Re: Dead-sounding Harp
R. Desmond & M. Parker (rich-d@dircon.co.uk)
Sat, 20 Jan 1996 11:44:09 +0000
Hi Brenda
>
>One of the first books I got was "The Irish Harp Book" by Sheila Larchet
>Cuthbert. She recommends tuning to E flat major, then using blades/levers
>to get 8 major and 5 relative minor keys. (Most of the tunes in her book
>are in Eb.) Enthusiastically, I retuned from C to Eb. However, as
>mentioned above, most of my music is written in keys that required 3-5
>levers in each octave to be up. Immediately I was distressed to hear the
>tone of my harp -- it sounded completely "dead" and thunky! I have also
>heard that recording harpers retune rather than use levers because of this
>effect. Would someone please explain why this happens?
>
>Brenda Mallett
>
Basically, what happend is that the lever absorbs some of the energy of the
string by not bridging it firmly enough. Does your harp ahve nylon levers?
They are the worst offenders. Open hooks can be just as bad but then again
some work perfectly... these are harps, so don't expect logic;-)
It may be possible to solve the problem with slightly lighter stringing
(try a couple of strings rather than the whole harp!) or by using the lever
to press the string against a second bridge (this is job for a harp
maker!). It may be worth using a different form of lever althiugh this is
not guarenteed to solve the problem.
On my neo-celtic, I have levers for C & F and in the middle octave, one
B...I have found that this gives me all the combinations I need but then
again, I don't play in flat keys (or if I have to, I re-tune)
The E flat convention comes from the single action harp of the 18th C. and
it was post Egan, with his spurious Irish harps that celtic music was
published in this pattern.
I tend to play most things in C or G which gives me as close to an open
scale as possible... even the bestm most carefully worked out pedal harp
has some tone differential between an open and stopped string.
Be happy,
Mike