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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ค. 2019
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Today I give away esoteric secrets, like 4 ways to tune the pesky bass strings!
to purchase tuners, wrenches, and tuning clips, www.autoharp.com - บันเทิง
Thank you! I was given the Oscar Schmidt 15 chord autoharp that belonged to a dear friend who passed away this summer. I’m sure she hadn’t touched it in over five years. Amazingly, it was not too much out of tune. About half the strings needed minor tuning. This was a fun exercise!
This was super-helpful. I just got an autoharp from a friend and I tuned it using my experience having tuned dulcimer, guitar and fiddle. So many helpful and interesting tips to help me make sure I’m not screwing up (any worse than an OS15B that’s been in a basement for years might be already).
Hal buddy, you are simply the best.
Thank you so much . I’m just about to buy my first autoharp . You explanation of how to tune was awesome .. I’m sure it will be very helpful 👍👍
Great tips, thanks, Hal! Love this series. My mother recently got a used autoharp and I've been learning up to help her get started.
Your understanding of "harmonics" is flawed. You're not alone, this is a widely misunderstood concept. To be clear, you're totally right about how overtones work, and harmonic can be a synonym. But the guitar player's understanding of "harmonic", in the sense of "popping a harmonic" as you use it, has some built-in misunderstandings.
When you place your finger on a string at a harmonic location (any 1/N point on the string), what happens is that you stop the string from vibrating at that point, creating what's called a "node" in the vibration mode. Every frequency is associated with a mode shape, each of which has a number of these nodes at which it never moves, even when the rest of the string is vibrating. Your finger, by forcing a node at a given location, effectively filters out all the overtones (and the fundamental frequency) that don't have nodes at that location. It's exactly the same set of modes/frequencies you'd get with a string only as long as the fraction you've chosen (e.g. half if your finger is at the half-length point). In particular, *it is not in any sense a more pure tone than the whole string makes* and in fact has exactly the same overtone structure as the whole string (if it's a uniform string of course--non-uniformly wrapped strings have different overtone structures, as you mentioned). Use by guitar players of the word "harmonic" to describe this paying technique gives rise to a lot of confusion. I'm happy to explain the mathematics of this in depth if you like.
There is a way to make a more pure tone--by plucking at the half-way point. The particular set of frequencies/notes made by a string is determined entirely by the physics of the string itself, specifically by the distribution of mass and tensile stiffness. "Popping a harmonic" filters out some of these overtones, but doesn't add any new ones. The relative loudness of each overtone (i.e. the timbre), however, is not determined by the physics of the string alone, but depends on where and how you pluck it. Plucking in the middle of the string maximally excites the fundamental frequency. Plucking anywhere else puts less energy into the fundamental mode, increasing the contribution of various higher overtones. By plucking near the end of the string as you did while "popping harmonics" on the low strings to tune them, you actually created a much *less pure* tone than you would get by simply plucking the string in the middle. Now, if your goal is to tune to a harmonic of the string for some reason, you get the most pure tone by plucking the middle of the short segment of the string with your damping finger at the 1/N point--e.g. with your damping finger at the 1/3 point of the string, pluck at the 1/6 point. But this will produce exactly the same overtone series as plucking the whole string at the half way point (transposed up, of course). It will *not* be a more pure tone.
I don't know your mathematical background, but if you're familiar with Fourier analysis you can compute the overtones produced by a given plucking location as the Fourier (half sine-) series of the initial shape of the plucked string, namely the triangle produced by your finger at the middle and the nut and bridge at the ends. You can also compute the frequencies (i.e. eigenvalues) of the one-dimensional wave equation and compare to the subset with a given forced node ("popped harmonic" damping finger location) to verify that the overtone set is identical.
I have a lot to learn about autoharps, and about music for that matter, but the mathematics of vibration are in my wheel house. Happy to answer questions if you have any. Thanks again for the great series!
Hal, .... Have you used a Cell Phone with a guitar tuning app. installed on it to tune the lower strings? I lay my cell phone with a tuning app in it on the key board and it picks up that note much more easily and makes the turning very close to accurate. Using the center harmonics of the bass strings with that cell phone will work even better. I tried it out long ago and I was very surprised on how well it worked in tuning the few lower Bass strings. Give it a try and let me know what you feel about tuning them that way. I might also add, that I lay a small towel over the higher tuned strings while tuning the lower strings so I don't have them, ring out along with the bass strings when plucked. I just make sure the towel doesn't touch the low bass strings while tuning. It gives the tuner a clear clean sound along with a cell Phone tuning app. What throws things off is that the smaller shorter string begin ringing along with the bass string when plucked and it screws up the turner's ability to get the notes sound correctly. When you pluck a bass string all other strings will end up vibrating along with that bass string at a different slightly slower rate of vibration which is what is throwing the tuner off hearing the bass string correctly in harmonic tone. You have to dampen all the higher strings while tuning the bass strings. Tuning will be far more accurate when you do this.
A small light cotton hand towel will dampen the higer tuned strings from ringing when the bass strings are plucked for tuning. Use center harmonics (like shown by Hal), to help even more give a clearer, cleaner sound to the tuner.
Get a harp with with fine tuners if you can. They make them, but they are hard to find.
I build autoharps st Daigle autoharps and all the harps we make have them. In fact I'm the one who makes the fine tuners. Yes they are very handy.
I really appreciated the tips on tuning the bass strings!! 😁 They've always been a hard thing for me to tune😕
Interesting thanks Hal
Thankyou...brilliant
Thank you so much, for the info,
👍🙋♀️
Very helpful thanks
Great! Thank you!
Any mechanic will tell you that the multi-point, “star” type wrench is much weaker, and much more likely to slip and strip the nut, bolt head, or peg. “Square peg in a square hole” seems like such common knowledge that it shouldn’t have to be repeated.
I bought about 10 of those tuning clips at deep discount a few months ago so I could stick piezos on things.
I use the iPhone app Cleartune, which is really good and has big lettering!
I also use an iPhone witha a tuning app. to tune my harps. Far better quality of tuning. Take a small ahnd towel and lay it over all the higher tuned strings while tuning all the bass strings. That way you don't get harmonic vibes off the higher strings that also screw up your tuners decoding of the required note you are seeking on the bass string. Use the center harmonic on each bass string as well while tuning. You will find the end reading of the note is more stable on the tuner when read. Many other smaller strings ringing along with that single bass note is the causes a lot of missed tuning accuracy on a bass note string. Once the bass string is pluckked all other harmonic higher strings begin vibrating as well and it is picked up by the tuner and it screws up the reading on the tuner.
I was surprised on how the shorter higher strings will ring along un-heard by the human ear once a bass string is plucked especially by the tuner when tuning a bass string. This is how I tune my harps for some years now as explained above
@@waynedavies3185 I'm using IRCAM's The Snail these days. It shows the whole spectrum so it's not "confused" by harmonics, although you may be amazed at how noisy string plucking is (like the aforementioned bass strings). Hal just did a video demonstrating the carbon fiber based autoharps they have at D'Aigle Autoharps, which have stupendous tuning stability! Kind of pricy, but it has other advantages as well. th-cam.com/video/BD8GRwOCvOs/w-d-xo.html
Here's another question. I play outdoors a lot which means lots of temperature changes. Circumstances these days require that I tune the night before. It seems to me that if it's hot outdoors the next morning most of my strings (but not all) will be a little flat and if it's cold most of them will be a little sharp. Am I correct? Have you observed that also?
¡Gracias!
This video answered so many of my tuning questions! I studied it, and listened to it at least 4 times, and took lots of notes. Excellent! Thanks! So many helpful pointers! I only have two questions left: Is there a wrench available which fits the newer Oscar Schmidt pins besides the one which ships with the 'harp? I expect you will say no, but I am still hoping for a wrench which gives better control. And I find I have to move my red Snark tuner to different locations as I work through all the strings. Not all the strings register if I leave it clipped to the same pins. Perhaps I need a Snark HZ-1? I find my Korg tuner is too sensitive. It jumps around so much that I am left guessing what the average might be. I also like the Snark tuner because I don't need the light in the room (or outdoors) to be just right to read it.
Yeah the Snark Hz proves to read better. No, as far as we know theres no wrench that fits the new pins, including the one they give you. It's just wrong.
@@wildautoharp Thanks, Hal. Someday I will upgrade to better equipment.
Hey all you autoharp lovers: I got a Snark HZ-1 chromatic tuner and there's no problem getting it to hang on to my tuning pegs. It also "hears" better than my red one so I don't have to keep trying different locations like I did with the red one.
Where can I find a star head tuning wrench? Is it the same as a star socket and if so what size? M5 M6?
Not the same. We sell them at dAigle Autoharps: autoharp.com
How do I change the batteries on the built-in tuner?
I think there's a door on the back of the harp!
@@wildautoharp Thank you. Guess I should have looked.😏
I hate that Korg. It does a terrible job. It will say it's E when I've tuned to F, same with all the strings. Then I use a different digital and it measures correctly. To me Korg needs to go back to the drawing board.
Way too long to show way too little
I totally agree.