Harp-help composing for it

I'm aware that scoring for Harp is ridiculously difficult. Could someone please give me a hand in composing for it? I remember reading about teh foot pedals, the mneumonic to remember their order, and IIRC, they raise the tones a half step, am I right? This would make playing in D# minor very unlikeable yes?

The harp's natural key is Cb major. Each pedal has two notches; the first raises that pitch class a half step, and the second raises that pitch class two half steps.

To play a scale in D# minor (assuming harmonic minor), how would you tune your harp? D# E# F# G# A# B Cx? Well, you can't tune the C to Cx... the C string can be either Cb, C, or C#. For natural minor, you could tune it to C#, but there's not a practical way to get that Cx leading tone. I suppose you could try to mimic D# minor by retuning the strings to Eb F Gb Ab Bb Cb D - which is just Eb minor. *shrug* What would be the point of writing it in D# minor if it's really in Eb minor? Why reinvent the wheel?

And actually, the Eb minor tuning I gave above would sound better than D# minor tuning, because the strings would be in longer positions, giving less of a tightened sound (like I said, the natural key of the harp is Cb major).

D# minor would require a lot of enharmonic reworking, and I'd recommend against it unless you have a compelling reason for its use.

Composing for harp isn't really that difficult... it just requires extra thought and planning.

I like to think of the harp in a different sense. Instead of thinking of it as an instrument native to Cb Major, with all the pedals pressed down, think of it as one in C major with all the pedals in the "middle" position.

The harp pedals can either be raised (#), resting (natural), or lowered (b). So, to play a C major scale, all the pedals would be in the middle position and the harp player could do it with ease.

Now, to play say, A C minor scale, we would have to lower the E, A, and B strings. To make it harmonic minor, just make the B natural.

To make things more complicated, the harp is all about enharmonic spelling to get what you want out of it. If you want to have a scale as such: C D E F G Gb A B C, you couldn't because to acheive the Gb you would either have to lower the G or raise the F, eliminating the ability to use whatever note you altered.

Chromaticism on the harp requires planning, but it can be done.

Now I do agree with Flint in that the harp naturally is a Cb Major instrument, but that complicated things a bit. A harp player reading a part will begin with the pedals all at middle position and adjust from there, not with them all pressed down. Hope that helps.

Hmmm.....I wouldn't even go that far (though it is good advice.) The easiest thing I would say is avoided major chromaticism (like every beat fast) unless you are using two harps. Like Mr. Smith said, it CAN be done but, it requires A LOT of planning.

The harp pedals can either be raised (#), resting (natural), or lowered (b). So, to play a C major scale, all the pedals would be in the middle position and the harp player could do it with ease.

This is fundamentally incorrect. The raised position - with the loosest string - is flat. As the pedal is depressed, a small two-pronged wheel at the top of the harp turns, pulling the string tighter and tighter, making the intermediate position natural, and the lowered position sharp.

However, the suggestion to view the harp as a C instrument is certainly valid, and definitely helpful. I think the most important thing to remember about a harp is that it is, as Aaron mentioned, a fundamentally diatonic instrument. Despite its tuning, it is based on a C-Major scale, and therefore, at any given time, the harp can only play one form of each pitch-letter.

I don't think of the harp as belonging to any key, or being diatonic...

It can play an F# major scale exactly as easily as a Bb minor scale... can't say the same for any other instrument in the orchestra (even keyboard instruments).

Because two strings can be tuned to the same pitch the harp can also play glissandi of chords:

Ab B# C D# Eb F# Gb = Ab7

Or polychords even:

A Bb C# D# E Fb G (A major + Eb major)