Is your looper pedal still sitting in the box? (Newsletter)

Yesterday I jumped on a Facebook Live to tell harpists about Blues Harp-Style and why I say this class is all about freedom. I also shared the embarrassing story of my first blues jam.  Watch the video, read the transcript – and check out the PHOTOS I found from the story I told in the video.

I’m Deborah Henson-Conant, and I help grown-up harp players break free from perfectionism so you can play spontaneously and joyfully – using improv technique, embodiment and self-expression.

I’m a Grammy-nominated composer and performer, and I run Hip Harp Academy — where the motto is “Connection, Not Perfection.”

Nothing taught me that lesson better than the Blues. And I’m here to tell you about an online course I’ve created for HARP players – the kind of harp with strings – not the harmonica.

As someone who started the harp as an adult – and who wanted to play jazz, every time I tried it on the harp, it sounded terrible – AND it was really hard.  I didn’t know that I was starting with things that were EASY on piano or guitar, but NOT EASY on the harp.

Then someone showed me the basic blues — twelve bars, simple chords, one pattern I could actually remember.

At that time I’d been playing maybe 6 or 7 years. I was playing background music at this restaurant and in the lounge was a jazz duo — piano and bass. They were great. I really wanted to be able to do what they could do. I really wanted to be able to play with people like that.

So one night I got the courage to walk in and I said “can I sit in?” — and they were like, doubtfully “OK”. So I dragged my harp in.  And they said, “What do you want to play” and I said, “Let’s play a blues”

I was terrified, I started too fast and just kept getting faster — but I did it. Completely imperfectly — feeling like I was embarrassing myself — but I did it.

And that experience changed my life — I ended up joining that bass player in a duo and then a trio, and a couple years later I ended up getting a record deal.

None of that would have happened if I hadn’t been able to play the blues — even as badly as I did play it.

I’m not saying that you will sign a record contract if you play the Blues.

What I’m saying is that: Blues opens doors.  It opens the door to jazz. Blues opens the door to improv. To better rhythm. To understanding harmony. And to playing with others.

And that’s why I’m so determined to teach harpists to play the blues.

That is why I created the online class called Blues-Harp-Style. It’s everything I WISH I’d known before that moment. How to create the structure, how to make the chords, how to make the rhythms, how to put it together, how to play it alone, how to play it with other people, how to adapt it for therapeutic situations, or to play with children.

It teaches that step-by-step in 6 modules. For harpists who are fledgling level (advanced beginners) to professional.  Lever or pedal harp but, believe it or not, it’s easier to play the blues on lever harp.

Blues Harp-Style is not heavily theoretical — It’s super practical, hands on, you’re PLAYING starting from the first module.

The whole class is all pre-recorded, self-paced, available 24/7 so you can do it whenever it works for you.

And depending on when you read this, there’s a special sale on this class  – 50% off — AND THIS SALE IS ABOUT TO END.

So — GO GET IT NOW. At BluesHarpStyle.com.

P.S. That Blues moment led to the creation of “Classic Swing”, my duo with bass player Peter Kontrimas – and as we started marketing our duo, I asked one of my favorite artists, Ellen Lebow, to create different images of us for promotional postcards.  Check out her creating whimsy — I LOVED working with her!!

And if you’re reading this later on and the sale is over, you can still get the class at the same link. Even at full price it’s totally worth it. And, as far as I know, it is the only step-by-step online class that teaches Blues specifically for harp – I mean harp with strings, not harmonica.

But if you’re asking yourself: why would I want to play the Blues? What will I do with it.  I want to tell you this:

Permission to stop waiting until you’re “ready”. Permission to stop needing it to be perfect. Permission to truly PLAY, in the most fun sense of the word..

That’s the real gift of the Blues and the simplicity of it: the blues gives you a gateway to your own freedom. And YOU get to decide what you use that FREEDOM to EXPRESS.

Blues Harp-Style was one of the FIRST classes I ever created for Hip Harp Academy.

Every single person who’s taken this class walked away learning the same twelve-bar structure. But what they did with it? Radically different.  You can actually see videos of what students in this class have done with it, in a blog at my website HipHarp.com called “Blues + Harpist = Permission to Play“

When you watch these videos, you’ll see people using the blues in completely different ways – you might even think that each person was taking a different class.

• One harpist used it to write an apology to her sister, for missing a birthday party.
• Another wrote a song with her teenage daughter — about cleaning her room.
• A classical harpist finally stopped worrying about “right or wrong” for the first time in her life.
• One woman discovered that her Blues muse was in her cat, sitting on her lap.
• Another realized, by the end of it, that maybe it was time to start expressing her own voice in the world.

You’ll see duets, you’ll see solos, you’ll see video with singing and without.

Harpists who take this class are at all different levels, and from all around the world.  None of them were playing “a piece they learned in a class.” What they got in the class was permission — permission to stop waiting UNTIL you’re “ready”, permission to stop needing it to be perfect, permission to truly PLAY in the most fun sense of the word.

So — if you play the harp and you’re ready to find out where YOUR GATEWAY TO FREEDOM leads YOU …

Sign up for Blues Harp-Style.

It’s all about CONNECTION, NOT PERFECTION.