Delving into the Harpejji (scales and fingering)

It had been in the back of my mind ever since watching Stevie Wonder tear into one during his Songs in the Key of Life tour back in 2015.  The harpejji.  This amazing, awe-inspiring instrument that seemed to be a godsend for keyboardists – a stringed instrument with an enormous expressional palette that’s played much like a keyboard instrument, with hands in a piano-like position.  Being the genius that he is, Wonder appeared to master this relatively new instrument created by Tim Meeks of Marcodi Musical Products in no time flat.  As for me, after finally taking the plunge and purchasing a beautiful G16 harpejji last winter, I found myself floundering after several months.  I’d thought that I could approach the instrument intuitively, eschewing the formality that accompanied my piano instruction decades ago, and to some degree, I succeeded.  But after months if piddling around and coming up with a few nice motifs and learning a few songs, I realized that I had to approach things in a more systematic way. 

A big challenge for me was fingering and how to best approach notes quickly and comfortably.  I kept on second guessing myself when viewing tutorials on YouTube, as the techniques they displayed seemed anything but efficient, offering one-octave scales that required sliding into notes and that didn’t allow for multiple octave movements.  Even the newly-added charts on the Marcodi website don’t achieve what I’d like to see.

In the midst of my exploration, I happened upon a blog entry by Matthieu Amiguet of Switzerland through the “harpejji hangout” forum, and this cracked the door open for me.  It confirmed my suspicions about what I’d been viewing online, and it inspired me to really nail down fingering for the most useful scales.  The fingering that Amiguet decided upon for the major scales are exactly what I settled on, and I’ve since (mostly) settled on fingering for minor, harmonic minor, blues and pentatonic scales. For all of the examples below, I’ve written fingering that assumes you’ll continue to go up the scale. You might end up using slightly different fingering once you reach the end of your run.

Here is the fingering for major scales as I originally viewed at Amiguet’s blog.

After some additional exploration, I decided that for natural minor scales I’d use the same fingering as above, but starting on the scale’s 6th note.

For harmonic minor, it’s easy to adjust the right hand to accommodate raising the 7th note.  For the left hand, this isn’t as easy.  I’ve offered two solutions, the first without a sliding note, which would normally be preferred, the second including a slide.  Although the first solution requires a bit of a jump, it actually works pretty well. with a little practice.

For pentatonic scales, the following fingering allows for quicker movements than what you’ll find at some of the online tutorials.  It looks a bit awkward at first, but really works well once you get the hang of it. I’ve also included an alternative right-hand version that may come in handy sometimes.

For a variation of the pentatonic scale – the blues scale – once again the right hand fingering is easily achieved, fast and efficient.  This is a blast to play using only the first three fingers.  For the left hand, the fingering is clunky and hard to manage.  I’ve looked for other possibilities and just can’t find one that I like.  Fortunately, the times when I would rip through a blues scale on the left hand are few and far between.

That’s what I’ve come up with so far, and it’s helped me navigate the harpejji much better than I was able to before.  I’ve still got a long way to go, but thanks to Matthieu Amiguet I’ve been able to at least start cracking the code.

If you’ve got your own preferred fingerings for these scales or others that I haven’t yet address, please consider sharing them with me or adding them on the Harpejji Hangout forum.  And if you’re a harpejji player in the Chicago area, I’d love to meet you and exchange ideas.  Give me a shout.

Music Inspires During the Pandemic

I’ve never had more time to write, but pandemics and social distancing apparently don’t kindle creativity.  Lately my mind works best with logical, choreographed activities like woodworking, crossword puzzles and home improvement projects.  Not exactly awe-inspiring stuff.

But one idea sprung up on social media in time for my family’s roundtrip drive to Lexington, Kentucky and back: the 30 Day Song Challenge.  It’s a simple exercise to get you to think of music that’s inspired you in various ways over the years, to get you to mine some of the songs that maybe you’ve forgotten about, and to share your choices with others.

(by the way, our drive was to move our daughter home from her apartment, so no judging)

My daughter suggested that the four driving companions pick a song from each category, and rather than play one song a day, we’d plow through as many as we could during the six hour drive via a Spotify playlist.  I believe we got through about fifteen rounds on our way to Lexington, so about sixty songs, and it was a enjoyable way to pass the time.  Since our trip we’ve continued to gather together during the evenings to play a few rounds of songs, Zooming in my other daughter who lives in California.  It’s a great way to ensure a little family time instead of going off in separate rooms to pursue our own time-sucking activities. 

Each of us have our own proclivities, and the exercise has forced us to open up our minds to different genres and time periods.  My wife isn’t a music aficionado, but she’s come up with a bunch of songs that the rest of us never would have considered.  Case in point, and an example of one of the most egregious affronts to all that’s holy: Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love,” my wife’s choice for “A Song You Remember From Childhood.”  Awful, awful stuff, but she’s also dug up some great songs, and my kids have introduced me to a bunch of newer tracks, including many in the hip-hop genre that I don’t normally gravitate toward.  In short, it’s been eye-opening and fun.  To make the exercise even more fun and challenging, many of us have opted to have no repeat artists, which is a feat after fifty rounds!

Some of the 30 day categories are a little lame, so we’ve created a bunch of our own. The possibilities are limitless. Rather than share all of our specific choices, I thought I’d list the other categories that we’ve come up.  Including the original 30 Day Challenge, we’ve now done 50 categories and have a bunch more in the works.  Here are the ones we’ve added so far and the songs I personally chose for each category:

Song that’s acoustic (Hometown – live version, Joe Jackson)
Song that expresses satisfying anger (Hard to Laugh, The Pursuit of Happiness)
Song that reminds you of a specific person (Code of Silence, Billy Joel)
Song that’s creepy (Paranoid Android, Radiohead)
Song whose musicianship amazes you (Rosanna, Toto)
Song with stupid lyrics that you still love (Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung)
Song that pumps you up (If You Want It You Got It, Bryan Adams)
Song about friendship or support (Trouble Me, 10,000 Maniacs)
Song that’s funny but isn’t a parody or gag song (Her First Mistake, Lyle Lovett)
Song about societal problems (Oh Jungleland, Simple Minds)
Song that gives you the chills (We Belong Together, Rickie Lee Jones)
Song that tells a great story (I Hung My Head, Sting)
Song that celebrates a breakup (Salt In My Tears, Martin Briley)
Song that laments a breakup (I Miss You, Randy Newman)
Song that fills you with awe (And You And I, Yes)
Song that’s under three minutes (Dear Madam Barnum, XTC)
Song that’s a guilty pleasure (The Name of the Game, ABBA)
First song you heard by a particular artist (I Remember Me, Innocence Mission)
A great song from an otherwise bad album (Breathe, Melissa Etheridge)
Song that blew you away the first time you heard it (Here With Me, Dido)

One note: for the category of great story songs, my son and I actually chose the same tune – “I Hung My Head” – by Sting.  One of the best.  When I learned that we’d doubled up, I switched to another Sting song, “Ghost Story,” and could have easily chosen another of his tracks, “Seven Days.”  The guy can write a good story!

Here are the original 30 and my choices:

Song with a color in the title (Red Rain, Peter Gabriel)
Song with a number in the title (Driver Eight, REM)
Song that reminds you of summertime (One of these Days, Adrian Belew)
Song that reminds you of someone you’d rather forget (Change of Heart, Tom Petty)
Song that needs to be played loud (No More, No More, Aerosmith)
Song that makes you want to dance (Escapade, Janet Jackson)
Song to drive to (Spirit of Radio, Rush)
Song about drugs or alcohol (Comfortably Numb, Pink Floyd) - NOTE: my son picked the same song, so I switched to Alcohol by Barenaked Ladies)
Song you never get tired of (New Sensation, INXS)
Song from your preteen years (Stay in Time, Off Broadway)
Song from the 70s (Logical Song, Supertramp)
Song to be played at your wedding (Sweet Potato Pie, James Taylor)
Cover song (Stop Your Sobbing, The Pretenders)
Classic favorite (Sir Duke, Stevie Wonder)
Duet You’d Sing for Karaoke (Common People, William Shatner)
Song from the year you were born (Hung Up on a Dream, The Zombies)
Song that makes you think about life (Fast Forward, Joe Jackson)
Song that has many meanings (Love and Hard Times, Paul Simon)
Song with a person’s name in the title (Alex Chilton, The Replacements)
Song that moves you forward (Chasing the Sun, Sara Bareilles)
Song everybody should hear (Tripping Through Time, Sunshine Boys)
Song by a band you wish was still together (Oscar Wilde, Company of Thieves)
Song by an artist no longer living (TVC15, David Bowie)
Song that makes you want to fall in love (Wink and a Smile, Harry Connick, Jr.)
Song that breaks your hears (Traveling Star - live version, James Taylor)
Song by an artist whose voice you love (Sweet Surrender, Sarah McLachlan)
Song you remember from childhood (Band on the Run, Paul McCartney and Wings)
Song that reminds you of yourself (Grounded, Paul Heinz)

So there you are! Music, as usual, finds a way to soothe the soul during challenging times.  Make sure you’re getting your daily dose, and maybe use some of the above prompts for inspiration.