Harp Beginnings

From absolute beginner to playing beautiful harp music in 6 weeks!

6-week program with Christy-Lyn and Carrie

Next group starts January 2025 – Click to Join the Waiting List

Harp Beginnings

From absolute beginner to playing beautiful harp music in 6 weeks!

6-week program with Christy-Lyn and Carrie

New group starts January 2025 – Click to Join the Waiting List

By the end of this 6-week Program, you’ll be able to:

Play 3 beautiful songs, even if you have no musical background.

Play from chords – you don’t need to read sheet music to learn your favorite songs.

Practice smart, not long – progress fast, even with a busy schedule.

Get personalized feedback from a harp teacher so that you never get stuck.

Will you be the next success story?

I can’t even begin to explain how wonderful this whole program has been, and I didn’t know anything when I started!

Deborah S

Before, there were pieces I looked at and thought “Oh there’s just no way!” But now I look at stuff and think… “I could probably do this!”

Kinsey Lee

I especially enjoyed week 5 where we learned a little theory and how to play from chords.

Beverly Wilson

Why learning the harp is like a 3 legged chair...

Learning the harp successfully is like a chair with 3 legs – if you’re missing any of these 3 elements, you’re bound to fall!

01.

GOOD HARP TECHNIQUE

Learn harp basics that will help you thrive. But it doesn’t have to be through boring exercises – our carefully crafted songs work on different aspects of your harp technique as you go.

02.

HEALTHY PRACTICE HABITS

Plan how to fit harp practice into your busy schedule. 20 minutes of practice a day can give great results, if you use tested strategies on how to spend your limited time.

03.

FEEDBACK AND ENCOURAGEMENT

Get feedback on your playing so that you know you’re on the right track. Share your progress with other students and be inspired to keep on going!

If you’ve ever tried to learn an instrument before and struggled, be encouraged! You were probably missing one of these foundational elements and didn’t have the tools you needed to thrive.

That’s why these 3 elements are the core focus in our ‘Harp Beginnings’ Program.

Here’s what you’ll get in the 'Harp Beginnings' Program:

Prepare for the Program

‘How To Play the Harp: Start Here’ Video Course

14 Lessons | 55 mins

Join the tens of thousands of students who’ve completed Christy-Lyn’s free course! Initially launched on YouTube, it continues to be our most popular course, and it’s included inside your Harp Beginnings Program so you can find all your learning materials in one place. The course acts as your very first harp lesson, with detailed videos broken into manageable chunks. Learn how to sit at your harp with great posture, how to pluck the strings to get a good sound, and the note names of all the strings. You’ll get access to this course as soon as you sign up, so you can get started while you wait for the program to begin!

WEEK 1

‘Welcome Call’ with your Harp Teacher, Carrie

One-hour Zoom call with your harp teacher and fellow students

Your 6 weeks have just begun! Join your weekly Progress Call to get accountability, support and guidance from your harp teacher, Carrie, and to meet the other students who are learning alongside you. It’s so good to know you’re not alone!

‘The Water is Wide’ Beginner Video Course

17 Lessons | 42 mins

This week, you’ll go from plucking a few strings to playing a full piece! You’ll learn this beautiful song note-by-note, using only two fingers on each hand. The course includes instructions on how to play with fingers 1 and 2, how to position your hands and body for good technique and how to practice in a results-driven way.

WEEK 2

‘Mahogany Moon’ Beginner Video Course

12 Lessons | 26 mins

This atmospheric tune sounds interesting but is easy to learn. You’ll build your basic harp skills and technique as you learn to play more notes with each hand, now using fingers 1, 2, and 3. You’ll also learn how to change a lever, and if your harp doesn’t have levers, you’ll learn how to tune your strings into different keys.

This week’s ‘Progress Call’ with Carrie

One-hour Zoom call with your harp teacher and fellow students

Dive into the details of harp playing with Carrie and your fellow students. Ask questions about harp care and maintenance, and how to fit practice time into your daily life or whatever else is on your mind. Carrie is here to support you, not discipline you… this is all about helping you to reach your personal goals!

WEEK 3

Your ‘Progress Call’ of the week

One-hour Zoom call with your harp teacher and fellow students

Your weekly dose of motivation! Share the successes and challenges of your week. You might feel a bit overwhelmed by everything you’re learning, but Carrie is here to give you guidance and help you step-by-step. You can do it!

Catch up and reinforce what you’ve learned

Detailed 5-day practice breakdown

This week, you’ll receive daily guidance on what to review from the first two weeks of the program. Each day, you’ll pinpoint problem spots in your songs and learn how to tackle them in a time-effective way. The goal of this week is to play each song fluently without hesitation. You’ll also learn incredibly powerful practice tips that will set you up for success as you continue through the rest of the program.

Receive a Personalized Feedback Video

Submit a 3-minute video | Get a 10-minute video of detailed personalized feedback

Your harp teacher Carrie is here to give you detailed feedback! Send her a short video of your work-in-progress with your questions, and Carrie will send back a Feedback Video with exercises, adjustments and ideas to make your harp playing flow. She’s extremely kind and encouraging, so don’t be intimidated! It’s a brilliant opportunity to get individual help.

WEEK 4

‘Greensleeves’ Beginner Video Course

25 Lessons | 60 mins

This traditional English melody will take your learning to the next level, as you play with your hands together for the first time! What a big moment! No need to be nervous – this arrangement keeps things simple as you play with your hands together, and learn basic bracketing.

‘Progress Call’ with Carrie

One-hour Zoom call with your harp teacher and fellow students

We’ve got this far together! This is your chance to ask questions about your practice time and get input on any problem spots in your songs that you can’t get right. With a bit of help you’ll be playing confidently soon!

WEEK 5

‘How to Play from Chords’ Workshop

12 chapters | 1.5 hours

This pre-recorded workshop sets you up with all the basic musical knowledge you need to play songs from chord sheets. It means you aren’t limited to playing only harp music – you can play your favorite song from chords! This week is more flexible, and you’re encouraged to explore and have fun!

This week’s ‘Progress Call’

One-hour Zoom call with your harp teacher and fellow students

Share how you’re doing with playing from chords and get input on going from hearing a song to playing it on the harp. You don’t need to be super talented or an experienced musician – there are formulas you can use to make up your own harp part!

WEEK 6

Take part in the #ShareYourProgress Challenge

A fun and encouraging community challenge

Post a video of yourself playing one of your new songs with the tag #ShareYourProgress and share the video link with your Harp Beginnings community group! It’s so exciting to celebrate with one another as we reach the end of the program.

Your last ‘Progress Call’ of the Program!

One-hour Zoom call with your harp teacher and fellow students

It’s time to celebrate! You’ve come to the last week and have so much to be proud of. This is the time to ask any last burning questions and to get support in completing the last bit of your program. We want you to finish saying ‘I did it!’

Bonuses included in the program:

How to Learn the Harp if you Don’t Have Any Musical Background

4 Page Booklet

If you are brand new to learning an instrument, this guide will offer encouragement and help you get in the right head space to learn to play the harp.

How to Learn from Our Courses if You Don’t Read Sheet Music

3 Page Booklet

We want you to enjoy playing the harp right from the start without needing to slowly learn to read music in order to play. This guide will show you how we’ve designed our courses to make this possible, and what you can expect as you’re learning!

How to Sit Behind the Harp

5 Page Booklet

Learn how to sit correctly behind the harp and establish good posture early on in your playing. Print this out, keep it by your harp, and go through it as a checklist before you play!

‘How to Practice: A Guide for Busy People’

8 Page Booklet

Learn how to use your practice time to get the most out of every precious moment. If you follow these strategies for just 20 minutes a day, you’ll be amazed at the progress you can make, even if you’ve never played a musical instrument before.

Practice Videos – play along with Carrie

A full-speed video and a slow video for each song, with adjustable speed

You’ll get a slow practice video and a full-speed video within each course, so that you can work on the tricky spots and get it sounding smooth and fluent. This is as effective as practicing with a metronome, but far less annoying and more lovely to listen to! Change the speed to be just right, so that you never feel left behind.

Sheet Music and MP3’s to follow along

3 x pieces of sheet music and 3 x recordings in MP3 format

You’ll receive the sheet music for every song in your program. The sheet music is clear and easy-to-read with slightly larger notes to accommodate those with eyesight issues. If you can’t read sheet music yet, you can learn as you go! You’ll also receive MP3 recordings of the 3 songs which you can use to practice along to, or play in the car to solidify your practice.

Interactive and encouraging online community

Journey with others

You will get access to an exclusive ‘Harp Beginnings’ online group, as well as our open community feeds. You can use these groups to ask questions, share progress and journey with others who are also learning to play the harp.

Unlimited Access to the learning materials

Refer back to these courses again and again

Although the lessons are live and this program runs over a 6 week period, you’ll have unlimited access to the replays and pre-recorded videos. Come back and review what you’ve learned, play along to the practice videos to refresh your memory and skills, and ask extra questions and share encouragement in your private ‘Harp Beginnings’ classmates group. All the PDF downloads are yours to keep as well.

What our students say

From looking at a harp in the corner of a room, dusting it off to actually playing very simple tunes in 6 weeks.

Andrew Hardy

I found this so helpful, because here’s Christy-Lyn and she will explain it so cheerfully as many times as I need to hear it – just hit rewind.

Michelle

I’m self-taught, and this course has made it a lot easier for me to follow chords and to play. In fact I’m doing my first solo in public this Tuesday!

Sue

Don’t have a harp? We can help!

Our harp teachers have chosen the top 3 harps for beginners, so that it’s impossible to make a bad decision! We’ve had hundreds of students test out different beginner harps and share their experience. With this information, we’ve chosen harps at three different price points, to suit your budget and needs. You can choose a harp without stress, knowing that you’ve made a great purchase!

We’ll equip you to:

Get a quality harp that sounds and looks beautiful, and will stand the test of time

Get the best value for money for a beginner harp, so you don’t make an expensive mistake

Choose the right number of strings for you, based on your goals

To get your free ‘Which Harp to Buy’ Guide, put your name and email address below.

Note: You won’t be able to join the current Harp Beginnings intake if you don’t yet have a harp, since everyone will be learning on their harps together. But hopefully you can get it in time to join our next intake!

More student feedback

I am so thankful for this program. Carrie and Christy-Lyn helped me learn to play the harp correctly. They were patient and positive and brought me back to believing I could learn and make progress. Thank you so much Christy-Lyn and Carrie.

I love to practice and play again!

Deborah Radke

I’m very glad to have found this course. I was feeling discouraged about my seeming inability to progress with my harp on my own. This course and other videos you have prepared have really helped me to get back on track.

Michelle Schillinger

Learned a lot! Great way to get started learning to play. I’ve even played in public and received positive feedback. Not bad for not playing anything in at least 40 years. Having people to meet with weekly is a big help too. I recommend this course to anyone who is curious about learning to play the harp. You can start this without needing to know how to read sheet music.

Athena Gibbons

More student feedback

I love to practice and play again!

Deborah Radke

Michelle Schillinger

Athena Gibbons

Meet your instructors

Visit our YouTube channel for more harp related content

Christy-Lyn

Hi, I’m Christy-Lyn! When I first started learning to play the harp at 25 years old I assumed I wouldn’t get very far because I thought I was ‘too old’ to have much success. I had always heard that if you didn’t start as a child, you shouldn’t even bother trying.

But once I started learning to play the harp I progressed so much quicker and further than I ever expected: I was performing within 3 months!

10 years later I now run Learning the Harp, which I started with my two sisters, creating online courses to teach thousands of adults all around the world to play the harp.

As a trained Occupational Therapist, I’ve been able to extract what helped me to learn so quickly and apply it to hundreds of students, tweaking the method to suit different personalities and learning styles.

The result is thorough in-depth video courses that act as practice guides: they take you through learning every note in a way that makes you feel like your own harp teacher is sitting with you.

I can’t wait to walk this journey with you as you learn to play the harp from the beginning!

10 years later I now run Learning the Harp, which I started with my two sisters, creating online courses to teach thousands of adults all around the world to play the harp.

The result is thorough in-depth video courses that act as practice guides: they take you through learning every note in a way that makes you feel like your own harp teacher is sitting with you.

I can’t wait to walk this journey with you as you learn to play the harp from scratch!

Visit our YouTube channel for more harp related content

Carrie

Hi there, I’m Carrie. I’ve loved the harp since I was young, having been introduced to it when I was only eight years old! The music teacher at my elementary school was a harpist, so she created a program for the kids so they could learn how to play. I almost didn’t sign up because I was insecure about being unable to read sheet music, but I’m so thankful I didn’t let that stop me!

I was hooked the moment I plucked my first string, and I haven’t stopped since. I went on to study harp in college, and after graduating, I taught harp to middle and high school students before my path led me to Learning the Harp.

It’s a blessing to create courses that teach others how to play an instrument I love. That shared passion is like no other, and I can’t wait to see you thrive on this journey as you play your harp.

Visit our YouTube channel for more harp related content

Guarantee

By the end of the program, if you feel you haven’t got the instruction needed to help you to learn to play the harp, we’ll give you your $285 back! We truly want you to have a wonderful time learning to play the harp and if you aren’t satisfied, we aren’t either. More information

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the program dates and times?

Dates and times to be confirmed

How much time do I need to commit to the program?

We’ve designed the course to take 20 minutes a day during the week (with the exception of 2x45min slots to watch the Chords Workshop), with the weekend to just have fun with your harp. We highly recommend that you set aside time to work through the videos consistently every day, because doing it all on the weekend doesn’t create muscle memory as well.

How long will I have access to the program?

You’ll have unlimited access to the program, so that you can come back and recap whenever you need! The downloadable PDFs are yours to keep.

What if I don’t have a musical background?

Then this program is designed specifically with you in mind! Christy-Lyn teaches the songs note-by-note and explains every concept in ordinary terms. So even if you have no clue, you’ll be able to follow along.

I don't know how to read sheet music. Can I still join?

We provide sheet music in case you’d like to follow along, but Christy-Lyn teaches each note verbally and plays each one so you can check that you’re getting it right. You may find that you learn to read sheet music by mistake as you go!

This is too expensive.

Right now you’re weighing up the cost of buying this program… but what’s the cost of not buying it? You might end up with an expensive piece of furniture gathering dust. The harp is quite difficult to learn to proficiency on your own, because there are a few common mistakes that can really hold you back. Why not save yourself from all the disappointment of trying and failing, and rather give yourself the best chance from the beginning?

I already have a different harp, will this program work for me?

If you have a harp with at least 22 strings that go from C-C, you’ll be able to play all of the songs in this program. You don’t need any levers on your harp. If you want to learn to play in the shortest time possible, we urge you to consider joining, no matter what harp you have!

I already have some of these courses

I'm in the membership but haven't made much progress

This program is an intensive deep-dive designed to help you to progress in the shortest time possible. So if time is going by and you’re still not coming close to your goal of learning to play the harp, this an opportunity to get the extra support you need to kick-start your harp journey.

Do you feel a pull toward the harp? There’s a reason for that.

The harp is really unique: it can help improve memory, lower stress and bring so much joy into your life. So if you’ve been feeling drawn to the harp, that’s not a mistake!

I believe that it’s never too late to learn the harp. I’ve had students of 60, 70 and 80 years old learn to play the harp from the beginning, and have a wonderful time!

Life is too short to procrastinate doing the things that are important. If learning the harp is a dream of yours, it is SO worth it to pursue. Don’t wait until the ‘perfect moment’, because it may never come! Now is the right time to take a brave step.

Just imagine…

Imagine how it will feel when you can sit down at the harp and play music as a stress release.

Imagine seeing yourself progress and feeling the excitement that you’ve done it – you’ve achieved a dream!

Imagine how amazed friends and family will be to see you rising to a new challenge with bravery.

Imagine the fun and inspiration of having a way to express yourself every day.

Join in the fun by signing up for Harp Beginnings!

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