Jazz harp

[david-holton]

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

[jennifer-buehler]

Have you checked out the Jazz harp website?

http://www.jazzharp.org/

There is some really fun stuff out there.

[tony-morosco]

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.

[HBrock25]

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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