Personal - Monica Schley

Harp Escape vol. 9 (The Dorian Suite)

Posted on May 14, 2024May 14, 2025

In my YouTube series Harp Escape, vol. 9 features (The Dorian Suite), a song I wrote in honor of my young son. Born in 2017, he was just a toddler when the Pandemic hit, and I wrote this song. At the time I was an artist-in-residence at Nalanda West in Seattle, a Buddhist retreat center. There, I spent hours in quietude composing, meditating, and writing in my journal. (Months before wrote a poem inspired by my new baby, later published in Literary Mama.)

When the world was experiencing early signs of the virus, before lockdown, I was at the Nalanda West a couple days a week. It was a place for me to find peace with the unknown. Any parent with young children can tell you, finding time to oneself is a precious commodity. There are many shifts throughout the day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Music and writing have always been a tool for me to get to a happy place and connect with myself and my place in the world. Through searching, through writing music and words, I was able to find an expression for the time and space of 2020, personally and globally. That is a lot of what this song is about.

This piece has several shifts: from Dorian mode to a relative minor (B minor). The meter, or rhythm, changes back and forth from 4/4 to 3/4 time. This is a musical metaphor for how I felt pulled to and fro, as mom, as musician, as person comfortable in the world, as a person uncomfortable in the world.

Here you can listen to Harp Escape vol. 9 (The Dorian Suite).

Harp Escape vol. 9 (The Dorian Suite)

Sheet music for The Dorian Suite, available now at Sheetmusicdirect.com!

How To Let Go of Your Judgmental Inner Music Critic

Posted on January 8, 2024January 18, 2024

We are not learning music to be perfect. We are learning music to enjoy the process of playing. We are learning music to develop a skill. Let go of judgement! If you are hearing an inner musical critic and it feels like negative judgement, drop it. Let it go. You don’t want to be holding unto so much baggage.

If that seems too easily said, imagine that your fingers are actually holding onto little bags of judgment (from past/current teachers, conductors, peers, recording engineers, yourself, reviewers, parents, friends, neighbors, etc.). Imagine that these little critiques, each in a bag on your fingers, are weighing you down. They are slowing down your playing. That negativity is taking up physical space and you need to free it up!

Question: What if you got rid of that inner music critic? Answer: Your hands would feel the freedom to put your fingers on the actual notes you need to play.

Drop the mental comment section. Close down the critiques that don’t make you a better player. You can throw them away in the trash bin over there. Now, locate the comments that do help – the ones that say “don’t give up,” or “there now – that wasn’t so hard!”

cherry blossoms, Alice Walker quote, miners gold

You can keep the helpful comments, but put them in a safe place at a distance, like picture in a frame. Remember, you want to feel lighter. You want to free up your fingers to do the playing that you were called to do in the first place.

You have work to do. Your work is playful and exploratory.

You are practicing the process of showing up and being ready to play music. Playing music is not about perfection, so much as the journey you take to a place where the playing feels good! This is the work you love to do. By freeing your fingers, you are already doing what you need to do. Now, you are ready to practice!

On Writing and Shopping at Harp Escape Shop

Posted on April 21, 2023October 23, 2023

We have added more items up in my Harp Escape Shop! If you didn’t see the 30 day Instagram challenge I did in Feb/Mar you might have missed this gorgeous illustration by Stephen Schildbach. Harp Nouveau was inspired by Aubry Beardsley’s art (but I suppose also being married to me)! Now, you too can own a beautiful cotton tote bag with this lovely harp art nouveau design. $20

Art Nouveau Canvas Tote Bag — Harp Nouveau Tote Bag $20

For harpists, I have sheet music for sale. With the song “What the River Says/Aer Enim” you get two for the price of one. Both pieces are arranged for lever and/or pedal harp. This sheet music is for the intermediate harpist in the key of Eb (folk harpers will have to do some extra tuning for this!). This sheet music is for sale for $8.

My tune “What the River Says” is based on the Wm. Stafford poem, Ask Me. The second song, seamlessly merged with the first, was composed by Hildegard von Bingen. If you aren’t familiar with her work, she lived most of her life during the 12^th Century, and is considered by many to be the first female composer of Western music. Born in Germany in 1098, Hildegard von Bingen composed music, wrote poetry, and also wrote several books about religion, art, politics, philosophy, science, medicine, and herbs.

This is just the first of many Hildegard von Bingen songs made available to you. I’m arranging an entire collection of her songs for lever harp, coming out next year by Mel Bay Publishing! Some students and friends may already know this. And chances are if you’ve hired me to play a memorial service or quiet ritual, you have heard me play one of these. As I complete working on the book, I’ll be sharing more with you.

Seattle Harpist — What the River Says / Aer Enim Sheet Music (4pgs) $8

And speaking of writing a book… I’ve recently had a poem published! April is National Poetry Month after all, and it feels like a good time to share this. The lengthy title, Poem for My Unborn Boy at the Ballard Locks One Day Before His Birth, (published by Literary Mama) sums up the theme of the poem quite thoroughly. For anyone who has waited for the birth of their child, my go-to technique to get moving 5years ago with my son, was walking stairs at the Locks, over and over again.

The Harp Escape Shop will be undergoing more transformation in the coming months. Feel free to contact me if you run into any bumps in the process.

Ways of Hearing in Modern Times

Posted on May 26, 2022October 23, 2023

In the summer of 2020, at the beginning of the Pandemic, one of the first things I noticed in the city, was how quiet things suddenly felt. Air traffic decreased greatly. My house, positioned in North Central Seattle, had been a major flight path to Sea-Tac Airport at particular times of day. I always noticed increased activity between 9-11pm, because that is when I liked to record! Many times, I would have to adjust my schedule, because it was too loud. But once the Pandemic hit, the nights became perfectly still, even in the middle of the city. During the mornings, sea planes would land on nearby Lake Union. This sound also decreased for some months. Suddenly, there was a lot less noise coming out of the sky, and subtle sounds stood out more: bird calls, neighbors walking by. A Pandemic way of hearing was appreciating the certain new quietude. However, with the noiseless nights came some discomfort, about what was going on in our world.

Then, as the summer heated up, other sounds took prominence: frequent emergency vehicles and police sirens. I noticed increased helicopter activity and during BLM protests, and more than once I heard SPD fire flash bang grenades as I lay in bed, coming from across the hills from nearby Capitol Hill. There were stories in those sounds. I imagined the Pike/Pine corridor, city streets I knew so well in my old neighborhood, and I imagined the fighting. Later, in the morning, real images on the news joined the sounds I had heard. But as I lay in bed, I felt the whole city, and the whole country, listening to what those sounds meant. I felt many ears listening to the troubles around us, and I had difficultly sleeping.

Looking Ahead and Being Adaptable

Posted on March 30, 2022April 5, 2022

Diversity is the spice of life. My client list is a wide range, from getting hired directly by corporations, to nurses & doctors, couples getting married, playing for hospital patients, in department stores, at transit centers, farm events, before city hall leaders, in historic hotels, for humanitarian non-profits, and GRAMMY winners. Over the last 20 years, I feel fortunate to have met so many people, to have collaborated on events with them, to help create an event where there wasn’t one, or one that needed help planning.

No two days have ever been the same in my work. At various times, I’m a Certified Clinical Musician, a Business Creative, Harp Instructor, Event Producer, Entrepreneur, Marketer, Performer, Poet, Consultant, Speaker, Workshop Leader, Grant Writer, Collaborator, Composer, or Recording Artist.