Friday, March 18, 2011

Harps on my mind

Thinking about harps today.  I've been tuning the new pedal harps at the store where I work.  Not too bad of a job, once you get used to it.  Pedal harps (all harps really) are interesting.

Surprisingly simple in construction, too.  Well, relatively speaking.  They are simple compared to a flute or clarinet, but pedal harps are mechanically very straight-forward.  With a lever harp, the strings are tuned diatonically and the sharping levers can raise the pitch of its corresponding string by a half step.  So, if your harp is tuned to C major, raising all of the levers over the F strings will give you a harp in the key of G major.  To get flat keys will take some creativity and sometimes some re-tuning of the strings.

A pedal harp basically does the same thing, but the foot pedals are linked to discs at the top of the harp that turn to raise the pitch of the strings.  Pedals are much faster at changing key or pitch, and mechanically very different than lever harps.  Each pedal changes the pitch of all octaves of a particular pitch.  For example, the F pedal will change the pitch of all of the F strings (all at once too, a definite advantage over levers, which need to be flipped manually by the player, sometimes while playing.)

Depending on the highness or lowness of the string (its pitch) they are made of steel wound wires, natural gut, or nylon.  A unique harper's knot is tied at one end and a spline (a short piece of heavy gauge string, usually) is inserted into the knot to keep it from being pulled through the soundboard.

Tuning of the harp isn't especially complicated, but it can be time-consuming. A tuning key, designed to turn the pins at the top of the harp, is used to tighten or loosen the strings.  Similar to guitar or orchestra instruments, turning the string to a tighter tension will raise the pitch and loosening it will lower the pitch. 

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