[Harp-L] Harp practice

[Paul Routledge <kingley@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have been thinking lately about how I practice and never seem to 
really to advance any further than I already am.
I always think to myself that I will start to concentrate on practising 
more and more complex horn lines on the harp and tone shaping and make 
an effort to learn whole songs by the people I like, (Piazza, Smith, 
Horton, Gruenling etc, etc).
Yet I always end up doing the same thing and  just start jammin' on my 
harp (especially chromatic 3rd position stuff) and therefore never 
really make any headway into where I want to go with it.
I mean I always end up playing the same riffs and runs, use basically 
the same phrasing and so on.
I find tone practice the hardest thing to do, it seems no matter how 
hard I try it just don't seem to change.
Through the passage of time I have learned quite a few tunes by Piazza, 
Smith, Horton, Gruenling etc. But it's more by osmosis (hearing them 
over and over again) rather than a concerted effort on my part to learn 
them.

I was wondering how everybody else structures their practice?

Paul