Why do we need to keep our harps in tune?
Tips on tuning:
*Let the child harpist learn to do it themselves – my (then) 2 year old used to tune my wee harps for me and while I was uber-relaxed about the possibility of string breakages, he never broke one. At aged 14 and 16 now, although they don’t play the harp, both my boys can tune a harp up to pitch for me and have never broken a harp or a string. Parents aren’t doing their future harpist any favours by not allowing them to maintain their instrument.
*Minutemovements – you don’t want to break a string. I teach my young students to only move as much as the minute hand on the clock – one minute at a time. As they get more experienced, both with their harp and with a tuning key, they can ‘feel’ more accurately how much of a turn it actually needs.
*All levers down – it’s best for the life of your strings not to be tightening or loosening them over a pin/an edge/an impediment which is designed to stop the string and change the pitch. It’s likely you will wear the string out (particularly wrapped strings) when stretching it over the lever break pin – not good to alter the pressure on the lever either.
*An electronic tuner and a contact pick up – both of these things make a harpist’s life much easier.
*If you don’t have an electronic tuner? Find a note to tune to on another instrument… then I tune as a mixture of octaves and other intervals. This takes a bit of aural training to do, but it is an accurate way to tune when you know what you are doing.
If you only have one note to tune by ear (let’s say it’s an E), I teach all my students (from Grade one onwards) to play three notes around that note in another octave… C, D, E and match the pitch (by ear) to the out of tune octave. It doesn’t take them long to work out how to do this.
My students have two different types of harps:
The harps that only have a few levers (B, F and C) – these are tuned to F major, so with all the levers down, you can play the scale from F to F.
The harps that are fully levered are tuned to Eb Major – so I will use Eb as my ‘true’ note, and you can play a scale from Eb to Eb.
This is a little more complicated, but some people will enjoy it!
You can use songs to help describe the intervals (Major 3rd = Michael Row the boat, perfect 4th = Amazing Grace, perfect 5th = Twinkle, Major 6th = My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean etc) I start by tuning Eb-G, Eb-Ab, Eb-Bb, Eb-C, Eb-D etc. Or sometimes I change the ‘true’ note when I have tuned Bb and use that … Bb-C, Bb-D, Bb-Eb and make my way through an octave or so until I have it perfectly in tune, then revert to tuning the rest of the harp in octaves from the ‘true’ octave. Confused?? Try it and find a way that suits you to tune by ear.
- The harp is a piece of science in action (well, what isn’t you ask?). It’s basically a triangle with strings pulling two sides together and one side trying to keep the other two apart, and the offset layout of two of the three sides keeping it all balanced. The strings are the gauge (weight and thickness) necessary to make a note of the required pitch so… the harp is most in balance when it is in tune.
- It sounds the nicest when we all completely in tune (to A440) as the sympathetic ringing on (that lovely background noise you hear when you pluck a string) is all in tune with the plucked string.
- It helps when we are learning new tunes that the harp is in tune with itself as we are (or should be) always listening as we are playing.
Tips on tuning:
*Let the child harpist learn to do it themselves – my (then) 2 year old used to tune my wee harps for me and while I was uber-relaxed about the possibility of string breakages, he never broke one. At aged 14 and 16 now, although they don’t play the harp, both my boys can tune a harp up to pitch for me and have never broken a harp or a string. Parents aren’t doing their future harpist any favours by not allowing them to maintain their instrument.
*Minutemovements – you don’t want to break a string. I teach my young students to only move as much as the minute hand on the clock – one minute at a time. As they get more experienced, both with their harp and with a tuning key, they can ‘feel’ more accurately how much of a turn it actually needs.
*All levers down – it’s best for the life of your strings not to be tightening or loosening them over a pin/an edge/an impediment which is designed to stop the string and change the pitch. It’s likely you will wear the string out (particularly wrapped strings) when stretching it over the lever break pin – not good to alter the pressure on the lever either.
*An electronic tuner and a contact pick up – both of these things make a harpist’s life much easier.
*If you don’t have an electronic tuner? Find a note to tune to on another instrument… then I tune as a mixture of octaves and other intervals. This takes a bit of aural training to do, but it is an accurate way to tune when you know what you are doing.
If you only have one note to tune by ear (let’s say it’s an E), I teach all my students (from Grade one onwards) to play three notes around that note in another octave… C, D, E and match the pitch (by ear) to the out of tune octave. It doesn’t take them long to work out how to do this.
My students have two different types of harps:
The harps that only have a few levers (B, F and C) – these are tuned to F major, so with all the levers down, you can play the scale from F to F.
The harps that are fully levered are tuned to Eb Major – so I will use Eb as my ‘true’ note, and you can play a scale from Eb to Eb.
This is a little more complicated, but some people will enjoy it!
You can use songs to help describe the intervals (Major 3rd = Michael Row the boat, perfect 4th = Amazing Grace, perfect 5th = Twinkle, Major 6th = My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean etc) I start by tuning Eb-G, Eb-Ab, Eb-Bb, Eb-C, Eb-D etc. Or sometimes I change the ‘true’ note when I have tuned Bb and use that … Bb-C, Bb-D, Bb-Eb and make my way through an octave or so until I have it perfectly in tune, then revert to tuning the rest of the harp in octaves from the ‘true’ octave. Confused?? Try it and find a way that suits you to tune by ear.