Why the harp habit?

It’s been about a year and a half since I first started my harp YouTube channel, @theharphabit (btw, if you haven’t subscribed yet, please do ;) it means a lot to me!). It began as a personal challenge because I was slacking off on practicing the harp. The challenge was simple: cover 12 songs in a year—one song a month—post them on my YouTube channel, and make practicing a habit. Thus, the name “the harp habit”!

And so, I posted 12 song covers in 2024. The method worked perfectly for me—I’m someone who needs a clear goal with numbers and deadlines to get moving, haha. Chased by that target, I practiced more diligently while having fun along the way.

In the beginning, putting my videos out there was really difficult—I was overly self-conscious about what others would think.
“What if people think I’m a lame harpist?”
“What’s the point of covering a song if there are already better covers out there by other musicians?”
...and so on.

Anyway, I kept posting—even though the voices in my head made me retake videos countless times. I often spent half a day on my weekend just to record a 3-minute cover because I wasn’t satisfied with the video (my expression looked weird, or I made a mistake right before the last note, or the background noise from my neighbor was too obvious).

Now, I’m more forgiving of minor mistakes. The purpose of music isn’t to showcase perfection—it’s to connect with other people. As long as I can get the emotion and message I want to share across to the audience, that’s enough. :)

Also, people have been overall very positive towards my covers so far. Even though I’m a Gen Z who has basically grown up with the World Wide Web, having my own YouTube channel still leaves me awestruck at the amazing thing called the Internet. I’m blown away by the comments on my videos—many of them are from literally across the world. We are strangers, but somehow they stumbled upon my videos and left such encouraging messages.

It’s amazing that through the Internet and music, nationality, beliefs, and distance don’t matter. In that brief moment of exchange, you’re not strangers—you’re just two humans sharing the same connection and love for harp music.

Since I’ve been having so much fun with my YouTube channel, I thought, why not also try making a website? It’s always been a dream of mine to have my own domain and launch my own site. I’ve also been watching a lot of Ali Abdaal’s videos lately, and one thing he recommends is having a personal website.

I’m still figuring out where I want to take this site, but for now, I hope this first post does the job. :)

Till next time, cheers!
xoxo,
Jolie

Photo taken by Eriko Shimamura @eriko.shimamura