How to Tune Your Lap Harp - Zither

Once tuned, our Wooden Zither Lap Harp will stay in tune for an amazingly long time, but like all real musical instruments will eventually go out of tune.

If you are musical, tuning it is easy. Our Lap Harp is tuned to a major scale. During making, each harp is tuned to the key of G, but it can also be tuned to the keys of F, F-sharp, A, A-flat, B flat, and others.

If you are not musical, then we suggest you have someone who plays a string instrument (guitar, violin, etc.) tune it for you. This can be a friend, music student, music shop, etc.

Here are a few additional tuning tips:

1. Like any real musical instrument, if you tighten the strings too much, they can break. The adjustments needed to tune your Lap Harp are very small.

2. Keep the small tuner away from children and hide it. (Children can easily break strings by turning the tuning pins too much.)

3. Make sure the tuning wrench fits all the way down on the tuning pin before you begin tuning. This will prevent the tuner from stripping out.

4. If you are using your Lap Harp in a heavy use setting (a school, for example), you should consider purchasing a heavy duty tuner. It makes tuning much easier.

5. Starting from the bottom string, each string is tuned to the following note: G, A, B, C, D, E, F-sharp, G, A, B, C, D, E, F-sharp, G. (The first G, by the way, is the G above Middle C.)

You can also find videos on how to tune a lap harp on YouTube.