Wonder what a Harpouditar, H'arpeggione or Harp-Sympitar might sound like?

Check out these fine artists!

Most of these albums can be found on the performer's websites; click on their names to go there. The instrument names link to text or photo pages of the instrument, on this website.

First, a list (alphabetical) of my instruments that appear on available recordings, followed by their players. Second, a list of players, with instruments, album titles, pieces and some comments (by me):

Double-neck classical guitar- Todd Green

Dreadnautilus Guitar- Craig James Green

Guitarangi da Gamba- Todd Green

Harpouditar/Swar Rebouditar- Todd Green

Harp-Sympitar- Alex de Grassi (The New Dream); Killick (Big Red); Jeff Titus(The Oracle)

H'arpeggione- Killick

Kali 14-string- Marc Dorsa

Sympitar- Marc Dorsa; Alex de Grassi; Todd Green

ALEX DE GRASSI plays a prototype 12-string Sympitar on "Deep at Night" and an 18-string Sympitar on "The World's Getting Loud" ( both Windham Hill); he plays an 18-string Sympitar on "Beyond the Night Sky: Lullabies for Guitar" (Earthbeat Records); on another Earthbeat Record, Moussa Kanoute's "Dance of the Kora", Alex can be heard improvising on Sympitar along with Moussa Kanoute's kora (African harp) playing; "The Water Garden", Alex's Grammy nominated 1998 release on Tropo Records, features his Sympitar (with Sympathetic strings muted) on at least one cut; "Bolivian Blues Bar" on the Narada Jazz label, features extensive use of the Sympitar, mostly with Sympathetic strings muted (one piece, "Hey, Bo Diddley", has sympathetic strings audible); "Guitar Harvest", a double CD of various artists put out in 2003 by the New York Guitar Festival, opens with Alex playing his Sympitar on an arrangement of the Jimi Hendix tune, "Angel", using the mute to turn the sympathetic strings on and off throughout the piece. Alex uses his 18-string Sympitar on the 2006 album by the trio, "Demania", with Michael Manring (bass) and Chris Garcia (percussion). The Sympitar is especially prominent on their version of the Rolling Stones old hit, "Paint It Black", which Demania gives a kind of mid-eastern makeover. The 2008 release from Gregg Miner's Harp Guitar Music, "Harp Guitar Dreams", features the first recording of the 39-string Harp-Sympitar, The New Dream, on which Alex performs "Reverie For Greensleeves"....and it's great!

TODD GREEN plays an 18-string sympitar, as well as a custom double-neck classical guitar, also built by Fred Carlson, on his first solo album, "Awakening"; Todd's most recent albums, "Meditations" and "Celebrations" (fall of 2003) also feature those instruments, as well as the Guitarangi da Gamba and the Harpouditar (or "Swar Rebouditar" as Todd calls it).

MARC DORSA plays Zephyr, an 18-string Sympitar and Kali, a 14-string guitar on Twilights' Path.

KILLICK ERIK HINDS plays the 18-string "H'arpeggione" on a number of recordings from Sol Ponticello Records, both solo and in group context. Killick has a new solo H'arpeggione release (summer, 2008) called "Killick! the Amplifucker", as well as an earlier solo H'arp album that is a recreation of the album "Reign In Blood", by the Heavy Metal band, "Slayer". Killick also plays the H'arpeggione on recordings with the S.S Puft Quartet (in a great free jazz kind of format), The Georgian Contemporary Unit (with Hungarian guitarist Sandor Szabo) and a couple of albums of his own compositions, "Cerebus" and "Khonsay". He also has made one CD of solo recordings performing on Big Red, the 38-string Harp-Sympitar, called "killick bull". Killick's music can be very challenging; it's improvisational, textural, dramatic and often not even what some of us might think of as "music". Much of it is not melodically or harmonically oriented or structured in a traditional sense. I find some of it quite enjoyable to listen to, all of it interesting.

CRAIG JAMES GREEN uses his Dreadnautilus guitar on two CDs with his musical partner, Nelson Soucek: "Strange Dreams" and "Channeling Picasso", from Liberal Palette Productions.

JEFF TITUS performs on the first Harp-Sympitar ever built, the Oracle, on several pieces on his debut album, "Wood Dragon". On the title track his amazing technique on Oracle is augmented by some wonderful Guzheng (Chinese zither) playing by Gregg Miner. Jeff and the 24-string Oracle are also featured on the Harp Guitar Music compilation, "Harp Guitar Dreams", with the piece, "Mahjabeen".  

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