[Harp-L] 12th position

[George Brooks <gbrooks@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm a big advocate of learning to bend accurately to pitch.  We had the 
use of a baby grand piano at the last Rockers In The Rockies, and 
bending to pitch was about 80% of what I taught.  Here are a few ideas:

1.  Play to a keyboard.  This helps with both ear training and training 
your muscles to accurately sound the bent note.  If you cannot pre-hear 
the target pitch accurately you almost certainly will not be able to 
play it accurately.

2.  Play to a tuner.  I find strobe tuners to be the best.  Peterson 
(http://www.petersontuners.com/) now offers virtual strobe software for 
both Macs and PCs for $50.00.  I have never been able to make a 
needle-type tuner work for me, but you might have better luck.

3.  Sing the bent note (accurately!) before you play it.  I have no 
idea why this works, but it does.

4.  Play simple melodies that you know well in which the note you are 
working on is an important melody note and record your attempts.  Since 
you are familiar with how the melody should sound, your ear will tell 
you right away whether you are on target.

5.  Use a clean attack.  Do not slide into the note.

6.  Relax.  Resonance is the key, not force.  It is possible to muscle 
a bend into tune, but the tone will suffer.

7.  After you can produce the bent note accurately by itself, approach 
it from other notes, starting with small intervals (but not too small - 
I think most people find a whole step interval easier than a half-step) 
and proceed over time to larger intervals.

George