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Techniques
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The harp is played using the thumbs and first three fingers of each hand - harpists don't use their little fingers as they're not long enough. The fingers are played at an angle to the string and as the fingers come off they go into the palm of the hand. |
Chords on the harp are very common, but composers must be careful to make sure they fit within the hand span of the harpist. |
click to see Miriam show how chords work on the harp |
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On the harp, the trill is very different from say, a violin. Instead of alternating between two different notes a semitone apart, a harp trill is two strings, playing the same repeated note, over and over in quick succession. The |
| Bisbigliando ("whispering" in Italian) is a tremolando (rapidly repeated notes, not in time) on a whole chord. Because of the pedals on a harp, sometimes the enharmonic equivalents of notes need to be written, to make a bisbigliando chord work. For example if you wanted an F in the same chord, you'd need to write an E# (which is the same as F) and an F as the effect is usually achieved by both hands playing adjacent strings, set to the same pitches. Bisbigliando is written as chuchotant in French and flüsternd in German and murmurando in Spanish . |
click to see Miriam show how bisbigliando works on the harp |
| 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. | |
result is that this kind of trill is much more resonant.