Welcome to a one-on-one interview with Grammy-nominated harpist Deborah Henson-Conant, the mastermind behind “Hip Harp Academy” – an online academy where harp enthusiasts come together to learn, inspire, and grow in their musical journey.

In this exclusive interview, Deborah shows the different ways of live coaching that members can expect inside Hip Harp Academy.

Check out Deborah’s answer to the question: What does live coaching with Deborah Henson-Conant look like?

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the interview below.

What does live coaching with Deborah Henson-Conant look like?

So what does live coaching look like? And it can look two different ways in Hip Harp Academy. It can look as though you’ve made a video in advance, and then you’ve shared it, and I’m coaching in the moment. Or sometimes it can mean you come with something like I’m trying to figure out how to do this. And then I say, Well, how are you doing that? Oh, okay, well, you could do this instead, or that’s great. Just keep going with that. That’s perfect. Or oh, yeah, that’s great. Just do that. But now take it up a step and take us up a step. So it can look either way.

When we have the videos, we all watch the video and we’re watching specifically to find out what we can discover about freedom. We’re looking for what is working, we’re looking for how that person used the principles that I’m teaching. And then I am coaching to say, A, what do you what do you want to do with this, because I’m not here to critique you. And I’m not here to teach you how to be like me, I’m here to help guide you to be like you like to be the most like you you can possibly be. So once I know what you want to do and what you want to express, then I can come up with ideas to help you do that, or help you do it more simply or to show you how you are already doing it, that you can just keep doing more of.

So my coaching, you know, I mean, I I’ve had years and years of experience. As an adult, I came to the harp as an adult, and not able to read music. So I had all the experience of having to figure out how to improvise quickly because as soon as I started playing the harp, I literally had to make a living with it. So I had to figure out how to make it sound like I could play. I have all of that experience.

And then as I started playing with other people, I’ve just had so many opportunities, the harp has given me so many opportunities, from you know, getting to play with Bobby McFerrin onstage to improvise with him to get into play with the Boston Pops to getting to create my own shows. And the beauty of that is I’ve had all these problems to solve and all these moments of like, oh, I don’t want to do, wait, okay. And not just all the ideas that I came up with. But all the amazing coaches that I have had the opportunity to work with, I get to bring that to all of my coaching sessions.

So the coaching sessions when you’re in a coaching session with me, you are in a coaching session with all the amazing coaches that I have ever worked with. And the whole point of that is for you to be able to be more and more deeply and in more rich way and a more free way to be you.

If you play the harp:

In this interview, Deborah Henson-Conant let us imagine how it feels like to be on a live coaching session inside Hip Harp Academy. To see, other interview videos of Deborah about the Hip Harp Academy, go to this YouTube video playlist.

By offering a community-driven and inclusive platform for harpists at every stage, the Hip Harp Academy continues to pave the way for musical growth, self-expression, and meaningful connections.

So, if you're looking for more confidence, creativity support and gaining freedom from the notes on the page click the button below and join the Hip Harp Academy.

I invite YOU to join this powerful, supportive, creative community.

Welcome to a one-on-one interview with Grammy-nominated harpist Deborah Henson-Conant, the mastermind behind “Hip Harp Academy” – an online academy where harp enthusiasts come together to learn, inspire, and grow in their musical journey.

In this exclusive interview, Deborah explains what it looks like to be part of the classes of Hip Harp Academy – from the different quarters to the weekly ‘chats’ and ‘office hours’.

Check out Deborah’s answer to the question: What does a typical class look like in the Hip Harp Academy?

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the interview below.

What does a typical class look like in the Hip Harp Academy?

SUMMARY OF THE VIDEO

THE CURRICULUM

The Hip Harp Academy’s curriculum is divided into four quarters, each focusing on a different aspect of music and creativity. The first quarter, “Strings of Passion,” explores principles guiding creative expression. The second, “Grounded Expansion,” emphasizes grounding techniques like Rondo forms to facilitate improvisation. The third, “The Power of Pattern,” delves into blues music and its repetitive structures. The final quarter, “Structure is Freedom,” teaches a universal compositional structure applicable across various musical genres.

WEEKLY SESSIONS

Weekly sessions, termed “Learning Labs,” involve interactive teaching, sharing of videos by members, and constructive feedback in a supportive environment. Additionally, there are classes, catch-up coaching sessions, and office hours for personalized learning. Special workshops and projects, like the Ambient Improv Exploration Project, offer diverse learning experiences tailored to members’ interests and goals. The academy accommodates various learning styles, encouraging exploration and growth within a vibrant community of musicians.

If you play the harp:

In this interview, Deborah Henson-Conant took us inside Hip Harp Academy – how the quarters’ theme works, how the members interact and learn from one another, and how it aligns with her goal of nurturing and supporting harpists. To see, other interview videos of Deborah about the Hip Harp Academy, go to this YouTube video playlist.

By offering a community-driven and inclusive platform for harpists at every stage, the Hip Harp Academy continues to pave the way for musical growth, self-expression, and meaningful connections.

So, if you're looking for more confidence, creativity support and gaining freedom from the notes on the page click the button below and join the Hip Harp Academy.

I invite YOU to join this powerful, supportive, creative community.

In this exclusive interview, Deborah shares who the Hip Harp Academy is for and how it can help their own self-expression. It is in line with her mission to support harpists of all levels.

Check out Deborah’s answer to the question: Who is the Hip Harp Academy For?

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the interview below.

Who is the Hip Harp Academy For?

And that is the foundation of realizing that this is all about self-expression. It’s not about trying to do something right. And that’s why the motto of the Academy is connection, not perfection. Therefore the Academy is for impassioned harpers and impassioned people with a harp who want to express themselves.

And it has nothing to do with what your technical level is. Because people are learning principles and many people who have played the harp their whole life are stuck because they’ve got a classical mind.

They use the principles to become free from that classical mind. There are many other people in the Academy who are playing the harp after a whole lifetime of doing something completely different. And they’re using the principles to ground in the first connection with the instrument. And so you would think with a big spectrum, people who are, I call fledgling players, people who can play the harp. play, but they, you know, they’ve only been doing it a year or two, up to people who have been doing it their whole lives.

And you’d think, like, how do those people learn together? And you think like, oh, I see, maybe the people who’ve been doing it a long time, they’re kind of showing the others, but that’s not at all what happens. Often it is the people who are just getting started who don’t have a lot of preconceptions who are able to be freer and to show that freedom in their playing to everybody else. And that, when I say show their freedom, everyone in the Academy is looking for that freedom and that self-expression.

And part of the Academy is learning from me, but a big part of the Academy is learning from each other, and not by others teaching each other, but by others sharing, vulnerably in a safe environment, what they’re working on, what they’re trying to do, and then being guided by what is working. I’m not going to sit there and critique what you’re doing. I’m never going to do that. That’s just not interesting to me. What’s interesting to me is to look and see what are you doing that you don’t know that you’re doing?

What is working that you don’t even know it’s working? What are you doing naturally that you’re going to probably throw away unless I point it out to you and say, look, that’s amazing. That is you and it’s nobody else and that is the foundation of how you can now express yourself with this instrument as a partner, as a platform, as a sounding board, as part of your resonance.

So who is the Academy for? It is for people who want to express themselves with an instrument.

By offering a community-driven and inclusive platform for harpists at every stage, the Hip Harp Academy continues to pave the way for musical growth, self-expression, and meaningful connections.

So, if you're looking for more confidence, creativity support and gaining freedom from the notes on the page click the button below and join the Hip Harp Academy.

I invite YOU to join this powerful, supportive, creative community.

Welcome to a one-on-one interview with Grammy-nominated harpist Deborah Henson-Conant, the mastermind behind “Hip Harp Academy” – an online academy where harp enthusiasts come together to learn, inspire, and grow in their musical journey.

In this exclusive interview, Deborah explains one of the most used words in Hip Harp Academy – “snippet”. She shares how it became a regular segment of the Academy, as part of her mission to support harpists of all levels.

Check out Deborah’s answer to the question: What is a “Snippet”?

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the interview below.

What is a “Snippet”?

So what is a snippet? A snippet is a little bit of compositional DNA and as a composer, it’s just I’ve used these all my life. I’ve discovered them since I was a little kid and then I put them together.

But snippets happened because one day one of the students said, can you just tell us I want to just have a little accompaniment pattern? Can you show me what it might be? And so I showed her and she was like, cool, and I taught everybody how to play it. And then the next week she said, can I have another one of those? And I was like, OK, here’s another one. And then she said, can I have another one of those snippets? And I was like, OK, here’s another.

And it started being part of each week. And I would always do it at the beginning of the lesson so that people could literally play these as we were going through the chat because there’s something to be said for playing when you’re not thinking as well as playing when you’re thinking.

So a snippet is something like this … [plays a snippet in the harp] … It might be something as simple as … [plays a snippet in the harp] … And then those are actually three different things together. It’s a base note. It’s a shape of a sixth. And then I move that shape up one step. So a lot of the snippets have to do with learning shapes. So you play a base note, you play one shape and you move it up a step. And now the harps are ringing and you play a melody, meaning just notes together.

And part of what I’m always trying to teach is the fundamentals of music, the structures, the snippets, and always pointing to base accompaniment and melody, the three roles, so that we learn to improvise and improvise freely. And that’s been one of the amazing things to hear members of the Academy talk about, to have them talk about that freedom that they’re experiencing through learning this way. And it’s such a fun thing because it’s something that came not from me initially, but from the members asking for something.

If you play the harp:

In this informative interview, Deborah Henson-Conant explains what a snippet is and how it works in the Hip Harp Academy – where it started as requested by member harpists. To see, other interview videos of Deborah about the Hip Harp Academy, go to this YouTube video playlist.

By offering a community-driven and inclusive platform for harpists at every stage, the Hip Harp Academy continues to pave the way for musical growth, self-expression, and meaningful connections.

So, if you're looking for more confidence, creativity support and gaining freedom from the notes on the page click the button below and join the Hip Harp Academy.

I invite YOU to join this powerful, supportive, creative community.

Welcome to a one-on-one interview with Grammy-nominated harpist Deborah Henson-Conant, the mastermind behind “Hip Harp Academy” – an online academy where harp enthusiasts come together to learn, inspire, and grow in their musical journey.

In this exclusive interview, Deborah opens up about the reason for creating the Hip Harp Academy, the way it is designed, how her experience affected it, and her mission to support harpists of all levels.

Check out Deborah’s answer to the question: Why Did You Create Hip Harp Academy The Way You Did?

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the interview below.

Why Did You Create Hip Harp Academy The Way You Did?

I wanted to build it so that there could be a group of people. People were learning from each other. People were safe and they were able to share and people could learn from that sharing. And that’s why I built it the way that I did.

One of the reasons that I built the Academy the way that I did was because of all the ways that I have learned, all the different communities that I’ve learned in, and being able to bring all the different ways of learning from those communities.

Like when I worked with my teacher, Tony, it was one-on-one. I got to have real physical contact. When I was in the new opera and musical theater initiative, I learned what it was like to learn in a group and to be able to give safe feedback. And for the person who had shared something vulnerable to be able to control that feedback rather than people just throwing stuff at them. So all my experiences in learning, I brought them to Hip Harp Academy.

And then what started happening is that students started asking for specific things like these snippets that I teach every week. And these specific things that people started asking for have become a real foundation of the whole Academy, along with what I brought.

So it really has been this community experience of learning how to learn.

If you play the harp:

In this interview, Deborah Henson-Conant shares the structure of how she designed Hip Harp Academy – to nurture and support harpists. To see, other interview videos of Deborah about the Hip Harp Academy, go to this YouTube video playlist.

By offering a community-driven and inclusive platform for harpists at every stage, the Hip Harp Academy continues to pave the way for musical growth, self-expression, and meaningful connections.

So, if you're looking for more confidence, creativity support and gaining freedom from the notes on the page click the button below and join the Hip Harp Academy.

I invite YOU to join this powerful, supportive, creative community.

Welcome to a one-on-one interview with Grammy-nominated harpist Deborah Henson-Conant, the mastermind behind “Hip Harp Academy” – an online academy where harp enthusiasts come together to learn, inspire, and grow in their musical journey.

In this exclusive interview, Deborah opens up about her journey in creating the Hip Harp Academy, shedding light on its foundation, unique features, and her mission to support harpists of all levels.

Check out Deborah’s answer to the question: What Inspired You To Create the Hip Harp Academy?

Watch the video above or read the transcript of the interview below.

What Inspired You to Create the Hip Harp Academy?

What inspired me to create the academy was the opportunity to be able to pass on what I’ve learned, and at the same time to be learning more, because as I share with other people who are learning for the first time, and as I’m sharing the stuff that’s most important to me, which is how to break things down how to do them, simply, then I actually get deeper into what, what I’m learning as well.

And I’ve always loved group learning situations. I think it’s partly because when I was a kid, I was in tiny, tiny schools where there were more than one class together. And so I got to watch what other people were learning. And I often found that watching somebody else learn was much more powerful than having somebody you know, telling me how to learn. And then when, and then when I started working with my teacher, Tony, I had the same experience because we were always in a group experience.

And so I got to watch other people learning. And I often learned more from watching other people learning. And I often learned more from the feedback that he gave to others than the feedback he gave to me, in part because I would be so nervous when he was giving feedback to me. And so I actually started realizing that learning with others was my way to learn.

So even when I went for private lessons with Tony, I would take a buddy with me, and we would go back and forth and learn. I really so so, so deeply believe in learning in a community, and to be able to create that community myself and to be able to pass on what’s important to me. That is why I created Hip Harp Academy.

If you play the harp:

In the interview video, Deborah shared the heartfelt inspiration behind the creation of the Hip Harp Academy. To see, other interview videos of Deborah about the Hip Harp Academy, go to this YouTube video playlist.

By offering a community-driven and inclusive platform for harpists at every stage, the Hip Harp Academy continues to pave the way for musical growth, self-expression, and meaningful connections.

So, if you're looking for more confidence, creativity support and gaining freedom from the notes on the page click the button below and join the Hip Harp Academy.

I invite YOU to join this powerful, supportive, creative community.