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Topic: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique (Read 3859 times) |
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muddle
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Posts: 430
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Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique  Orchestral_Harp.mui (attachment deleted)
« on: May 23rd, 2011, 3:11am » |
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The Harp instrument attached comes from a free internet sound font. I have no idea what the original source was.
Sorry for delay in putting it here, but I thought I should adjust the decay and release to match an old video I recorded, in which a harp player is demonstrating.
It turned out when she played a strong chord the sound was still fading away after 10 secs. I have not set this quite so long!
She relied on her hands to damp the strings when changing harmonies.
The other setting is the release of the sound. It could be made short to sound the same as when she damped the strings, but it then sounded rather dull when playing short notes.
So I have left a slowish release which seems to give a good flowing sound when doing an arpeggio passage but doesn't go on for the full fading time unless you use very long notes or extend the note pressure time.
Hope its okay. Best to try and see how it works.
It's a small file so is not compressed.
A bit of chorus and reverb. are set on . Seems to enhance the harp tone.
The advanced velocity filter is set on too, but only make a little difference.
cheers. David L.
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Ramses12
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Re: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique
« Reply #2 on: Jun 1st, 2011, 5:12pm » |
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Good one!
Thanks muddle!
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Jel
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Re: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique
« Reply #3 on: Jul 14th, 2011, 5:52pm » |
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I play a celtic harp, so here's some more on the instrument.
The original instument was wire-strung throughout, and is often called a clarsach.
The remaining small harps are reduced-range versions of the concert harp, with the distinction that losing the bass end of the latter, it also loses some of the sonority, making the small harp brighter in the upper registers.
As in guitars, the biggest distinction is in gut-strung and nylon-strung upper octaves, generally down to middle-C inclusive, after which concert harp wire strung (actually steel-wrapped floss with a thin steel core) take over. A very few harps made by Pilgrim for professional players take uncored bass strings, making a sound closer to the upper octave gut tone.
Three different tones can be obtained from a single string, "à la table", sounding very guitar-ish, normal tone, and harmonics on the half, third and quarter stops on the string, giving octave, octave-and-a-fifth, and two octave harmonics.
Damping is used to suppress unwanted harmonics when modulating chords, and in playing the wire-strung clarsach - increase the release to emulate this. The upper strings are solid phosphor-bronze, and are played with the nail, sounding plectrum-like. The amount of attack sonority is controlled by the amount of finger skin on the string, giving male players a weightier sound than female.
Welsh triple-harps are played by pulling aside the outer strings to play the semi-tones in the central row.
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muddle
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Re: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique harp_temp.mp3 (attachment deleted)
« Reply #4 on: Jul 29th, 2011, 1:47am » |
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Hi Jel, as a harp player could you ( or anyone else interested) identify the type of harp in the attached vaguely harp-like twiddlings?
Its the sound from my keyboard, which disappointed me by not sounding very orchestral (to my ears.)
Could it be that they sampled a celtic harp .. or something fairly small anyway?
David the muddle.
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muddle
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Re: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique
« Reply #5 on: Jul 30th, 2011, 5:52am » |
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Hmm. If anyone was interested , please ignore the request for identification above.
I found some mp3s of Celtic harps and they have a lighter tone than the attachment. I see what Jel means by a guitar-ish tone.
When I looked closer, my keyboard sound programmers had applied quite a bit of low pass filter.
When I reduced this the sound become more pleasing and fairly Celtic-harp like.
cheers David L.
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Jel
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Re: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique
« Reply #6 on: Dec 11th, 2011, 12:19am » |
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Yup, that was a concert harp, probably Lyon and Healey, in your sample - you can hear sympathetic resonance way on down in the bass, and there's a lot of soundboard amplification from a big concert harp soundboard.
An earlier comment talked about the very slow decay - what's happening is that the power put into the strings is partly conserved in the octaves above and below (on a concert harp, as many as seven other strings) and they will not only continue to sound, but also restart sounding the strings you damped! Consequently, damping is important, and that depends on what's sounding - if it's pretty much just the string played, it can be damped with just a finger, but if you've been laying into florid chords, the beast can be pretty loud - second only to the Concert Organ - and it'll take both hands on full spread to damp the worst of it, as second and third harmonics spread (the technique for equal temperament tuning uses these harmonics to get to every note on the harp). I'd reckon that a well-tuned harp can ring for up to a minute, undamped, when a male's playing the chords. I've seen female players (Sioned Williams) use their entire forearm, the benefit of short sleeves. The technique is the same as the guitar Palm Mute, however.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 11th, 2011, 12:56am by Jel » |
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muddle
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Re: Orchestral Harp user instrument -- as mentioned on Atelier Démocratique
« Reply #7 on: Dec 11th, 2011, 11:25pm » |
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Thanks Jel, interesting. I am quite impressed you can suggest a maker for the harp!
Have to say, the more I learn about the challenges of playing real instruments the more I respect the amazing results musicians get.
David.
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