Finale Forum

How do others here keep track of harp pedals while working? it gets a bit tedious and frustrating to mark pedals on a piece of paper, then cross out, rewrite, cross out, rewrite, ad nauseam.

I am in the final moments of completing the score of a ballet that includes a somewhat involved harp part, and I had such a hard time keeping track of which pedals were in what position at what measure. When you're talking about multiple hundreds of pages of score it does get tedious.

My experience is that harp players ignore your markings and work it out for themselves.

::: Bill

Yeah, I stopped including them long ago.

it's not so much to write the pedals in, but to keep track so that what you're writing is playable!
I mean, you don't want to arrive and suddenly have 6/7 pedals to reset.

Good point.

I wish I knew the answer, but I agree with this.

Michel R E wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 12:42 am

it's not so much to write the pedals in, but to keep track so that what you're writing is playable!
I mean, you don't want to arrive and suddenly have 6/7 pedals to reset.

With computer software it's easy to offer two versions of the part: one with pedalling and one without.

Michel R E wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:24 pm

How do others here keep track of harp pedals while working? it gets a bit tedious and frustrating to mark pedals on a piece of paper, then cross out, rewrite, cross out, rewrite, ad nauseam.

If only calculating harp pedals and adding the markings to the part automatically was the kind of thing that notation software could do for you.
https://www.scoringnotes.com/reviews/do ... -pedaling/

Stanley Chaloupka’s excellent book, “Harp Scoring,” has an appendix on “Making the Pedal Tracker.” Might be exactly what you need.

SamGroude wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:04 am

Stanley Chaloupka’s excellent book, “Harp Scoring,” has an appendix on “Making the Pedal Tracker.” Might be exactly what you need.

is that the page of paper with seven sliding strips of paper that indicate the pedal positions?

Yes, I think he suggests making it out of cardboard.

This looks like it might be even better:

http://chris-lane.com/software/Projects ... acker.html

I think that this might be what you need:

http://www.chrissansom.net/harp

Chris

it turns out my significant other overheard me bitching and moaning about how tedious harp pedals were to keep track of...
I now find myself with a nice little Android app on my tablet that does exactly what those do.
for me the advantage is it's on my tablet, so no need to alt-tab back and forth in and out of Finale.

One important (but often overlooked) thing which helps harpists is remembering to add naturals when pedal is returned from flat/sharp position. Harpist, who is sightreading (think film or similar gigs) or reading part through 1st time to mark pedalling, sees the natural and moves/marks pedal accordingly. Note with no "courtesy" natural might get skipped (especially in busy passages) and thus - wrong notes. Pedal diagrams are IMHO only needed in glissandi (to be sure of the tuning - only really needed if pedals change but for safety still wise to have) if *all accidentals are diligently marked*. Every harpist has its own way of marking pedals/diagrams and positioning them so usually helpful pedal marks by composer are erased with white-out pen and scribbled over...