HeyJaredHow To Harp Podcast
Welcome to the How To Harp podcast, the show that celebrates your harp journey. Join harpist, tutor and founder of How To Harp Heather Downie for weekly episodes full of expert tips, inspiring interviews, real harpist stories, and relaxed chats with How To Harp co-tutor Angela.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
Ep 60: You Don't Have to Love Every Tune with Rachel Hair (opens the original)
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Heather welcomes Scottish harpist Rachel into the studio for an in-person conversation. It's clear how much fun it was having her there in the flesh, and that warmth carries through the whole chat. They cover Rachel's teaching work on the Isle of Man and in the Netherlands, the performance anxiety she battled early on, and how she has learned to stop playing music just to please other people. In this episode: - The last-minute choice between bagpipes and harp that started it all - What married l
Ep 59: You're Not a Slow Learner, You're Learning Properly (opens the original)
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The quick fix doesn't exist, and Heather thinks that's good news. If you've ever come out of a practice session feeling like you should be further on by now, this episode is for you. She explains why you can take in knowledge quickly but can't rush the part where it actually beds in. In this episode: - Why working through an eight week course in four days is too fast - The difference between knowing something and being able to use it in any situation - Why harmony levels run once a year instead
Ep 58: Sometimes Success Is Just Not Giving Up with Rosie Wilcoc (opens the original)
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Her dad found a harp and a teacher in the early 1980s, and her mum said no. Rosie waited two decades, paid for her own lessons at 30, and sixteen years on she's still going, with a long gap in the middle when life got in the way and she had to stop completely for several years. Heather asks what actually kept her coming back, and the answers are practical rather than motivational. There's a routine she calls her harp survival skills, and a way of thinking about progress that helps a lot if you'v
Ep 57: You're Not an Exam Person or a Non-Exam Person (opens the original)
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Working through grades can be exactly what your playing needs, or the very thing holding it back, and which one it is has nothing to do with the sort of harpist you are. Heather and Angela help you tell the difference. They go over what's on offer, from ABRSM and Trinity to university routes and How To Harp's own certification, and they're honest about both sides of it rather than landing neatly on one. In this episode: - Why "exam hopping" can leave real gaps in what you're able to do - Angela'
Ep 56: Play Like You Have Nothing to Prove with Rachel Groves (opens the original)
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A library book about choosing an instrument for your child, left lying around the house, is where this whole story starts. Heather's guest is Rachel, who read it at 11, came downstairs the next morning asking for a harp, and has since been named BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2026. Heather asks her about the years in between, from a first rented harp in Aberdeenshire to a masters at the Berklee campus in Valencia, and about how quickly everything changed once the resul
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