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Harp Secrets
What People are saying about Harp Secrets
What a brilliant articulation of the details of our human connection to the harp, from fingertip to psyche! This course is very informative – physiologically and psychologically, and presented quite naturally and thoughtfully - I have learned things through this course that after 50 years of harp playing I may have understood, but never gave much thought to and could never articulate the way Cheryl does here. She has clearly done in-depth research of the physics of the anatomy of harp playing and offers a very clear and completely fascinating presentation. I think this course is essential to every level of harpist – lucky beginners, lifelong career harpists and especially teachers.
Victoria Drake
Freelance harpist
New York City
Looking for a different approach to learning the harp? Whether a student or teacher -- and no matter what level -- look no further than Cheryl Ann Fulton’s Harp Secrets: the Foundations of the Touch & Tone Technique for Harp. This internationally acclaimed harpist and teacher has spent years developing a course that creates incredible tone, stamina and passionate flow. This holistic approach to the harp starts with total relaxation and then shows students how they can work with their bodies and not against them to become amazing players.
How do you play a whole note? How do you find the best hand position for your own unique hands? How do you play with chi energy that comes from your core and flows unimpeded to your strings?
Cheryl goes over all this starting with hand and arm anatomy and then shares her numerous secrets. She approaches everything at a wonderfully slow, but deliberate pace -- going over the exercises in her videos so you can play along. There is even a session with a chiropractor giving tips on posture, stretches and exercises.
A huge bonus is when Cheryl demonstrates you get to see and hear some of her amazing harps -- from her lever and pedal harps to her medieval lap harps and her massive Baroque triple harp.
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Dr. Cheryl Ann Fulton's exciting Harp Secrets online course program presents her inspiring and holistic approach towards playing the harp. In Course 1: The Foundations of the Touch & Tone Technique, she guides harpists, step by step, to use the body's natural motions to play with openness and relaxation, ensuring good tone production and a healthy, sustainable technique. Dr. Fulton's thorough training in early music, as well as her decades of teaching experience, make this course appropriate for harpists of all levels and for players of pedal and early instruments. I also found her ideas about energy, intention, and mindfulness useful and wonderfully refreshing.
Laura Sherman, DMA
Lecturer of Harp and Music Theory
Frost School of Music | University of Miami
Harp Secrets is absolutely superb, and the wisdom it contains with regard to harp playing, musicianship and life is really astounding. Dr. Fulton doesn’t waste a syllable. My most sincere congratulations on this pedagogical masterpiece!
H Reid Shaw, C. Hom.
San Francisco, California
The first Harp Secrets online course, The Foundations of the Touch & Tone Technique, is an extremely well thought out and organized course on learning to play any style of harp. Dr. Fulton's warmth and humor create a fun atmosphere in which to learn the complexities of playing the harp, both technically and musically. In this course she employs her creative imagination to demonstrate each idea, and then invites the student to practice along. She explains all of the technical concepts, such as how to produce a rich tone with relaxed and stress-free movement, in a clear, concise way. Students encountering this material will get the very best education out there concerning physical movement at the harp, from how to use our bodies for beautiful tone and fluid movement to how to avoid injury. Advanced and intermediate players will learn better ways to get sound and power without stress and pain, and speed up healing from injuries. Therapeutic harpists will gain listening skills for their tone production and tuning in order to enhance the therapeutic value of the sound they’re producing. Harp teachers rarely know how to explain many of these concepts and practices in such detail, and in such a powerful, relaxed way. The world needs Cheryl’s beautifully prepared course for it’s thoroughness, clarity and encouraging teaching style.
Cheryl Ann Fulton’s online course, Harp Secrets, is an invaluable offering to the harp community including valuable ideas, techniques, information, exercises and materials for anyone who plays or wants to play the harp. The course is intended for all types and levels of expertise, whether beginning and advanced students, harp teachers, or therapeutic harpists, and for all styles of harp from lap harp to pedal. Cheryl herself brings a lifetime of experience playing many different types of harp and of harp music — from the most simple to the most complex — to her teaching, composing, performing, and to designing this unique course.
The lessons address every facet of harp playing, from how to sit comfortably with your harp, to how to bring out the best tone of every note you play. A special focus of the course is Cheryl’s “Touch and Tone” method, in which she explores the most subtle, and often overlooked, aspects of playing. Integrating breathing, movement awareness, knowledge of your anatomy and your harp’s, visualization and meditation techniques, and a completely new approach to touch, will shape your touch to let you sound each note with maximum beauty and expressiveness.
Cheryl’s method is fun, imaginative, engaging, and aesthetic. Students will enjoy doing her exercises as well as the way in which material is presented.
I recommended Harp Secrets to all of my students this year as their summer project. The course is beautifully recorded, easy to navigate, and I love the clear PDFs. I highly recommend this course to all harpists.
Diana Stork
Berkeley, CA
Cheryl Ann Fulton’s Harp Secrets is a gem! I was struggling with getting a good tone on my harp and started lessons with Cheryl for help. Learning her technique has helped me to connect with my harp in an easier, more fluid way, to discover the joy of creating a more beautiful sound and to gain greater confidence as I play each piece. Even though I have taken private lessons with Cheryl for years this course has reinforced and deepened my understanding and appreciation of the Touch & Tone Technique. In the videos I am able to see, hear and follow Dr. Fulton as she plays. The course includes texts that offer additional information and wonderful exercises to print out and practice. Harp Secrets is a true value.
Justine Noonan
Alameda, CA
The precise and detailed description of the muscles and joints of the fingers, wrist and arm made me reexamine my playing. The exercises which follow helped me to reinforce my focus, relaxation and fluidity in movement. Even after five decades of harp playing! I had absorbed some similar aspects of playing from exercises and etudes that my teacher had given me many years ago, but Cheryl"s approach develops and expands upon them immensely, no doubt due to her many years of teaching, performing on many types of harps, and profound understanding of varied musical styles and phrasings. Recently, stiffness and rigidity in my left elbow resurfaced, I think partially due to a bad fracture I sustained in my early teens! But her "Swirl " and "Wave" exercises began to remedy this almost immediately. And now, that I am playing lightly strung historic harps (the baroque double harp in particular) as well as the modern pedal harp, I find my enhanced understanding of the universal mechanics which produce a relaxed and seemingly effortless touch, as well as beautiful tone and phrasing, makes it far easier to adapt to the technique required by very different instruments! These "Harp Secrets" are brilliant!
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Richard Spendio
Professional Harpist
NYC, New York
Member of the Continuo Collective and Circe's Consort
Cheryl Ann Fulton’s first Harp Secrets online course is an excellent introduction to her Touch and Tone Technique - an informative resource for students and teachers looking to reimagine relaxation in connection with tone and movement.
Amelia Romano
Performer and Composer
San Francisco, California
I am a non-harpist who plays other string instruments, and I learned a lot from this course. The information and exercises about body placement, anatomy, and the proper creation of tone have taught me things that have made me a better musician, and a healthier human being.
Teed Rockwell, Touchstyle Veena