The joys of tuning

Q: How long does a harp stay in tune?
A: Twenty minutes, or until someone opens a door.

I've been neglecting my practicing of late as fall semester is coming to an end. (I have also been neglecting other normal day-to-day activities like eating and sleeping.) However, there is another reason I've been avoiding it... winter means chilly temperatures, and chilly temperatures mean uncooperative strings.

I'll admit it: I whine like a little kid when it comes to tuning. I know it's necessary, but it can be such a pain. During the winter I approach tuning with an even deeper sense of futility than usual, knowing the cold will wreak havoc with my strings. It's almost certain that once I've gotten the top C string in tune, the bottom one will have gone flat again.

But I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now. (She said, after five years of lessons...) When I started, I was just plain lazy about it. I would spend time practicing, but I never tuned it regularly. There were times I would leave it untuned for weeks in a row, which I now know is not good for the soundboard. Shame on me. Then on the few occasions I played in public I would freak out because I couldn't get it in tune fast enough, and naturally it wouldn't sound right with the other instruments that were in tune. (Well, duh.)

By this point, I have at least gotten into the habit of tuning it, if not every day, then at least every time I practice. I'm trying to stop looking at it as a chore and think of it as learning how to get my harp to sound its best no matter what the circumstances are.