re playing and truly just play WITH the music!
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
YOU PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS!
Because we use a formula, it can be applied to any simple tune, at any level (have I said that enough?). That means that instead of YOU trying to fit yourself into a written arrangement, you can build an improvised arrangement to take advantage of YOUR strengths – whatever they are.
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
YOUR ARRANGEMENTS GROW WITH YOU!
Imagine playing a tune you love, getting it in your fingers, hearing people hum along … and then hearing it DEVELOP, as you develop over the years! Imagine hearing it change and grow as your skills grow. Imagine that it gets easier when you’re tired, so you don’t have to work so hard! Imagine it gets flashier when you want to impress people. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS when you learn to create spontaneous arrangements because they change as YOU change!
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
YOU GET TO PLAY LIKE YOU!!
Forget “Beginner,” “Intermediate” and “Advanced” – the truth is that each person plays at their own personal level, with their own strengths and their own challenges. So I help you tailor the material to YOUR technical level whether you’re a professional who wants to create a flashy set of musical variations, to a fledgling who wants to be able to sit down and have FUN!
WHY HIP HARP TOOLKIT ROCKS!!!
YOUR ARRANGEMENTS GROW WITH YOU!
YOU GET TO PLAY WITH A SKELETON! OK, maybe that sounds scary, but skeletons are our foundation – they’re what hold us up and give us a strong internal structure! That’s what my 5-part formula becomes once you internalize it: a strong skeleton for every arrangement you play! And once you have that skeleton, you can start adding anything to it that you want – from musical embellishments to stories, spoken word, dancing … to your favorite food! (Um … well, I’m not totally sure about the food part)
Watch this video to find out WHY I created this course.
There are plenty of books about arranging, but nothing for harpists about arranging for yourself on the spot at your own level. I created this course to teach you the way I learned myself – and to walk you through it personally, step by step.
Foundation > Functionality > Fluency > Freedom
Starting with FOUNDATION – you’ll learn the basic “Arrange Yourself” framework. Then build your FUNCTIONALITY by applying those concepts to your first improvised arrangements.
FLUENCY comes when you apply what you learned to your new ‘repertoire’ – the tunes in the Hip Harp Academy Fake Book – and FREEDOM is what you feel as you realize “I CAN DO THIS!”
I’ll be with you every step of the way, reminding you –
it’s all about CONNECTION not Perfection.
“This was the single most important musical course I have ever done in years of learning harp, and I would recommend it to anyone at any musical level.
To begin with, the course was absolutely jam-packed with incredible information, from beginning to end.
Even more incredibly, I could see right away in week 1 that my fears about my harping level were unnecessary; my level simply didn’t matter.
Deborah’s information is carefully structured so that anyone at any level can work with the concepts … and the concepts I learned have become integral to my harping experience, like a kind of ‘harping code’.”
I had been searching for this information for years, going from teacher to teacher, but with this one course, Deborah gave me all the tools I needed for arranging music.
Blythe Tait
How the Program Works
The Focus is on HOW you learn
I want you to be able learn quickly, retain the information, implement it and be able to go back and access what you learned later on. I also want you to be able to repeat this same process every time you want to add music to your repertoire. So the Toolkit includes modules and worksheets: the worksheets I personally use for organizing and structuring my own work and practice.
And I want to help you create chances to play!
Whether you’re a professional, a fledgeling player or an impassioned intermediate – we talk about creating opportunities to share the repertoire you learn to play – either in paid performances or in community or family events.
You get to download all the worksheets, lesson overviews & audio files. I even teach you how to organize them into your own workbook. You’ll have access to all of it for as long as you remain in the Hip Harp Academy – both the lessons and the chats – so you can watch them over and over.
If you take this class as part of your Academy membership, I’m there with you, answering your questions as they come up and coaching you in the live weekly sessions. This is the best way to have your own breakthroughs and become truly proficient in these skills at your own level.
“The first thing I’d like to do is thank Deborah for her combination of pulling me along and building my confidence along the way.
The other class members, as well, have been so supportive.
My harp journey is at the very beginning, with just a few months experience at finding the string I want…
Now my practice is better focused on my personal goals.”
Jeff McFadden
By the end of the class ...
You will HAVE:
First and foremost, the awesome ability to just sit down and PLAY! That includes
- The ABILITY to ARRANGE on the spot at your skill level from any simple melody with chords — including the ability to simplify if you’re a fledgeling player – and to enhance and embellish if you’re advanced.
- The SKILLS to create an actual REPERTOIRE of at least 6 different tunes that work together as a ‘set’ (the truth is that once you know how to do this, your repertoire can be as large as you want)
- The KNOWLEDGE of how to SHARE your new arrangements, and even PROMOTE a performance if you want to – whether you’re a professional promoting a concert or an impassioned amateur inviting friends to your home for a musical evening
You will be able to DO:
- Create impromptu arrangements – at whatever level your playing is – of any tune you’re capable of playing
- Write simple notes to help you remember what type of improv or arrangement tools you used for a song … whether you can read or write music … or not!
- Simplify a piece that’s ‘too hard’ and then take the simplified version and expand it into your own arrangement
- Embellish a piece that’s ‘boring’ and have fun playing it
- Build ‘repertoires’ so that you can play an entire ‘set’ of tunes and have a “flow” between them
- Modulate between tunes so that you can connect one tune to another to create sets, suites or medleys
HOW LONG IS THE PROGRAM?
“Hip Harp Toolkit” is flexible. There are 8 modules of content, but you have access to the class for 12 months.
“Arrange Yourself” is the arrangement training at the heart of “Hip Harp Toolkit” – and the Toolkit also teaches you how to package and share that content if you want to create arrangements as gifts for friends – or for professional use.
You actually start implementing the ideas in the course after the first week. Each subsequent week builds on what you learn in week one.
WHAT SOFTWARE DO I NEED FOR THE COURSE?
Even people who consider themselves completely non-tech-savvy are able to access and enjoy the course. Some people even say that one of the big benefits of the course is getting more comfortable with online tech formats!
Each week the course information is provided in three formats: Audio, Video & PDF.
Here’s how it’s provided:
– Training videos you watch online
– Audio versions of the trainings that you can download and listen to on your ipod or computer
– A PDF overview of each training as a reference for any notes you take yourself
– Bonus PDF Worksheets to help you organize and focus your learning and practice
– Homework assignments (optional) to help you put the training directly into practice. Most people find these to be one of the most useful parts of the course – even though most everyone’s nervous to submit thier videos at first. (If you’ve never uploaded video to the web, you can read my tutorial on how to do that, which is part of the course resources.)
So even if your tech-savvy only goes so far as knowing how to link to a Webpage, watch YouTube and download a file, you’ll be able to get all the class information.
WILL I HAVE TO DO HOMEWORK?
I encourage everyone to do the homework because each homework assignment guides you step by step to creating your own arrangements.
This, for me, is one of the most important reasons to take an online class with the instructor available – and why I encourage people to sign up for “Hip Harp Academy” when I’m giving the Guided Interactive versions of each course, even though the course material is available any time for you to learn at your own pace once you join the Full Level of the Academy.
Here’s why it’s so meaningful to learn with an instructor who can answer YOUR questions: People will tell you that “you can find the answer to anything you want on the web” – but that’s like saying you can find a particular seashell you want because all the shells are in the ocean. The value of having a guide and a coach is that they can guide you to what YOU are looking for, instead of you having to spend all your time sifting through way-too-much information to find out what works for you.
WHAT EXACTLY IS THE HOMEWORK??
Almost all the homework includes createing a short arrangement (no more than 90 seconds) so you can play with the concepts from each module.
WHAT IF I'M A TECHNOPHOBE AND DON'T KNOW HOW TO POST VIDEOS?
HOW MUCH TIME WILL THE COURSE TAKE EACH WEEK?
That’s pretty much up to you. You could spend as little as 20-30 minutes a week if you only wanted to download and read through the PDF – and you can get tons of great ideas that way. Some people who are busy like to do that, and then watch a couple videos and come to the online chats (or watch them later). That’s one way to take the course ‘just for fun’ – and that’s perfectly fine.
People who want to ‘get the most bang for their buck’ can spend as much as an hour or more a day, watching the videos, downloading the materials and then putting it all into practice on their instruments, and then submitting homework for feedback.
Most people fall between those two extremes – and it’s totally fine how YOU want to use the course and how it fits into YOUR life right now. That’s also why you get access to ALL the courses in the Hip Harp Academy for as long as you’re a member – so you can go back and review.
The absolutely most important thing you can do each week is to find one simple concept from the lesson and put it directly into your playing at any level.
If you do that ONE thing each week you’ll get more out of the course than reading and watching everything but not putting it into practice. So if you don’t have much time one week, you can skim the lesson, find your ‘nugget’ for the week, put it into practice and feel great that you’re getting something that will change your playing.
On a practical level, to just go through the videos and the handout for each lesson each week takes about 60-90 minutes.
And you don’t have to do it all at once! I break up each lesson into a bunch of mini-sections so you don’t have to do that all at one time. So you can log in once a day for 10-15 minutes and go through one or two ‘activities’ each time.
Most people take the course more than once because there’s a lot of content – and you simply won’t get it all the first time through.
Going through it again is what “Spiral Learning” is all about – and that’s why I also have two mini-courses that go together with Hip Harp Toolkit, one from a Celtic Coach (Marta Cook) and one from a Latin Coach (Christina Braga) – so you can take the course several times, add some different flavors each time – and find new ways to put the principles into practice.
WHAT IF I CAN’T KEEP UP?
You can go at your own pace – you can take what you want from the course, you’ll have the PDF handouts and you’ll be able to access the course videos 24/7 to review or learn at your own pace for as long as you’re a Full-Level member of the Academy.
Different people will take different things from the course. Sometimes I get one ‘elegant idea’ from an online course that gives me all the knowledge and power I need to shift to the next creative level – which is what I want for you.
Sometimes I need to do all the homework and get all the feedback in order to feel I’ve gotten what I need from the course.
So I wanted to structure this course so that regardless of which way you like to learn, you’ll be able to get what you need from it.
DO YOU PROVIDE MUSIC TO GO WITH THE COURSE, OR DO I NEED TO PROVIDE MY OWN?
I provide several sets of lead-sheets you can use – Holiday Music, Celtic Music, Latin tunes and some generic originals I wrote specifically for the course – and even if you’ve never read a lead-sheet I’ll show you how to read these.
Once they’ve learned the principles, many people then take them and apply those principles to other music they have.
HOW DOES IT WORK WITH THE DIFFERENT PLAYING LEVELS ALL IN ONE COURSE?
The way I deal with the different levels is by starting with concepts rather than specific techniques, and then showing how you can build those concepts with basic techniques or with expanded techniques.
By “concepts” I mean, for example, a basic arrangement structure is the concept: intro-melody-exploration-melody-coda.
Those concepts can be expressed very simply, with very basic skills, or they can be expanded to any level of complexity. These are truly the same concepts I’ve been using, and both expanding and distilling, for the last 40 years.
So, what I try to do is to DISTILL the basic concepts of each thing you learn, and from that distilled concept you can play it in a very basic way, or embellish and expand it as far as you want (I’m still exploring all the ways I can do that). The ‘simple’ version is not ‘dumbed down’ or simplistic – to me, the simple is equally as beautiful – and sometimes more beautiful than the embellished versions – it’s just less complex.
Since we start with the skeleton of each piece, we can flesh it out at any level of technical ability so long as we understand the basic underlying concept. That’s part of what I love seeing: all the different ways people express these same concepts, based on their own individual skills, innate talents, instruments and preferences!
There is no limit to how much you can simplify or expand a musical concept. That’s part of what fascinates me about music.
“DHC is utterly inspiring.
Her enthusiasm is contagious.
Catch the bug. It’s wonderful.”
Lu McClintock (Scotland)
Got more questions?
Email your questions and I’ll try to get back to you ASAP with an answer!
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