THE CULTURE OF THE GAME, THE SOUND PRODUCTION AND THE SOUND OF HARPISTS

Firmly rooted myths about the harp as an instrument in something exceptional and extraordinarily beautiful it is difficult to correlate with the current practice of playing it. The author tries to explain to composers and the mass of listeners what are the differences between these ideal ideas about the instrument with the game of modern artists and tries to find the possibility of these differences smooth out. The author sees such opportunities first of all in finding the causes of “bad” sound at the time of the game. They can be covered in the advantages or disadvantages of the device and condition of the modern instruments and in defects of statement of hands of the player. The last, in turn, may depend on the peculiarities of the physiological and psycho physiological nature of the player. Based on his teaching experience the author explains the dependence of the difficulties of sound production on the structure of arms, hands, fingers and even the growth of the harpist and offers ways to overcome some of the physical shortcomings. The author emphasizes that a special role in the work on improving the sound has a gradually developing ability of the student to hear himself as without constant critical listening to his game development of the musician is impossible. In addition to defects in sound production, which can also be determined by the low level of teaching, the sound quality is influenced by the harpist’s playing culture the terms of which largely converge with the requirements of the culture of the game on all the instruments. This is a game without errors, smoothness of sound, rhythm, accuracy in the transmission of the author’s text, purity of intonation. But the harpists in addition to these general requirements to the culture of the game when working on a musical text, there are special difficulties that are caused by the structure of the harp itself; continuous buzzing of its strings, imperfection of its pedal and fork mechanisms. To preserve the purity of harmony the harpist must have a high level of technology of clearing of unnecessary (buzzing) strings: separate fingers, separate hands-free or both of hands together. For instant, silent permutation of the pedals and precise coordination of simultaneous movements of the fingers, hands and feet, he must have an excellent vestibular apparatus. To tune the harp desirable absolute pitch. In addition, as each harp has its own acoustic features (ringing or booming, long or short sound) and different menzures, the harpist forced achieving its beautiful sound to fit the manner of sound production to this instrument. We also have to take into account the conditions of the game on the harp: the humidity and the density of the air and the acoustics of the halls.