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Just found the Savarez chart showing the lower notes, at least for standard gauge. It is the fourth grouping over on the first page.
Also is the Camac chart in Standard, English (Light), and Heavy.
If it will help, I had some string gauge charts handy and have scanned and attached them:
First is the Savarez GUT chart, listing their light, standard, and heavy gauge sequences. This one only goes down to 4F; Not sure if I have the chart for lower notes.
Second is the Bow Brand chart, listing Standard, Light, Heavy, and Lever sequences. The BB chart also shows the gauging tolerance.
Charles Nix
Gretchen: I guess I’m confused: rereading my post, I just don’t see where I even discussed tone, nor regulation nor tuning, except commenting that nylon sounds different from gut. And I would absolutely agree with you that tone is not at all the same as regulation or tuning, and tone can certainly be affected by string material, brand, age!, and even by prevalent relative humidity, which changes the density of both nylon (a lot) and gut.
My typical life for 2nd c,d,e is 3 -6months, and they will almost always break during a period of damp weather. In Tennessee, that can happen even in the middle of winter. I would love to improve on that, and expect that my next purchase will be to try Premier in that octave and see how it works out.
If you’re keeping Premier gut on all the way to the top and not changing over to nylon even in the 1st octave, and getting 6 months in that range, I am impressed with them!
PS: When does the recording come out?
In damp weather, gut strings will weaken and break. In dry weather, they will contract and break. It is part of the gut experience. I had understood that the BB quality issue was resolved–at least what I have had in the last year has been much improved. I have no experience with Premiere, but may try that out.
During the BB bad quality period (which, at least in my case, they completely covered and replaced strings without charge) I did use some Savarez gut (not fluorocarbon). I haven’t found it substantially different in quality from the newer BB gut.
For me, 3-6 months on a 2nd octave makes me very happy. At the top of the 2nd octave, replacing every month is not uncommon. The 3rd octave is about twice that. Below that, I’ve rarely had a break–partly because I change for sound reasons sooner than they would break.
I also use a bit of 5th octave string for a toggle. Those can buzz and make all kinds of noise, but so can the string ends. I bend both the end and the toggle up away from the soundboard. Camac harps I’ve looked at have wood dowels with a different sort of knot. I’ve heard of some using dental rolls. It never buzzes; but I can’t wrap my head around the physics of using a sound absorbent medium right at the very point where you’re trying to transmit sound to the soundboard.
I install 5th octave with just a figure 8 knot, 4th with a regular “bunny ears” harp knot, 3rd with a harp knot and toggle, 2nd and up with toggle and harp knot with an extra loop. A string, when installed, will stretch (assuming 1 or 2 tunings per day) for 2-3 weeks. Then when you have a bit of damp weather, it will stretch out again, appreciably more than the rest of the harp.
Anytime a harp is moved to different conditions, or the weather changes, some strings may break. If your harp and your ear works with nylon, sometimes people put nylon down into the 3rd octave. Nylon won’t break, but it will sound dead and awful within a year, and somehow different before that. It is really up to your ear, your budget, and your demands on the instrument. The factory 2nd oct and up nylon and the rest gut is an average, not a requirement.
Charles Nix
I’ll second Carl’s recommendation. For clarity and accuracy, nothing even comes close to an analog strobe Peterson. Current models run $750-1000 and require 120V AC. One hint: Use an inexpensive dynamic mic on a stand into the 1/4″ phono jack, which will greatly increase the sensitivity.
For day-to-day use, I have used the Peterson VS-1, and the StroboPlus, which replaces the VS-1. They are about $140; the StroboPlus is Li ion battery like a cell phone. These are all virtual strobes, meaning the strobe display is faked on the display. The iPhone app works similarly.
For the most accuracy–and I don’t want to start a war here–one must learn to tune in the octaves by ear. Yes, it takes time and devotion. Yes, it also takes quiet. I use the tuner as a quick “get it close” for a couple of octaves, then check everything 3rds, 4ths/5ths, octaves by ear to refine, then put the upper and lower end in to match the center. And, I tune pipe organs and harpsichords for a living, so maybe it is just a lot easier for me. But I’ve hears such wretched tuning from so many harps, particularly in the top end from relying totally on tuners. Tuning where the notes didn’t even sound like a scale–but the tuner said it was right, so it was left there–and played there.
In my opinion, you’ll have a hard time with any thing in the extreme low and high octaves: low because of microphone sensitivity drop off, and high because of way tuners display pitch. At least with the Peterson strobes you are actually displaying beats directly rather than cents. One cent is a lot of beats per second in the upper range; what one hears objectionably about poor tuning is the beats, not how many cents it is off.
Oh, all of the Petersons have 1/4″ phono mic inputs. A dynamic mic or a clip on pickup is a very handy accessory. The mic works best in general. The clip pickups are “fiddly” but sometimes necessary in noisy situations.
Charles Nix
Thanks so much, everyone. That all does coincide with what we would do in the organ industry: if the felt won’t make it until the next rebuilding cycle, replace it while you are there.
I hadn’t thought about wrapping tightly to pack in; for organ applications, that’s not an option since the felt is usually a flat cushion disk.
Regarding some tearing up felts fast, and others not, I wonder how much that has to do with the harpist rather than the harp?
I just worked at a church where a well-known builder replaced the main wind pressure regulator with a much smaller one instead of rebuilding the original. The same builder also increased the size of the instrument by 50%, with concurrent increased wind demand. The final result is that when played at full organ the wind pressure starves to half of what it should be, making it incredibly flat whenever you play loudly. We follow up a couple of these things every year–and each time I’m amazed that others can stay in business doing things that way. There was another church where the roof leaked a little–but, strangely, didn’t damage anything except some surface rust on the steel screws, and a few cleanable water stains. Another builder quoted to replace the entire section of mechanism–over $8000 in work twenty years ago. We were called in by the insurance company to consult. Every single note was working perfectly; the worst damage we could find would have required replacing about 60 rusted screws: maybe $500 including the special trip and all. The church insisted on the original repair, replacing a perfectly working item with a new one, and the insurance company went along. Sometimes people deserve what they get. I think all trades are that way. My electrician and plumber friends all have stories, too.
Thanks for all the help in understanding.
Charles Nix
Alyson: That’s a great observation about the tuning being different when notes are struck together than when rolled. I tune using the manner in which the harp is usually played. So I tune very slightly rolled, always upward, because that is the most common way it is heard when playing.
Charles Nix
Allegra: An external microphone will help your tuner immensely. Some clip onto a part of the harp body; but a regular cheap handheld dynamic mic will also be fine.
I find that I tune immediately after the pluck–within a second or so. Notes must be restruck frequently; problems with pitch changing, especially when flatting are the string’s not releasing tension over the bridge pin (or nut) until after it is played strongly the first time. Always restrike once or twice more after the last adjustment is made to be sure the tension is equalized on the string and that the pin is holding correctly.
Tacye: Thanks for the info on mean temperaments! Maybe a good reason to buy another harp to play around with that!
Playing and tuning are two different skills. I know many excellent organists who don’t even notice tuning until things are playing the wrong note. And I know many superb organ and piano tuners who can barely play a hymn. You learn to play by playing. You learn to tune by tuning, and it does take a lot of time, and like playing, a teacher helps to coach on what to listen for.
Several have noted about tuners picking up harmonics–watch that carefully–if the harmonic is in tune, then I can guarantee that the fundamental note is not. Assuming you’re on equal temperament, and if you don’t know what I mean, then you’re on equal temperament. An external mic really helps this. Tuners will also lie, and show pitches both upper and lower without really having enough signal to tell. The pedal harp 7th and 1st octaves will be worst about this; if you have a lever harp, you should be ok except for the top octave or so. Again, a mic or pickup really helps.
Charles Nix
What is the harp model? What pitch is the low (or high) note? Lever harps vary greatly in design and strength, and have to be matched with their string tension.
There are several very good string companies who can do an analysis of the string stress and advise, and who may have had experience with your model before.
Yes, you absolutely can break the soundboard, or the neck. The harp may well be strong enough for some increase, though it would be really unusual if it would go to concert tension and stay in one piece.
And I’m not discouraging you at all. I greatly changed both compass and tension on my first lever harp, and it is a much improved instrument.
Charles Nix
Yes, and pianos work the same way. Keep in mind there are two things going on at the same time. The octaves are (which are theoretically pure–exactly in tune) are being stretched slightly wider. I can’t prove it, but I believe the reason it sounds better (on the harp) is because the attack is relatively sharper the higher you go. The need for stretching on pianos is often attributed to irregular (not on exactly the standard pitch you would mathematically expect) harmonics. I’m not a piano tuner, though. Pipe organs are never stretched; the attack is an overblowing of upper harmonics combined with white noise, but is basically on pitch, and all harmonics are essentially textbook, so there is no need to stretch.
The thirds, fourths, and fifths are to keep the temperament consistent as you go up or down. All fixed pitch instruments which play more than one note at a time are tempered somehow, which is a way of compromising matching overtones of the notes being played. The many ways of actually carrying this out are highly dependent on rules or expectations for musical composition in the period in question.
The now nearly universal “equal” temperament allows music modulated to any key to have the same “feel”–and I won’t get into whether that is good or bad–to me it depends on the context. It allows use of any note at any time, and modulation to any key to work consistently. The thirds and fifths beat at the same speed in every key. It is also by far the hardest to get set really correctly. Older temperament systems allow the thirds in some chords to beat much more slowly than in others–transposing does not simply raise the pitch, but also changes how the music sounds. Some keys have a lot more “energy” than others. In equal temperament, they all sound pretty “energetic”.
As an aside, I keep my lever harp, which is tuned in Eb, set in an unequal temperament that allows keys near C (F, G) to have the slowest thirds, and E major to have really quick thirds. For it to make any difference, though, you have to tune carefully, and regulate frequently.
In earlier music where keys were firmly established, and then departed, different feel for each key was part of the effect of the music, just as gut-strung violins and unvalved trumpets were part of the effect.
Charles Nix
I have the standalone version of that app. Peterson started (and still is) a pipe organ company, so their tuners are everywhere in our industry.
The real strobes, some of which have programmable temperaments, like the 490-ST and 590, are very sensitive and very accurate. Still, with practice, one can tune even more accurately by ear, and the stretch then is automatically adjusted to the optimum for the instrument.
The StroboSoft is a simulated strobe. Basically is is a pattern that rotates. They have far more accuracy and resolution than any of the Korgs, etc, but are not as accurate as the real strobes. They also don’t cost $1000 and don’t require AC power like the real strobes.
The standalone version almost requires an external mic or pickup to have a good solid signal to analyze. I don’t know about the iPhone version except that the software is supposed to be identical. I’d say the harp stretch “sweeteners” (why can’t they just call it a temperament?) is certainly better than tuning straight in, but may not be optimal for your instrument. However, the StroboSoft is more accurate than many other electronic tuners, if you’re really careful about getting the pattern exactly stopped just after the initial attack, then decaying into slightly flat. Also, iIf you have any strings with any falseness, it will throw the StroboSoft for a real loop as it tries to find which pitch is the true one.I use the StroboSoft for setting temperament in one octave (usually from 4th oct A (220 Hz) to 3rd oct G, or a few notes more), then check the fourths and fifths and thirds within that octave by ear and usually adjust some, going back and forth with ear and StroboSoft until that first octave is really right, then carry the whole thing down and up, playing octaves, fourths and fifths. And I agree 100% with Biagio: tune the bass first, then the treble, especially if anything is very far off. And if any notes are far away, plan at the beginning on tuning the whole thing at least twice to get the tension stable.
While I think anyone can learn to tune by ear, I freely admit that just like playing the harp, it takes many hours and days of practice and experience to hear it accurately. Keep in mind that everyone did it that way until the last 20-30 years, it was just another part of learning to play the instrument, starting with just a reference A or C from a tuning fork or another instrument.
Charles Nix
Biagio–absolutely.
Of course we could derail the thread into a discussion of temperament–but then we’d have to get into whether fast thirds are a detriment or a feature contributing to “key feeling”
Then there’s this wonder kicking around in my used-to-only-12-notes-in-an-octave brain that now with a pedal harp, one has 21 notes in an octave–and C# and Db can really be different. It brings to mind attempts back in the mean-tone organ keyboard temperament days when keyboards might have F# and Gb both, along with Db and C# both.
I doubt that one could vary the disc size enough to actually do that because of physical spacing. And, the instrument would be near-useless for late 19th century music that assumes equal or near-equal temperament, which is most of the harp literature.
Charles Nix
Janis, what you’re doing with your harp _is_ stretch tuning. And it doesn’t really hurt when playing with other instruments. The pitch variations of wind and string instruments from one player to another and the relatively short compass of other instruments prevents a practical problem in ensembles–mostly you can’t hear the small amount of stretch used in a harp with all the other out-of-tuneness going on. Unless you’re playing with a harp ensemble. ‘Course the last harp ensemble I was playing with, the struggle was to get some harpists to get the upper register even on the right note.
Biagio, I can’t follow your logic; you’re perfectly right about the third harmonic/second harmonic clash–which would produce 1 beat per second–but upper notes are stretched farther and farther sharp, which would make the 880Hz sharper, and the beats (a little) worse, not better.
I’ve understood that the main reason stretching sounds better is that the attack is always sharp, and you’re tuning the “average” sound of the strings being played. You will get a different tuning if plucking octaves together than if rolling them slightly. (On pianos, there are also many irregular harmonics which affect how the tuning sounds. We pluck in the middle of the string, so the harmonics are much more regular.)
The deviation from pitch on attack for higher notes is greater than for lower, because you’re increasing the overall tension of the string proportionally more when deflecting a shorter string. Additionally, a 5 cent pitch deviation in 7th octave C is 0.1 Hz; a 5 cent variation at 00G is close to 10 Hz. The speed of beats heard depends on the actual numerical difference of frequencies–any two pitches that are 1 Hz apart produce 1 beat per second, but 1 Hz apart at 7th octave C is half a semitone (50 cents). at 00G, 1 Hz is half a cent, which is not noticable to any ear or tuner as being “not G”.
Fun discussion! Thanks to Saul for starting it.
Charles Nix
As an early-intermediate player I’m most often lurking here or asking questions. But here, perhaps I can help. My 35-year “day job” is pipe organ builder–and we live in the world of temperaments and tuning daily.
Pianos are stretched because they do not produce even, regular harmonics. The stretch makes them sound better (more in tune) than tuning dead in. Each instrument may require a different amount of stretch, in different registers, to sound at its best. Many piano tuners today just use an electronic tuner, or perhaps add some standard amount of stretch, which does not create a very artistic result, as Carl noted.
I’ve had a lever harp for 15 years, and a pedal for almost one year now (thank you, Carl, for #188!). I use an electronic strobe to get close in the middle octave, then check the temperament by ear, and finish out by ear. Invariably, I find that I have stretched the trebles sharp several cents through the octaves to the top of the harp, and the basses not quite as much flat. But it all sounds exactly dead in.
No electronic tuner, even a strobe, is accurate enough to really nail the thirds, fourths, and fifths to produce a temperament that sounds good in all keys. Even with going over 2 or 3 times, on my most accurate reference strobe tuners, one can usually find some faults that can be improved by ear. And, the strobes have perhaps ten times the accuracy of any needle or lcd tuner.
Does the harp move away from this? Yes. But when it is all really solidly in tune, the entire instrument resonates and rings much better than it sounds by just tuning each string to the electronic tuner.
The attack on any plucked instrument is very sharp, decaying slightly flat. The harmonic content on a harp, while not as irregular as a piano, is not as pure as, say, a pipe organ (which, by the way, is never stretched any at all).
Alyson, I think you’re exactly right about strings and wind instruments–there is so much variation available that the performers tune in on the fly. The variation available is so much greater than even the greatest variation in any temperament that the term really has no meaning except on fixed pitch instruments.
I’ve gone on too long. Did any of this help? or just raise more questions?
Charles Nix
