Microtone harp?

I'm getting some interesting ideas for a new peice, and I was wondering how one would go about scoring for a harp tuned in quarter tones, ect.. I know little about the mechanics of a harp, and haven't ever really written for one.

Does anybody have any thoughts on how one would give intructions for tuning/ operating information?.. or composers that may have done something like this in the past?

You tell them to tune differently.

Okay.. well.. are there any other thoughts on the subject?

Just remember that, in standard tuning, a harp only has the tones of a diatonic scale, and all other tone shifts are achieved through the use of pedals, so you have the choice between multiple unique tones or instrument range.

Right.. that's probably something to take advantage of.. thank you!

Messiaen hated the Harp because he just found it unable to play other kind of music outside the common scales.

You may modify the tuning but not the pedal mechanism. The Pedals gives you +/- Half tone.

let's say you pitch a "C" string in "C quater sharp" (I don't know how to put the symbol), with pedals you have the aditional "C three quarter sharp" and "C quarter flat" but you lose the "C natural" in that string...does that make a problem to your piece ?, if not, you may continue. You would have to be really careful explaining the pitch of every string and very careful too when writing the score to remember what notes can be played and avoid incoherent passages.

I don't see the Harp like a very agile and suitable Instrument for quarter notes, but if you specify every single detail and you finally make it, it would be worthy of admiration.

(just don't ask moving the strings while the piece is being performed)

Yes, that does seem like a great deal of work, though having an extra harp or two might make the process easier. It's really a shame though because the harp's tone and resonance make it perfect, in my opinion, for lending extra hue to these colors. I guess I'll need to find some time to figure this out for myself.. Thank you though, SYS65, for taking the time.

I guess if you used some kind of carton or pieces of wood and attached them in between the pedals and the notches, you would be able to set the pedals to not go all the way up (when going sharp), thus giving you the possibility to raise any tone by a quarter of the tone (if you had it going half the way up), and if you had all the pedals in the flat position, you could also have pieces of wood blocking the natural position of the pedals, so you would end up with a Harp that would be able to play all diatonic notes sharpened by a quarter-tone, and all diatonic notes flattened by a quarter-tone, as well as all flat notes (but no naturals or sharps). However I am not sure at all if this would have any practical effect because although I know how the harp pedaling thing works, I can't remember to save my life whether it's analogue (i.e. the more you lift the pedal the sharper it gets) or more quantised (i.e. only when the pedal is raised to the top of the, say, "sharp" position does the respective prong twist to alter the tuning).

You could play around with preparing the harp like that and see what happens.

A bit irrelevant, but I think in a few days' time (or maybe I missed it already) there was going to be a presentation of a Midi Harp here in London somewhere (I think Trinity College) which sounded interesting. Obviously, with a midi harp you would be able to load any kind of sounds you wanted to, including microtones (but the players would have to re-adjust to learning which note is which).

having an extra harp or two might make the process easier.

Yes. I didn't think in that,

It's really a shame though because the harp's tone and resonance make it perfect, in my opinion, for lending extra hue to these colors.

Well, I don't know how this idea will sound to you but making an Electronic Piece would become everything much more easier, (modifying the Real Harp Samples).....it's just an idea....

What jujimufu says, I don' know if it can be done well, but if somebody do it, he will practically invent a new Harp, (it would be nice to have an Harp like that)

Keep looking, it could work really nice.

I think that aside from the problem of diatonicism, harps (and pianos etc.) actually have a great advantage over other instruments when it comes to different tunings: Absolute precision, while requiring a minimum of effort from the performer to "learn it". You can just tune every string to the cent with an electronic tuner and get very clear and discrete microtones that are playable like normal chromatic music by the performer, whereas a violinist or flutist must always depend on her or his own ability to actually hear those microtones precisely in order to play them well, which takes a lot of practice. (Quartertones aren't too bad in this respect, but finer than that it gets harder quickly.)

Of course, harps/pianos require more effort to tune them every time, but in the case of the harp it's not a huge issue.

You could certainly experiment with adding a second harp like you said yourself, tuned a quartertone lower or higher, or experiment with what Jujimuju mentioned.

But often, I personally don't find it necessary to have -every- quartertone available. The higher the number of pitches you use in a piece (or passage) is, the less distinct it may become harmonically, so you might actually gain more sense of "colour" by leaving out certain notes.

Also keep in mind that depending on how you tune the harp, you actually -do- get more than 12 tones per octave: You have seven strings per octave, each with three possible pedal variants, which can give you up to 21 different tones per octave. In the normal diatonic tuning however, they are arranged so that they overlap in every tone except D, G, and A, i.e. every note other than these can be reached by two different strings, which you might call a "waste of potential". (Of course this "waste" has very good reasons and allows for more fluent playing.)

Consider tuning every second string a quarter-tone lower, while leaving the others as they are. Since you have seven strings per octave you have to continue this cycle of detune/not-detune for two octaves before it begins the same way again. This gets you a quartertone scale which is just missing three pitches in every octave. Of course this has three side-effects: For one, it reduces the possibilities for virtuosic play, since every note can now only be reached through one string with one pedal. Also, you don't have octave-identity anymore, i.e. you don't have all the same notes at your disposal in every octave. Thirdly, the possibilities for building chords or playing polyphonically are severely reduced, since every pedal choice also makes several other notes impossible to play.

Personally, I'd find these "limitations" rather inspiring though. This gives you some harmonic boundaries, which may be interesting to explore, while still giving you the great richness of having 44 different possible pitches for every two octaves.

The loss of octave identity also might be turned into something very interesting, since now every octave doesn't sound exactly the same, but you have two alternating "versions" of the octave, which may help to create the feeling of an interweaving of register and harmonic colour.

You could even make this effect more extreme by using an entirely different tuning system in which -every- octave sounds different. Personally, I might find that actually more interesting than using ordinary quartertones. If you already detune, why just stick to the obvious extension of the chromatic scale (i.e. cutting every step in half), instead of thinking of an entirely new tuning that might represent your harmonic ideas. (Some composers work with tunings based on the harmonic scale for example, or totally different things.)

Personally I think that rather than trying to overcome the "obstacle" of the diatonic nature of the harp, one could turn exactly this obstacle into an interesting harmonical principle: Contrasting the possibility of arbitrary/free/weird tunings of the strings, with the discrete and strict effect of the pedals, which deform the harmonic setup with somewhat "crude" semitone-transpositions. An approach like this might also be more idiomatic to harp-playing than trying to emulate a very fine, chromaticism-derived tuning, which the harp was never really built for. (Even chromaticism is quite a stretch.)

In other words: I'd rather think of the harp in terms of several harmonic fields between you can switch with various pedal combinations, than an instrument that can produce certain notes that can be reached by sometimes rather complicated pedaling procedures. I'd try to make the nature of the harp with its strings and pedals a part of my compositional project, instead of just seeing it as a technical hinderance.

But that's just some babbling about stuff going through my tired mind right now. Do whatever you feel like!

Absolutely amazing. Rock on!

I love how "possibility minded" you guys are, I really do. ;)

As ever on a practical note: as cool as this sounds, I just don't know any professional harpists - and I know several - who would be willing to completely retune or prepare their harp for something like this.

Contrary to what has been mentioned elsewhere here, getting a harp in tune for a performance actually is a relatively laborious process, which is why harpists get on stage early and start tuning way before everyone else. Having to re-tune it for a single piece and then tune it back to standard tuning so you can use it for anything else you might need it for that day, whether performing or practicing, sounds like more trouble than it would be worth, and I don't imagine there would be many takers. To say nothing of the risk of wear or breaking to the strings, which aren't cheap, from taking them outside their tolerance, or from having some apparatus banging around on them.

Sorry to throw cold water on the party, but that's reality. If you can find a harpist willing to do something like this, then more power to you.

Well, there are tons of pieces for harps in all kinds of tunings, which are played frequently, so it's certainly possible. And when I mentioned that it's not a "huge issue" to retune a harp I meant exactly what you said there - the harpist is going to tune the harp before every performance anyways, so it's not that much harder to tune it differently. I meant this mostly in contrast to a piano, which isn't usually tuned by the pianist and therefore requires quite a lot more extra time/resources/effort to retune for a concert and practice (which still doesn't mean it's not done).

And obviously, it's more problematic when there are several different pieces for harp in the program. But that's not always the case, and if it is, there's always the possibility of using a different harp for the other pieces. (Like many other instrumentalists do it when they need a prepared or retuned instrument for a single piece in a concert program.) And the issue of string tolerance depends on how far you retune them. A quartertone or a bit more won't do much harm there.

But sure, it requires some additional effort. And sure, not every harpist wants to do it. I'm pretty sure however that pretty much any harpist that specialises in contemporary music is perfectly used to it, as much as any violinist who specialises in contemporary music should be able to play quartertones accurately, or an oboist multiphonics.

As Gardener said, it depends on what kind of harp players you know. It's not just with contemporary and classical - Viola d'Amore players are much more prone to de-tune than normal Viola players (as a different example).

As Gardener said, it depends on what kind of harp players you know.

yeah I agree, if the player is kind of grumpy, he will find a lot of "tuning troubles" here and there and this and that.... (excuses) ....but if he's willing to do it, he will do it.

I think also depends from the kind of score you create, try to make a clear, understandable score with easy indications like "1st Harp tuned normally, 2nd Harp totally tuned a quarter tone up" that's it...

I believe frist look still counts, if the player finds a complet "Owner's Manual" with many tuning indications... that would probably make it seem difficult to perform.

.....help the player to play your piece.

Okay, I stand corrected (with prejudice):

I contacted a harpist colleague of mine who said that if the piece were "scallopen" enough (her words), she'd be happy to do whatever it took to manage a performance. What she means by "scallopen" is anyone's guess, but suffice it to say that even provincial harpists are more accommodating than I thought they'd be.

She did qualify that if she had to play more than one piece on the program requiring differnet tunings, she might have to either bring along another instrument (a real pain in the arse, providing a second insrument is even available), or think twice about performing anything too demanding as regards tuning. So take heed.

… keep in mind that depending on how you tune the harp, you actually -do- get more than 12 tones per octave: You have seven strings per octave, each with three possible pedal variants, which can give you up to 21 different tones per octave. In the normal diatonic tuning however, they are arranged so that they overlap in every tone except D, G, and A, i.e. every note other than these can be reached by two different strings, which you might call a "waste of potential". (Of course this "waste" has very good reasons and allows for more fluent playing.)

Consider tuning every second string a quarter-tone lower, while leaving the others as they are. Since you have seven strings per octave you have to continue this cycle of detune/not-detune for two octaves before it begins the same way again. This gets you a quartertone scale which is just missing three pitches in every octave. Of course this has three side-effects: For one, it reduces the possibilities for virtuosic play, since every note can now only be reached through one string with one pedal. Also, you don't have octave-identity anymore, i.e. you don't have all the same notes at your disposal in every octave. Thirdly, the possibilities for building chords or playing polyphonically are severely reduced, since every pedal choice also makes several other notes impossible to play.

Personally, I'd find these "limitations" rather inspiring though. This gives you some harmonic boundaries, which may be interesting to explore, while still giving you the great richness of having 44 different possible pitches for every two octaves.

The loss of octave identity also might be turned into something very interesting, since now every octave doesn't sound exactly the same, but you have two alternating "versions" of the octave, which may help to create the feeling of an interweaving of register and harmonic colour.

You could even make this effect more extreme by using an entirely different tuning system in which -every- octave sounds different. Personally, I might find that actually more interesting than using ordinary quartertones. If you already detune, why just stick to the obvious extension of the chromatic scale (i.e. cutting every step in half), instead of thinking of an entirely new tuning that might represent your harmonic ideas. (Some composers work with tunings based on the harmonic scale for example, or totally different things.)

Personally I think that rather than trying to overcome the "obstacle" of the diatonic nature of the harp, one could turn exactly this obstacle into an interesting harmonical principle: Contrasting the possibility of arbitrary/free/weird tunings of the strings, with the discrete and strict effect of the pedals, which deform the harmonic setup with somewhat "crude" semitone-transpositions. An approach like this might also be more idiomatic to harp-playing than trying to emulate a very fine, chromaticism-derived tuning, which the harp was never really built for. (Even chromaticism is quite a stretch.)

In other words: I'd rather think of the harp in terms of several harmonic fields between you can switch with various pedal combinations, than an instrument that can produce certain notes that can be reached by sometimes rather complicated pedaling procedures. I'd try to make the nature of the harp with its strings and pedals a part of my compositional project, instead of just seeing it as a technical hinderance.

As ever resourceful and creative your ideas for new tunings of the harp might be – did you ever think about how the notation should look like? Retuned in a way as you described it, a harpist would have to relearn her/his playing technique completely, in particular the then even more complicated pedal technique. The reason is simple for that: each pedal action changes the height of its associated tone in all octaves simultaneously, whether one has octave-identity or not! –– Do you have a proper symbol system for noting all possible changes for all seven pedals in all six octaves?

And for a composer it wouldn't be possible to write playable scores as long as he didn't play the harp by himself (which is already true for classical guitar writing ). Remember what Samuel Adler says in his Orchestration book: "Harpists are quite willing to try out new ideas as long as the composer has a well-grounded understanding of the instrument's basic constraints."

Of course, You can always use a slide. As in, the slide guitarists use, a round metal, plastic or glass tube you put on a finger to gliss up and down smoothly. I saw a contemporary harpist use it often a few months ago in order to achieve quarter tones.

Also, I don't think the pedals are analogue, they seem quantized because when you listen to them change the pedals you can hear a big *clunk* sound, which implies a sudden change once the pedal is down.

you can also get quarter tone artificial harmonics out of the strings too, just like a guitar. you just gotta find a good, contemporary harpist, and there probably ain't many of them around.

In my experience, harpists are even more conservative than strings.

As ever resourceful and creative your ideas for new tunings of the harp might be

Personally I wouldn't notate the microtones at all, if you're using a retuned harp. I'd do it like any other scordatura (on string instruments etc.) and notate the strings as if they weren't retuned, so the harpist can use the normal fingering/pedaling. (I.e. write a "C" if it's played on the middle pedal position of a C string, even if that C is tuned a third-tone lower or whatever.)

This makes the score easy to read for the performer, but of course has the downside of not giving a real impression of how it's going to sound. So one might also add a second (small) staff on which the sounding notes are written.

That would be the solution if you comply with octave-identity. But if you retune, for example, each second string of the 47 strings of a harp (in which way howsoever), then you miss the octave-identity (as you correctly explained) since you have only 7 strings within each octave. So you need a possibility to notate your tone with respect to its octave range to become correctly performable with the respective pedal setting.

Sorry to rain on your parades, but I don't think a quarter-tone harp is really a good solution. If you are planning on using quarter-tones in a harp solo line, then it would be tragically unavoidable to use quarter-tones in the rest of the orchestra's parts. Having an entire orchestra that is dealing with many quarter-tones is pretty much impossible due to many people not being able to play them together perfectly. Also, if the harp isn't playing any solo line, I would seriously consider using enharmonic tones (C-double-sharp would become a D, etc.).

However, if your piece is polytonal/atonal and the orchestra wouldn't be dealing with the quarter-tones, or if you are planning a piece for solo harp (without accompanist) and still find yourself in need of them, then I would like to add that there is such a thing, however rare it might be, as a chromatic harp. I would seriously consider looking into having two of them, one tuned a quarter-tune higher (or lower, whichever you prefer).

I just think that you should look into how great the need is of quarter-tones on the harp and decide if that is worth facing the question as to how to acquire them.

That would be the solution if you comply with octave-idendity. But if you retune, for example, each second string of the 47 strings of a harp (in which way howsoever), then you miss the octave-idendity (as you correctly explained) since you have only 7 strings within each octave. So you need a possibility to notate your tone with respect to its octave range to become correctly performable with the respective pedal setting.

I don't really understand what you mean with that. Take the following example:

Every second C string is tuned a quartertone higher, the other C strings are tuned a quartertone lower, all other strings are left the same; you'll have a slightly sharp C3 and C5 for example, but a slightly flat C4. First you indicate how the strings should all be tuned. Then you write the score as if the strings were tuned normally, for example: C#3 - G3 - Db4 - C#4. The harpist will see this and put the C pedal in C# position, the G in G position and D in Db position, like in any other piece. The difference now only is that it will sound differently:

The C3 string is slightly sharp, so the C#3 gives you the quartertone between C# and D. G3 gives you the normal G. Db4 gives you a normal Db. The C4 string is slightly flat, so C#4 gives you the quartertone between C and C#. Admittedly, it makes it a bit tricky for the composer, but nobody claimed composing was easy. And for the player it's common notes like any well-tempered notes, without the need of any kind of special signs. It's perfectly clear how to pedal when you write a C, C# or Db, no matter how the harp is tuned and how it will sound in the end.

Actually, I find notating a scordatura for a harp a lot less problematic than for most string instruments. With a violin or guitar you always have the problem that there are notes for which it is not entirely clear on which string the player will play them, which can mess things up. On a harp, the notation generally tells you -exactly- on what strings and with what pedal positions any note will be played, which makes a scordatura easily predictable. (Unless I'm missing something important here. I'm no harpist…)

Of course, you're basically right. But the problem is, on one side, that the composer must exactly know in which octave range he wants to have a note, e.g. either C# or Db (micro-tuned or not), and on the other hand, that the poor harpist is always playing notes which sound so differently from being notated in the different octave ranges (even poorer with perfect pitch). You just cannot avoid the octave problem of pedal setting when using non-octave-identity.

Get a deaf harpist and you won't have the problem of it sounding differently to her/him than what the notes look like :P