Sandra,

The trick is to tune your harp with all the levers disengaged, i.e. so that they are not bringing any strings up a semi-tone, to the key of E-flat major (3 flats) so then you put the levers in position on the E, A, and B strings, et voila, you have it in the key of C-major. Then for G-Maj you use the F levers, for D-Maj you use the F's and C's etc etc. You can get up to the key with 4 sharps and down to E-flat major just by engaging or disengaging the levers. Clever, huh?

If this explanation is not clear let me know and I'll try to put it into something clearer.

Everyone else, I wasn't intending to limit the discussion to harps but to broaden the discussion to all of the instruments Susan mentioned, plus any more we can think of. The thread title was too short to say that clearly.

So, do you all know about the harp e-mail mailing list called the Harplist?

You can subscribe or talk to the list manager at the following email address:

Harplist-owner@onelist.com

You can send email to the list through the following email address:

Harplist@onelist.com

Messages sent to that address will be sent to all other subscribers.

To subscribe to new lists, change your current subscriptions to digest, or start new lists, please visit the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com, and click on the User Center link on the menu bar. When logging in, use the password listed above.

I can highly recommend this list. It is as friendly, helpful and interesting as Mudcat. And there is an archive of previous list topics, although if you do harp-related internet searches on Infoseek you will probably get some of their archived material listed too.

Yes, I know, we are not all harp players but there is probably some degree of overlap even if only because of similarities in the music which lends itself to be played on a large number of strings.

Helen

P.S. When I did the original posting to this thread I made a typo, which I corrected and now wish I hadn't. I wrote "striiings" instead of "strings" but it's almost like a visual cue with all those "iii's" together like parallel strings.