I’ve been thinking a lot about functional music lately. Functional music is looking at what purpose music serves. Rarely does music exist simply for music’s sake. It can be a carrier of information, express emotions or support religious or public ceremony. However, music cannot achieve that purpose on its own. Think about attending a dance where the only music is on an ipod set on shuffle. Even if the playlist was carefully preselected, it will not match the mood, prefe

The pantry practice room is probably the most unusual place I’ve played. However, I do like to take my little yellow harp with me when I travel as long as there is room in the car! I know that I’m unlikely to ever make it to Stone Henge so had to play a few tunes when we stopped at Car Henge a few years ago. Nearly ten years ago there was a harp convention in St Louis. We made it a family vacation, loaded the harps in the car and drove down there. When we made stops at V

Mindfulness is a term that gets tossed around a lot but what does it mean? Do you think of sitting in a lotus position and chanting “OM”? Do you think that it’s something that can only be done if you have a lot of time or exceptional focus? There are a lot of ways to approach mindfulness. I tend to gravitate to the definition of mindfulness given by Marsha Linehan in her DBT Skills Training Manual. “’Mindfulness’ is the act of consciously focusing the mind in the present