What muscles are required to play the harp?

What muscles are required to play the harp?

TOS is pretty much the over-strengthening of the back muscles (think sitting at a harp for HOURS with arms extended) and a weakening of the chest muscles (rounded shoulders–which are necessary to play!).

Can you play harp with long nails?

If you adopt a very fingers down, thumb up hand position it is possible to play the harp with quite long nails and good technique. There is the risk to the sounboard of gouges if the nails hit it by accident and along the edges when pulling the harp back to playing position.

Does the harp hurt your fingers?

Playing the harp means a lot of hard work for our bodies. It is often the fingertips which constantly come into direct contact with the instrument that take the toll. However, there are two simple things you can do to keep your fingers happy and blister-free – you may be surprised to find out what they are!

Is a harp loud?

The harp is not a particularly loud instrument but the sound of its attack does penetrate, so composers often only use one with an orchestra or two with a larger orchestra. The harp relies on 7 foot pedals to change the pitches of its 47 strings.

How do Harps make noise?

Each time the soundboard rises it is pushing air, creating pressure waves. The air right around the harp is pushing on the air that is a bit further away and so on and so on. Eventually, there is an ear. The pressure waves sail right on in to the ear drum and press on it and wallah, a sound is born!

What sound does a harp make in words?

Gentle, metallic, blurring, resonant, short, hard, drifting, full-sounding, rushing, clear, brilliant, glittering, flowing, dull, mellow, sharp, crystal clear, reverberating, splashing, cascading. The attack time is short and depends on the length of the string.

Why is a harp curved?

When a harp string is plucked, it vibrates with a certain frequency, compressing and decompressing nearby air* and making sound waves of the same frequency. So the curvature in the frame changes, and the type of string has to change too, to keep the frequency dropping exponentially and so allow more octaves.