Dimanche dernier, Les Chemins de Traverse organisaient un plateau de lecture.
Ahmad Motalaei y est venu avec un poème de Rûmî qu’il s’est proposé de chanter plutôt que de simplement le lire à haute voix. Je lui ai proposé un accompagnement à l’harpejji et nous sommes partis dans une impro sans aucune préparation.
I’ve been practicing classical improvisation on the harpejji for some months now, and while experimenting I came up with a prelude in C major that I thought was quite nice.
For various reasons this site has been mostly dormant recently, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve been doing nothing!
Among others, after having played mostly accompaniment on the harpejji for years, I decided to explore more what can be done with the instrument in a solo setting. (This exploration has been partly supported by a grant offered by the City of Neuchâtel, many thanks for that!)
I did not document my research on this website, but I did write about it on the website of Les Chemins de Traverse.
My experience trying to use the raspberry pi as a DIY FX box.
This is the fourth in a series of articles about harpejji technique. The first one was about major scales and the second and third ones were about right hand jazz voicings. This time, let’s talk about hand independence!
Of course, if you’ve been playing the piano before, hand independence is probably not the greatest challenge when picking up the harpejji. However, if you’ve been playing a melodic instrument or if harpejji is your first musical instrument, you’ll probably need to develop this skill (at least it was the case for me!).
Harpejjitabs, the new tablature editor for the harpejji, is available online!
This is the third in a series of articles about harpejji technique. The first one was about major scales and the second one was about right hand jazz voicings. This one is a direct follow-up to the latter, as it presents a alternate, complementary set of right hand voicings for jazz harmony.
To make the best out of the material here, I strongly suggest you first read and practice the first set of voicings.
This is the second in a series of articles about harpejji technique. The first one was about major scales and this one is about right hand jazz voicings.
When rehearsing for the Passeador project I explored some of the possibilities of the harpejji in jazz comping. One of the ingredients is right hand voicings. I will not go into a full course about voicings, but one of the very standard way of playing chords in jazz is alternating between chords of the form 3rd-5th-7th-9th and 7th-9th-3rd-5th.
This is the first in a series of articles about harpejji technique. One of the most thrilling aspects of taking up the harpejji is that it is mostly an unmapped territory. There are very few resources (as of early 2020), both printed and online, and nobody is going to tell you how and what you are supposed to play on such an instrument. However, this can also be daunting sometimes, and a little bit of input from others can be very helpful.
Les Chemins de Traverse viennent de publier deux vidéos prises sur le vif lors des répétitions et concerts Paseador avec Carole Battais au piano et au melodion, et moi à l’harpejji. Malgré la qualité moyenne de ces vidéos, voici quand même une occasion pour ceux qui ont raté ces concerts de se faire une idée de ce mélange d’instruments plutôt inhabituel…