Park Stickney

Jazz theory and improvisation

I talk about all the things that really interest me, the things I learned along the way…the core of what I play…finally I found a way that really makes sense to me. I found a way that really fascinates me and helps me play.

While attempting to live simultaneously on a farm in Switzerland, and in Brooklyn, New York, harpist Park Stickney is constantly in motion, giving concerts throughout Europe and the U.S., solo, or in various combinations including his harp-bass-drums trio “The Lion, the Wolf, and the Donkey” and his harp-flute-percussion trio “The Dada String Quartet”

He’s performed and taught in nearly every harp festival that exists, from Adelaide to Zaragoza, appeared on the French television program “La Boîte à Musique”, performed on the QE2, recorded with the “Crash Test Dummies,” played with John Sebastian (of the Lovin’ Spoonful), made a video with Jonathan Coulton, jammed with young oud students in the West Bank, improvised cadenzas while playing the Mozart Flute & Harp concerto with Regula Küffer, played Wagner as a stowaway deep in the harp section of the Berlin Philharmonic, given concerts in a mine in South Tyrol, in a thermal bath in Switzerland, in a New York McDonalds, in Sri Lanka, Shanghai, Madras, Hong Kong, Moscow, Moldavia… He’s played Broadway pits in NY, toured with the Fantasticks in Japan, and appears regularly on page 97 of Patricia Cornwell’s novel “From Potter’s Field.”

An active teacher, Stickney is the jazz harp tutor at the Royal Academy of Music, London, an assistant-professor at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Lyon, France, and teaches harp improvisation at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne, Switzerland.

He is also an enthusiastic but spectacularly un-gifted Swiss volunteer fireman.

Stickney holds degrees from the Juilliard School and the University of Arizona, and is an honorary associate of the Royal Academy of Music. He plays the Lyon & Healy electro-acoustic harp, and is inordinately fond of black-cherry yogurt.

Read more about Park on his website at www.harplab.net.

Explore lessons with

Park Stickney

Learn how to create minor 7th chords in this introductory video from jazz harpist Park Stickney.

Learn how to use minor 7th chords in improvisation.

Learn to play a basic chromatic scale on the pedal harp.

Learn Park's technique for the "triple pedal slide" to aid in playing chromatic scales.

Use Park's pedal technique to break the chromatic scale down into two whole tone scales for improvisation.

Learn Park's technique for understanding and practicing the circle of fifths using his sharp pedal method. (To enjoy this video, you'll need an understanding of key signatures and enharmonics.)

recommended

Learn how the Circle of Fifths relates to the whole tone scale. (Note: to enjoy this video, you'll need to understand the concepts explained in Park's three-part Chromatic Scales series.)

Learn how to use pedal slides to create colors in Part 1 of this series.

Learn how to use pedal slides in your music in Part 2 of this series.

Learn the basics of open and closed chord voicings and how to create them on the harp.

Learn how to practice open and closed chord voicings and move quickly from one chord to the next.

Learn how to break the chord voicing rules to avoid sounding mechanical.

Free!

Learn how to improvise using the Lydian mode.

Learn how to create and improvise with minor modes.

Learn how to create the four possible alterations to a V7 chord.

Learn how to create diminished 7th chords to use in improvisation.

Learn how to create diminished scales for use in improvisation. (To get the most from this video, we suggest first watching Park's tutorial on Diminished 7th Chords.)

Learn the basic structure of the 12-bar blues, along with left hand patterns for improvising.

Learn how to improvise on the 12-bar blues form, along with how to create the blues scale. (To get the most from this tutorial, watch Part 1 of this series in Park's HCA studio.)