Composing for Harp

In the stratosphere of the harp, it already achieves this without the physical hand dampening it. This is much like the piano.

Well, in the case of the piano you have dampers that dampen the string when you release the key, which you could again compare to a hand damping the strings of the harp. But on the other you also call it a staccato on a piano when the pedal is pressed and the dampers don't actually go back on the string. I guess "staccato" is simply a term that is not clearly enough defined for all situations - so in this case I simply understand it as "a shorter sound than normal".

Well, in the case of the piano you have dampers that dampen the string when you release the key, which you could again compare to a hand damping the strings of the harp. But on the other you also call it a staccato on a piano when the pedal is pressed and the dampers don't actually go back on the string. I guess "staccato" is simply a term that is not clearly enough defined for all situations - so in this case I simply understand it as "a shorter sound than normal".

Oh yeah, no... I agree with that. Staccato is just what you said.

And I was just talking about how the upper treble strings on the piano don't have a damper for when you release a key. I just mean, the top strings on a harp wouldn't need a dampen either way, no matter what you are articulating.

Oops, yeah, I missed the term "In the stratosphere" in your post.

Wouldn't it be confusing if the piece requiring damping also uses coda symbols?

I didn't think he meant it that way. You don't treat the harp like a keyboard, but for an amateur composer it's good to think of it as a keyboard with no black keys so that you don't write anything impossible to play, since there are only 7 strings to the octave, and not twelve. You can move each pitch set up or down a semi-tone from the C scale, but you don't have the versatility of actually having "black keys" like on a keyboard. Obviously you don't treat it like a piano or harpsichord, but I think that's what SYS65 was getting at. Visualising the 7 string vs. 12 to the octave difference.

Great post! I studied harp in high school ( I was fortunate to be at a PUBLIC school in Downtown DETROIT [yep, that's right, DETROIT] that had a harp program.)

Extensive Chromatics should be avoided at a fast pace. here are some typical excerpts for Harp auditions:

De Falla, Three Cornered Hat

Tchaikovsky, Nutcracker Suite

Tchaikovsky, Sleeping Beauty

Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake

Rimsky-Korsakov, Capriccio Espagnol

Sorry for the off-topicness, but this rang a bell in my mind - when somebody said about the upper notes of the piano lacking dampers. I notice this on most pianos when playing them, that the upper notes sustain because they lack dampers, but the higher you go, the less apparent this is. But I always found the break between the last dampered note and the first damperless note to be very annoying. For instance, Eb6 won't ring, but E6 in comparison seems to ring until the cows come home. Has anybody else been annoyed by this? Especially a pain in composing staccato passages in the high registers. Do all pianos have the same number of dampers, or do some continue up higher?

Again, sorry for the off-topicness.

Well, on a stage, those upper registers are going to sound short regardless.

BUT, that area on the piano is where articulation starts to meld with color... as with the lower register. Just be smart James.. I know you can be :-p

Yeah, pianists fall into the trap of thinking that what they hear at 18 inches is the same thing that the audience hears at 40 feet. Not so.

I guess it all comes down how you are using that register. When you have fast runs, chords, figurations etc., it certainly won't stick out to the audience that one tone is ringing a bit more than the other. If you have some extremely spare music, where you have just single, high-pitched notes now and then and nothing else at the same time, then you should of course be aware of this fact.

I'm personally not sure whether all pianos have dampers up to around the same spot. But mine has dampers up to E6, which seems to be one more than you described, Enigmus. (There's also a metal brace, and thus a larger distance, just between E6 and F6, which may be the reason of stopping right there.)

Interestingly, the felt of my E6 damper is slightly slanted though, so that it only dampens two of the three strings. I don't know if that's a normal thing, a "deliberate misconstruction", or even just a construction error with a benefit by chance - but in any case it's rather effective of creating some sort of transition between the fully damped Eb6 and the undamped F6.

I would listen to the final movement of Stravinsky's Firebird and also to Dukas: Sorcerors Apprentice (From Disney's Fantasia)

The harp, I feel, is well used in these pieces.

It's also sometimes useful, like the Piano is, to double.

Gardener...just checked...my Piano also has slightly slanted damper as well on E6. Eb gets a full mute. E is partial, and F rings out in the heavens.

I had to replace the damper with new felt because the factory one was cut with scissors held by a "drunk" person :laugh: real curved, "derechueco"

Check out Harp Scoring by Stanley Chaloupka.

And remember "Did Columbus Bring | Enough Food Going to America?" for the order of the pedals.