During the week there are master classes, performance classes, practice time, and solo, duo, and trio work. The instructors are available for consultation during the day and willingly share their knowledge and experiences.

Philosophy on Collaborative Music Making

The HarpArts Adult Study Retreat was founded on the principal of offering the opportunity for like-minded students of the harp to come together to learn with and from each other. Learning takes place when we transform the abstract into the concrete through experience.

The ensemble experience at HarpArts is offered as a catalyst to learning. Through offering the opportunity to play together in small and large groups we strive to encourage musical and verbal communication skills; to provide repertoire that encourages participation on multiple levels and that moves each of us towards artistic mastery; and to foster skills that will translate to other experiences at the harp and other disciplines that we practice in our lives.

Playing chamber music takes trust, courage and preparation that allows for spontaneity. Before beginning a joint musical venture we have to have a determination to be diligent and thorough in our individual preparation; be possessed of a willing vulnerability and have a good sense of humor; and above all—a strong desire to realize our musical potential. It doesn't hurt to have an admitted love affair with your internal metronome either!

Chamber music is about creative collaborations, about sharing ideas, participating in decision making and focusing on expression, shapes, architecture, and meaning in your music

Getting started as a collaborative musician

If playing collaboratively is entirely new to you, begin by choosing chamber music repertoire that is technically and musically less challenging than your etudes and solo repertoire. The focus in an ensemble experience is to move outside of your own orbit and into the realm of hearing, anticipating, and reacting to what you hear around you. You may want to begin by having your teacher play with you in your lessons. Start with warm up etudes and your exercise. Move into very easy duets. Ask to be paired up with another student who is as eager as you are for a new musical challenge. Add a community (conducted) ensemble experience as soon as is feasible. Get comfortable listening to the sounds of other instrumentalists, and to following the lead of a conductor. If playing collaborative on the harp is out of the question, join a vocal choir, or a handbell choir. Get involved in making music outside of your practice room. To facilitate your success, be aware that you are going to want to learn to listen louder than you play, to sing everything, and to learn and use music theory to help you scan the page of music, hear where you need to be, and understand the architecture of your music.

Rehearsal techniques for the productive and happy ensemble

Even though the violinist may stand in front of the pianist there are times in collaborative performances when the person out front is not the soloist but by rights should move to the back of the stage, allowing the pianists' music to be seen and heard. This is the concept of architecture in music. A truly collaborative performance cannot be accomplished without all performers being wholly engaged in knowing everything about the music. This is as true in a sonata performance as it is in chamber music, in accompanying, and in large ensemble performances. Do the details. It is never enough to know ones own part. You must know the other parts of the music as well, if not better than your own piece of the puzzle.

We all spend hours learning the notes on the page and, in the process we begin to memorize the feeling of those notes in our muscles. Eventually we become able to reproduce the feeling of the notes without looking at the page. At the point in the learning process where we are able to hear the notes before we play them, in all music but perhaps most especially in chamber music, memorizing is more than knowing your notes off the page. In playing chamber music one has to find the dialogue, know when the focus moves from one instrument to the other, know when the conversation flows one way or the other. We have to think always about sharing, not deferring. Musical voices are often intended to be equal but different—it isn't always the case that one voice is to be subservient at all times. Find the architecture of the phrase, of the movement, of the entire sonata. Play from memory only if you are playing with and not against, the fabric of the whole.

Establishing clear procedures and expectations for rehearsals can go a long way towards maximizing the experience of playing collaboratively. To assist in the actual rehearsal content consider these guidelines as points of departure. Create a comfortable environment for exploring musical ideas. Clarify your expectations, and the expectations of your collaborators. Begin slowly and keep your sense of humor at the forefront of every rehearsal.

Stick to the music

Every musician's playing is right next to his/her sense of self, so ego often creeps into rehearsal discussions. Aim to keep the focus on the musical idea and off the ego attached to value judgments on the musical idea.

Balance talk and play

Discussion is important, but there should be more playing than talking. In particular try ideas before discussing them.

Play honestly

When considering an idea every player must try to make it work. When a suggestion is made, keep working on it until the person who made the suggestion can say, “Yes, that's the way I imagined it.”

Make clear decisions

Conclude a discussion with a decision and mark it in the music. At the same time be willing to reconsider your decision later. The most important part of your pencil is the eraser.

Know when to walk away

Sometimes an issue cannot be decided in one rehearsal. Repetition may reveal no obvious solution, and argument may fray tempers, or the point may simply not be ripe for decision. Rather than let the rehearsal bog down, table the issue for future discussion. Often time away allows an issue to be revisited in the calm light of objectivity.

The Constitution of the Utopia Ensemble

In order to form a more perfect union, ensure domestic tranquility, and promote music making, we the members of this ensemble do establish and ordain the following laws as supreme and absolute:

1. All ensemble members are created equal, and the contribution of each will be respected.

2. So long as you are talking about the music, everyone enjoys absolute freedom of speech. Some kinds of speech, however, are more useful than others; say what you mean and mean what you say. Specific comments are more helpful than general ones. Don't teach, don't preach.

3. Play before you talk; try an idea and listen to it before discussing it.

4. Finish your dinner; don't move on until the discussion is done and the decision made. EXCEPT: if you hit a logjam. If you have tried everything and further discussion is only going to make things worse, table the issue and move on to new business (the dead horse rule).

5. Honor all agreements. In particular, when the group tries something in a rehearsal everyone must play it as if it were his or her own idea. If the group has agreed on a way to perform something it is absolutely forbidden for one member to take matters into his or her own hands.

6. Come to rehearsals prepared. Practice your part, know the other parts, and show up with ideas.

7. Nobody has the right to bear arms. Verbal artillery must be checked at the door.

8. Disagreements stay within the group; what is discussed in the rehearsal room stays in the rehearsal room. The only exception is if you are sharing something with a coach.

9. It is more important to be together than right, and it is more important to be fair than honest.

10. Play fair and don't keep score.