try to make it sing, you can’t do it. It To Make Music · that on a piano, choose that one key...

TIM MEEKS WAS A KEYBOARDISTwho wished a piano would play like aguitar. “If you give a guitarist one stringand ask him to make a note sing,” saysMeeks, “he can do it. If you try to dothat on a piano, choose that one key andtry to make it sing, you can’t do it. Itjust doesn’t have that expressive capa-bility because there’s a machinebetween the player and the strings. Iwas looking for something that allowedfor more expressive nuance.” At the endof about five years of research andexperimentation, he had invented theharpejji.With 24 strings, frets, and a wooden

base, it looks like something out of theguitar family, but the black markersarranged in groupings of two and threeare distinctly keyboard-like. In fact, theharpejji is a two-handed tapping, or“touch-style” instrument with a visualscheme geared to draw on the skills ofthe trained pianist. It is, as Meeks deter-mined through exhaustive patentresearch, the only product of its kind onthe market today.“We’ve been very blessed that we

haven’t had any major problems gettingstarted,” he says. “It’s been terrifyingand exciting all at the same time.”Meeks, an audio engineer and project

manager, is an eight-year veteran ofPolk Audio. He invented the harpejji“on the side” and then asked friend andformer Polk colleague Jason Melani tohelp him market it under the companyname Marcodi, named for Meeks’ lategrandfather Anthony L. DiMarco.“As far as carving out a new niche for

ourselves,” says Melani, “I wouldn’tsay we’ve had a lot of challenges,because the market is ours to define. Ithink the biggest challenge was todevelop a vision. There’s definitely asmall market out there for experimentalproducts, but we’re getting to partici-pate in the work begun by pioneers likeEmmett Chapman and Dr. JohnStarrett.”In the early 1970s inventor Emmett

Chapman came out with the first-knownproduct designed for two-handed tap-ping, the Chapman Stick. The Stickgained a small but loyal following andeven several virtuosi, but Meeks foundthe design made little use of his key-board background and went in search ofanother concept.

MUSIC TRADES JANUARY 2008162

A WholeNew WayTo Make MusicThe radical harpejji marries the logic of a keyboardwith the expressive capability of a fretted instrumentin an effort to push the creative envelope.

The harpejji

Arpejji.qxp 1/2/2008 10:11 AM

Chapman himself referred Meeks toDr. John Starrett, a mathematics profes-sor at the University of Colorado atDenver, who had invented somethingcloser to Meeks’ vision in a product hecalled the starrboard. “Mostly an exper-imental thing,” the starrboard conceptresulted in several prototypes but neverbecame a bona fide commercial prod-uct. Starrett shelved the concept, and hispatent on it, awarded in 1985, eventual-ly expired. More the pure inventor thanthe salesman, he later wrote that he “justdidn’t have the marketing savvy to

make it a huge success.” His prototypescollected dust. In 2001 Meeks boughtone of them.“It was pretty antiquated, pretty

coarse,” he says. “There’s no finesse;there’s no updated hardware. The tonewas pretty rough because it was utiliz-ing very old handmade magnetic pick-ups. It didn’t hold its tune very wellbecause it had piano pins that were usedto terminate the strings. The action wasvery high and even so the the strings rat-tled; it was just an old prototype. Itneeded somebody to come in there and

dial in the design.”Within two years Meeks had gutted and

rebuilt the instrument. By 2007 he hadrefined the product now known as theharpejji, named in light of its capacity forprogressively changing arpeggios andthe literal translation of the Italian wordmeaning “harp-like.”The harpejji is currently being hand-

assembled by a contractor in a local shopin Maryland. It begins with a piece of 13-ply hard rock maple 13 ½ inches wide by38 inches long, the same wood used inmaking the pin block inside of a piano.The frets are off-the-shelf fret wire. Thestrings are Ernie Ball guitar and bassstrings seated in fully adjustable saddles,with custom tuners and a custom bridge.A tiny piezo pickup captures the vibra-tions in the strings. A “totally electricalinstrument,” the harpejji can be playedeither horizontally or on a slight incline.“One of our manufacturing strategies is

to start off with parts that are highlymachined, highly designed,” saysMeeks. “We harness what power we canfrom suppliers who can give us thingsthat are fully ready, so that the endassembly is relatively easy.”


Harpejji Inventor Tim Meeks (left), and Jason Melani, Marcodi director of salesand marketing.


Finished in a choice of maple, ebony, orguitar-style sunburst, the harpejji comeswith a custom hardshell case withcrushed velour lining and compartmentsfor cables and power supply. Its price hasbeen set at $5,995.“To a beginner, somebody just learning

keyboard, that’s a high price point,”says Melani. “To someone who playsharp or grand piano, that’s actually alow point. We’re not looking to sell athousand of these right out of the gate—although if we could, that would begreat.”“It’s debatable,” says Meeks, which

musicians will make the best harpejji

players. Playing the instrument willdraw both on knowledge of frettedinstruments and knowledge of the key-board—as evidenced by the familiararrangement of black and white markersindicating fingerings.“Harpejji is easy for keyboardists to

play,” says Melani. “We want to get themessage across to keyboardists thatthey don’t have to abandon their firstlove of playing keyboard. Especially inthe infancy of this company, we aresending the message that we supportboth the product and the musician.”Meeks and Melani envision the harpe-

jji as a new addition to a keyboardist’sstage setup. Much like a drummer whocan swivel on their drum throne to playa hand percussion instrument, the key-boardist would place the harpejji to oneside of the keyboard, “so with one handthey can be playing a synth patch, andwith the other hand they can be playingsome sort of solo on real strings.”With all ten fingers in play, the harpe-

MUSIC TRADES JANUARY 2008 165

The harpejji is an addition to a keyboardist’sstage setup. Much like adrummer who can swivelto play a percussioninstrument or bongos, thekeyboardist would placethe harpejji to one side ofthe keyboard.

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jji lends itself to interesting textures andinterval jumps that are difficult orimpossible to finger on other instru-ments, says Melani. “You can do ten-finger compositions like you can on apiano. You can’t do that with a guitar;you can’t do that with a bass. Amongother things, we’re selling more notes,which bring more possibilities.”Beyond guitarists and keyboardists,

Meeks and Melani expect the harpejji tofind a following among musicians “whowant to be different and express them-selves in a completely different way,”says Melani. “A lot of people out therejust want to be unique. They opt to playmandolin or they play violin in a rockband.”On their website, www.marcodi.com,

Meeks and Melani plan to post audiovi-sual examples of the harpejji beingplayed, not only as a solo instrument,but as an element in a variety of musicalstyles. They expect the marketing of theinstrument to be largely web-based,with the site divided into two parts: onedescribing the technical and historicalbackground of the instrument and theother devoted to multimedia resourcesincluding a “virtual harpejji” that userscan play with the click of a mouse. Inthe future they plan to branch out ontoMySpace and YouTube.“The web is going to be a huge sales-

man for us,” says Melani. “We would befools not to make use of the huge, inter-connecting engine that gets us in touchwith our players. Word of mouth isanother thing. We hope that this willspread like wildfire. One big thing thatwe’re hoping for are accomplishedharpejjists: Like any company we’relooking for those big names to attach toMarcodi. Right now the only two peo-ple playing a harpejji up on a stage areTim and Jason. But Tim and I love play-ing the harpejji so much that we decid-ed anybody who plays it for a length oftime would love it enough to buy one.”Marcodi has applied for four patents

on the harpejji and is making plans toexpand into other experimental musicproducts. “We want to be the companythat is not afraid of pursuing new meansof musical expression,” says Melani.“We have a lot of ideas, and the harpejjiis just the start.”




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