@bytebro @keefeglise Oops forgot my bona fides: I am a professional music editor, have edited a fair amount of harp music.

@keefeglise

"I am not a harp player"(!) but my guess would be a very different playing technique, but when mastered, probably brilliant for jazz or other 'less structured' music!

You do realise BTW, that 'somewhere on the Fedi' there will be a harp player going "oo, oo, I know!"

@bytebro Well I did use the tag! But what's a chromatic note?

@keefeglise @bytebro Jargon, innit. Chromatic means all the piano notes (black and white keys), as opposed to ‘diatonic’ which is only the seven white key notes = (for example) a major scale, and almost all folk tunes and nursery songs.

@keefeglise

Forgive me if I'm 'teaching granny to suck eggs' here, but you did ask!

Normal scale starts at a root, and progresses through some full tones and some semitones (white and black keys on a keyboard?) for the octave, so in the key of C as an example, it's all 'white notes', seven of them.

A chromatic scale is *all* semitones, so imagine running the scale on a keyboard, but playing *every note*, whether white or black. There are 12 to an octave.

@bytebro Thanks!

@bytebro @keefeglise Very quick explanation based on what I think is meant by that description:

A chromatic harp has a separate string for each possible note on a piano (12 notes per octave). A normal pedal harp has 7 strings per octave, and the pedals allow each string to be changed in pitch up and down one semitone (= to the neighbouring keys either side on a piano). This means there is some overlap of pitches.

This pedalling system restricts a little bit what notes the harp can play all at once, and means the player must use both feet constantly to change the pitches of strings as required by the music. All that goes away on the chromatic harp. No feet required.

@Gaolaitch @bytebro So the reason for using a chromatic harp is that it allows access to combinations of notes not possible on the traditional instrument?

@keefeglise @bytebro Yeah. The more dense the harmonies, the more restrictive it is. You can’t do a chromatic scale* at any sort of speed on the pedal harp, for instance

* all keys on piano in order up or down

@keefeglise @Gaolaitch

I'd guess that ona normal harp, those combinations would likely require pedal-work which may or not be possible. A truly chromatic harp would presumably make all the combinations available, but not necessarily easy to play!

@bytebro @keefeglise Yes that’s right. In the Romantic era (big orchestras, complex music) composers would typically write for two harps so they could share out the notes in a way that made them possible (each using different pedal settings).

@Gaolaitch @keefeglise

Yay, I learned a thing. Thank you Jody!

@bytebro @keefeglise My pleasure, glad I could help.

@bytebro @Gaolaitch Likewise. Thanks to you both.

@Gaolaitch @bytebro Ah. All is clear. I did not know harps had pedals!

@keefeglise @bytebro Not all harps! I spared you that. The modern classical harp used in all orchestral music and solo classical playing does. It’s a 19thC invention I think.