WIP: This is an ongoing project to revolutionize the way Harpejji can be learned and taught.
Notation on Harpejji:
Currently there is no way to accurately notate music for Harpejji, this has been a major issue within the Harpejji community. The lack of notation system greatly limits the communication of musical ideas. The best option currently available to share Harpejji musical ideas is a Tab service on the Marcodi Harpejji website. This is limited because it’s not compatible with regular written music. There is no way to write melodies or arrangements. You’re limited to showing generic chord voicing’s and scales fingering.
Harpejji Standard Notation Project:
I’ve developed a system to integrate Harpejji string and fingering into standard western music notation.
The frets and strings on a Harpejji form a grid. To accurately write music for Harpejji, you need a way to notate every combination of fret on every string. I call these “spots” and every rectangle in the grid is a spot.
The grid layout lends itself to some form of coordinate system for identifying each spot. In this case, the x axis is the string number from 1-16, and the y axis would be the fret number. You could then label every spot on the harpejji with an x and y coordinate.
The Y axis is actually redundant and unnecessary. Instead of using a fret number, we can just use the note being played. There is only one spot per note on each string. Standard music notation will act as our Y axis.
I’ll continue to expand on this topic on the next few weeks. I’ll create some video examples and much better explanations. For now, just know that the ideas are logically sound. Here is an example of a major scale notated with a common idiomatic fingering.
Here is an example from the opening of Frank Zappa’s RDNZL. This is using more complicated fingerings unlike anything you would play on piano or guitar.
The ability to write these more complex fingerings down, and share them with other players will revolutionize Harpejji and make the instrument far more accessible. A real pedagogy can be developed. I will explain more about the system and transcribe more arrangements in the future. I’m also excited to incorporate wider Harpejji community feedback. Thanks for reading!