—by Elizabeth Landis

I have 34 tabs open in my web browser. They’re mostly medical journals, but I’m not a medical professional. I’m a harpist. Yet here I am, writing a paper on my passion-project which is part music, part medicine, part psychology, and part self-help advice.

This project started because I wanted to know what would most help harpists become better at what they do. One of the driving questions was: How do we play the harp without hurting ourselves? With my total of zero medical degrees, I started researching. Of the medical journals I found that focused on musician injuries, many of them highlighted the following things: First, injury determines how well musicians play. Second, musicians are usually injured, and their injuries result from their profession. Interesting, but this literature is about musicians in general.

I wondered if these same findings were true of the harpist subset in which I’m specifically interested. My inclination that many harpists are injured was because of anecdotal evidence in the harp community. But that’s not enough to write anything conclusive, and there has been almost no specific research done into harp injuries. Why is this? The most obvious reason we don’t have much data on harp-related injuries is because harpists aren’t a large enough subset to study. The less obvious reason is that when someone tries to investigate, there is a huge reluctance among harpists to publicly acknowledge their injuries.

And no wonder! It’s a competitive field, and our careers are determined by perfect mastery of our mind and body. If people know someone is injured, their perception is often that that person is less capable than they would be in peak physical condition. Even within the harp community, we have a hard time admitting to each other that we are hurt.

This past summer I posted a voluntary survey to several Facebook harp groups and found that an overwhelming percentage of harpists endure injury at some point during their time at the harp. Of the 78 anonymous respondents, over three-quarters (76.6 percent) had experienced injury directly related to playing the harp. Almost half (44 percent) had suffered injury symptoms for two or more months. The most common medical diagnosis is tendonitis. Other respondents experienced impinged nerves, torn rotator cuffs, tennis elbow, and trigger thumb. Most harpists identified misuse of their bodies as the reason for the injury, followed by improper technique and poor posture. Most said that self-expectations led to actions that produced injury. Perhaps most heartbreakingly are the lengths harpists go to continue playing harp: pain medications, steroid injections, chiropractors, physical therapy, surgeries, and time off from the harp. These aren’t just seasoned harpists either. These are also students and young professionals—all under the age of 32. Based on the results, they’re the ones most likely to go to greater physical lengths for their careers.

I determined (rather unscientifically) that many harpists are or have been injured, but does it have to be this way? Are suffering and our craft inevitable bedfellows? I don’t buy that. Surely there are steps we can take to reduce our chances of injury. Here are the two biggest areas where I’ve determined we can do things differently to avoid playing-related injuries.

Technique

I know, I know, this sounds heretical, but hear me out: We shouldn’t do everything exactly and only the way Salzedo or Renié or Grandjany said. Technique is not and has never been one-size-fits-all. The minute differences between harpists’ bodies (finger width, joint mobility, hyponichium location, etc.) mean minute adjustments to technique. Technique should be personalized and adjusted for individual needs. Even between pieces, technique is not static. Just as you wouldn’t put the engine of a Ferrari F40 in an Aston Martin V8 Vantage because they are different cars, you wouldn’t approach Dance des Lutins the same technical way you approach Scintillation. A lot of the “improper technique, misuse of body”cited as causes of injury in my surveys could simply be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Maybe aspects of the technique or even the whole technique just don’t work for you. Instead of forcing one pre-determined technique to work with our bodies, we should strive to find a technique that works for us as individuals and prevents injury from the get-go.

This involves experimentation, listening to your body, and being your own teacher. It’s okay to develop your own technique. If the results are the same, who cares that the means aren’t the way one person said it should be?

Mindfulness

We are surprisingly unaware of a lot of what we do at the harp. We’re unaware of the purpose of our technique and how the technique feels to our bodies. We have become really good at ignoring and dismissing pain, even letting it signal a hard day’s work. Pain is never productive and we need to teach ourselves and others to notice it and respond to it productively. Mindfulness is perhaps the best way to nip any pain and wasted time in the bud. It starts with paying attention to details:

• How and where my hand or arm or body is weighted
• The differences in physical demands between a single passage played fast versus slowly
• Purposefully monitoring when, where, and how pain starts
• Differentiating pain from discomfort
• Where and when tension builds
• Practicing tension release
• How length of practice time results in pain or discomfort

We need to be mindful of what works and doesn’t work—not just what allows us to play a passage up to tempo or without buzzing, but what allows us to do those things without pain.

You ultimately decide what technique to use, how long to practice, what music you love, and what you do with that music. You can decide to find something that works for you, prevents injury, and makes you into the artist you wish to be. The big picture is yours to craft exactly the way you wish. •