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Harmonics
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Harmonics are a technique often used on the harp, and are produced by stopping the nodal point at the middle point of the string, and plucking the upper half of the string. All of this needs to be done with one hand. The nodal point also changes, depending on whether the string is natural, sharpened or flattened. If the sting is sharpened, the node will be further down the string, than if the string is flattened. |
The technique for using the right and left hands is different, because the different hands rest on the strings in different places. The right hand uses the second finger, placed on the string, and the string plucked with the thumb; where as the left hand uses the outside of the hand resting on the string, and using the thumb or fingers to pluck. With the right hand, only one note can be plucked at a time, but with the left hand two or three can be sounded at the same time, providing that they are not too far apart from each other. At the top and bottom of the instrument, the sound quality is not really good enough to play harmonics successfully, as Miriam demonstrates. |
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| To notate a harmonics for harp, simply put a 'o' over the note as for any other harmonic. | |
| Got more Harp questions? Why not ask one of our players a question in the forum? | |
 Plugins
and Players:Quicktime Player is required for some media clips, and we recommend using Quicktime 7 or later if possible. If you can hear this piccolo solo, you already have Quickime installed. | |