Exploration - Harpejji
As a keyboardist, I felt constrained playing complex slides and microtones especially playing nuances of Indian classical music and blues, and ended up discovering this amazing instrument in Harpejji.
Harpejji is an isomorphic electric stringed musical instrument and the playing surface has an isomorphic keyboard layout arranged in ascending whole tones across strings, and ascending semi-tones as the strings travel away from the player with five-octave ranges.
An isomorphic keyboard is a musical input device consisting of a two-dimensional grid of note-controlling elements (such as buttons or keys) on which any given sequence and/or combination of musical intervals has the “same shape” on the keyboard wherever it occurs — within a key, across keys, across octaves, and across tunings. and navigating it can be mind numbing in the beginning.
The instrument rests on a stand like a keyboard, with the strings perpendicular to the player. It is primarily played with a two-handed tapping technique and the instrument allows the musician to use all 10 fingers to fret the strings, and a single hand can cover a two-octave range.
Watching musicians like Jordan Rudess, A.R Rahman and Stevie Wonder playing the instrument was inspiring enough to explore and self learn this beautiful instrument.
