Sharping the A-Pedal is really hard! Should it be?

[Ohnahnettie]

First, I’d like to thank tacye, saul, and gorman for their advice about shoes. Wearing a slight heel with thin soles does seem to help. Playing barefoot isn’t too bad either. BUT. . .no matter what I wear on my feet, I have a lot of trouble with the A pedal. I’m trying to practice with it by playing Greensleeves in the key of B minor. That forces me to play an A#, and to lock it in because I have to play a G# right after that. Just pressing the pedal without locking it in is not a problem. But when I do lock it in, I have to strain to get it to go. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the harp.

Any thoughts?

[Sylvia]

Could you be sitting too far away or too far to the left? Or maybe your bench is not high enough to give you leverage?
Perhaps you could just play it with pedals in Db instead of D. Then you’d just need to go to naturals.

[Sid Humphreys]

I had this trouble with the G pedal years ago with my 23. It felt as if I had to come up off the bench to lock it in place. I finally had a harp technician adjust this during a regulation. It may have been the pedal spring that was the culprit (Can’t remember if I was even present when he did it). He was somewhat reluctant to do this as the pedals need to feel uniform and overdoing this job could ruin that. Please don’t attempt this adjustment yourself!
As for playing barefoot, please don’t. It’s not a good habit and you will find later that there are pieces that you can’t play with shoes on. Yes, it’s cute but it looks unprofessional in a gig (like a string player that has to chew gum.)

[mia-strayer]

I also have trouble with that A pedal too
Do you think your harp is too big for you
I play an 85 GP harp
Have you tried a smaller pedal harp you might be able to reach that pedal easer
I’ve knottiest that some harps do have closer pedals
For instance I’ve played on a 85 p pedal harp at L&H & I could reach that A easer than my 85 GP & my harp teacher’s harps

[Tacye]

Do you keep your heels on the floor and swivel the foot to notch the pedal or do you move the whole foot? If you are swivelling the foot you need to have the heel inwards and a bit close to the harp to start with or your foot just won’t bend that way. But as you swivel the foot the heel to pedal distance gets a little closer and either the pedal needs to slide in a bit from the toes, or the heel needs to move away from the harp. Of course when you are pushing down on a pedal getting it to slide slightly on the sole of the shoe is harder. I think I have just found a justification for my habit of engaging this pedal by pulling the whole foot sideways.

One a completely different note, harps can be altered! I would discourage anyone from doing this until sure of what you want from a harp and that the awkwardness isn’t the sort of thing that will go away with practice and developing expertise. You will probably need to persuade the technician doing the work too. The outer bit of the pedal, just from the bolt where it folds up for transport can be bent inwards – you would need to do more than just the A to give it room. Also pedal springs can be softened, some of the force needed is for the forks bending the bass wires, but much is from the springs. It may make the harp mechanism sluggish to return to natural or flat so will depend on what your priorities are. This could be undone by replacing the pedal springs with new ones, and I hope replacement straight pedals could be acquired too – might be safer to remove the original ones and store them and mount new curved ones.

[mia-strayer]

My feet are too small to keep the heels flat on the floor
On another note I’m looking for iPhone & iPad apps that would write the music as I play my harps
I posted this in another forum too

[Author]

Posts