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Home › Forums › Coffee Break › Jazz harp

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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  • August 2, 2012 at 10:16 pm #103364
    david-holton
    Participant

    What are peoples feelings on jazz harp? And more importantly, any advice on learning how?

    August 3, 2012 at 2:56 am #103365
    jennifer-buehler
    Member

    Have you checked out the Jazz harp website?

    http://www.jazzharp.org/

    There is some really fun stuff out there.

    August 3, 2012 at 3:08 am #103366
    tony-morosco
    Participant

    Develop good technique.

    Learn music theory.

    Learn to improvise.

    Listen to everything and anything you can.

    The harp is a fantastic instrument for jazz.

    I highly recommend getting a good teacher not just for harp itself but for theory. In the mean time I highly recommend working through Mark Levine’s The Jazz Theory Book.

    Also a fun and light introduction to improvisation is Introduction to Improvisation by Deborah Henson-Conant. It’s fun because it comes with a CD of Vamps to improvise over that are very fun and not too hard to work with.

    And learn the head and chord progressions of as many Jazz standards as you can.

    August 3, 2012 at 9:38 am #103367
    HBrock25
    Participant

    Jakez Francois, who is one of the best jazz harpists I’ve heard although he rarely plays any more, once told me “You must forget the pedals.” By which, of course, he means that the pedals must be *automatic*.

    As a vibe player I have no idea how hard it is to get to that point, but I imagine it is just a matter of woodshedding 2-5-1 in every key for long enough…

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