Fontaine’s Fingerfood Episode 1 (LinnStrument Tutorial) 

Holy Cow!! I have been waiting for this type of content forever! This is really valuable and a great gift to the Linnstrument community, and music community at large. Being able to observe a professional musician’s approach to our beloved Linnstrument is vital. Even this first episode had great value to me. Thank you very much. Instant subscribe!

Thank you for sharing your insights. Because of the Linnstrument I have decided to become a musician and I am soaking all of this up.

I'd watch 12 hours straight of you just jamming and talking about linnstrument and finger drumming lessons on the car dashboard. Every little moment is a new gem of a chord voicing or new way to play this thing. It's really cool that there's complete freedom in a new instrument without any prejudices built in but it's very nice to be able to actually gleen pro level expressive gestures from this thing after so long of fiddling around in the dark with it. Great job! I literally NEED more.

Thanks for taking the initiative and publishing this series. I'm new to a Linnstrument 128. So I'm looking forward to learning from yours and Steven's "methods".

Yes im pumped

Yes this is what I was waiting for.. Really appreciate it.. Earger to know chord positions and how to play chord melody combination like Piano with both hands... And I too have the habit of finger drumming on the steering wheel.. LOL...

This will be essential viewing for so many new Linnstrument owners in the future. Thanks! I am super excited about the upcoming episodes.

Absolulely fantastic! Dude, you are my hero. I come from a multi-intstrumental background -- my first instrument was piano, but I played fretless upright bass for many years, as well as guitar. I just ordered my Linnstrument, and I've been searching for something to help me ramp up. THIS IS IT! I am super stoked for the rest of the video series, and the next phase of my musical life with the Linnstrument.

Mind blowing! Exactly the type of video I needed to better understand the capabilities of the Linnstrument. From "complexity", it actually took me to a "simpler" methodology, to improvise music. Thank you!

Thank you very much Fontaine for taking time to create this and share it with Linnstrument users. Looking forward to the rest of the episodes!

now im really sold on that thing. i saw a plenty of impressing musicians using the Linnthing and i suspected the ingeunity of the concept but you made it very understandable. and in a very sympathic way :) thank you for your work!

Amazing tutorial. Very clear.

Really impressive!

Thank you for your insightful perspective and eloquence. I'm glad I found your channel. 128 Newbie

Good ideas, nicely presented. Looking forward to seeing where you go with them.

You're a great teacher! You have the right demeanor that makes your content easy to understand, educational and fun! Subbed with thanks!

Thank you for so expertly summarizing the similarities and differences of piano/guitar compared to the linny. To have this all laid out and spoken really opened my mind. Coming from guitar, I instinctually avoided stacking horizontal notes. I'm now starting to re-think how I play the equivalent of sweep picking on the linny and finding more natural fingerings for arpegiation. Looking forward to more content 👍🎹🎼

Thanks Fontaine - really appreciate you taking the time to record this set of videos. As a new Linnstrumentalist, it's hard to know exactly where to start. I'm coming from a guitar/bass/Stick background, but there's so much more to Linnstrument...

Well done, sir - this is helpful to Linnstrumentalists of all levels IMO.

Totally underrated. more than 6000 views and only 386 likes.... Im new to make music and have ordered my LinnStrument yesterday. Working in Bitwig and I think this is a good combo. Thanks for this video from Cologne, Germany.

Oh damn bro! Just watching this video and as a musician mainly focused on rhythm and percussion with also added guitar background this feels like such a natural choice of MIDI controller :o Just can't believe I was unaware of this thing existing... Also, the moment you moved into your car I knew exactly what was coming - same thing here... I used to work as a driver professionally for a while and that's where I would practice my rudiments etc :D Hahahaha... loving the video man and I'm very likely going to get a LinnStrument for myself. Really appreciate your vid

Excellent sounds and arrangement, beautiful tracks

Awesome tutorial Fontaine! I also drum on my steering wheel 😂 the linnstrument is an amazing instrument, I finally got one 😅 I look forward to seeing more from you in the future 👍

Great video, looking forward to the next one. And that part about drumming to your turn signal cracked me up, as a long-time "kitchen sink drummer" I can totally relate!

This is fantastic, Fontaine, thank you! Just found your channel/video over on the Roger Linn Design forum. Waiting for my Linnstrument to arrive here hopefully in the next few days so this video is going to come in really handy!

wow what a lovely tune

Thanks for doing this!As a newbie and realizing the possibilities of this great instrument, it has kind of paralyzed me a little bit and I keep thinking of the term that you used---"approach".To me, that hit the nail on the head(mine)and cleared it.I am sure that I and many will gain from the sharing of your approach.

To me thinking of diatonic modes as three notes per row/string makes everything super simple, because the shapes are easy to visualize geometrically and it loops on itself neatly. Credit to "Guitar Modes Unified" by Rudi Seitz.

thank you for making this video!

Thanks for making this :) I need more inspiration to use my Linnstrument more!

Thanks so much for posting this. I am a new linnstrumentalist and coming from a keyboard background, it is taking some getting used to. I love the expressiveness it allows and look forward to watching more of your videos so that someday, playing it will become second nature for me. FYI, I also finger drum on the steering wheel of my car & often at the dinner table which drives everyone around me nuts 😂

There are instrumentalists, some quite good, and there are musicians. An instrumentalist can play their instrument and as I said, some quite well. But a musician can pick up any instrument and play a tune on it within a matter of minutes. Not as a maestro right off the bat, tho some are quicker than others, but they will be able to play it right away and of course they will just get better with time. You my friend, are a musician. Your approach for this instrument is spot on, but as you said, it's new so there will be many approaches. But for those that speak the language of music, your approach works quite well. I see it's been out for a while but I just discovered this thing. There will be one in my studio in a matter of days! Your "lesson" was very helpful. I play both keys and fretted instruments (or whatever) and I think the fretted approach might work best for me to begin with, but I can see where the keyboard approach could be useful in certain instances. Something tells me that way of looking at it will jell into how to approach this instrument for what it is instead of what it might emulate. Thank you for this. Now for episode 2 lol! New sub here. By the way, I once played Mary had a little lamb on a whistling tea pot by moving it closer or further away from the heat source. My wife at the time just shook her head and smiled. Music is everywhere if you know what to listen for.

Thank you ! :-)

Just your comments about practicing scales vertically and horizontally is huge to me.

🔥

Thanks. Ill be following along. I started playing it in a left handed mirrored setup (upside down with the lowest note in the upper right corner and the highest note in left bottom corner)..... Just felt more familiar at the time. And now im to far in to revert back.... Hope this wont become a problem later on. But i guess its fine. Will only need to translate some techniques in my head. Thanks again for this initiative.

Thank you a lot for your effort! I think that this is an extremely important event for the Linnstrument players community indeed! I have been waiting for a looong time for tutorials/methods to appear, but so far seems that only Jeff Moen had published his method online. There are quite a lot of videos with sound design/drone focus or about connecting the Linnstrument to fancy hardware, but so few videos where Linnstrumentalists actually share their melodic/chord playing techniques and improvisational approaches. Expecting yours and Stephen Barnard’s tutorials to be a treasure trove for my development as a player. I think it would benefit you both if you cross-link each other right in your videos’ descriptions. Maybe I’ve missed it in your video, but what kind of “wind instrument DNA” would you attribute to the LS? Do you mean the continuous control over note dynamics as a wind instrument thing? Also, what about _chromatic_ percussion DNA?;) Do you use rolls in your melodic playing and do you play virtual marimba/xylophone/pan drums using the LS?

Nice cover of Giant Steps.

Thank you !

Fontaine, this is particularly amazing. Thanks for the wonderful performances and the sonorous narrative. I love seeing all those iPads. Been doing iOS for 4 years has changed everything for me..600+ Tracks and 50 albums using a dp and an iPad Pro. Are you working mostly with iPads? Don’t see a desktop.

So excited for this! Perfect timing for me, just got my 128. Quick question: what were the instruments you were using?

okay, fontaine... you have successfully birthed in me a real fire for the linnstrument. I have a very practical question for you, sir: (I see you use both the 128 & the 200.) can you elaborate a bit on your thoughts on the two of them...? (you know... kind of a compare & contrast type of thing.) I see you seem to switch between them a bit. is it because the 128 fits I'm the screen better at times? (prolly not, as you likely wouldn't own it just for that.)

Excellent review on your thoughts and approach to the instrument. However, whats your approach with Sheet music and lead sheets? thanks....

Isn’t Linnstrument basically the instrument least suitable for percussive sound since its velocity tracking is imprecise?

Hey, great video for a start but a question for you. Love using the Push 2 as an instrument, notice you also have one. Already a guitar player so gotten very used to playing in chromatic mode because of the 4ths layout on the Push. Very interested in the Linnstrument but the price point is a slight turnoff, is there a massive difference to playing it vs playing the Push in chromatic mode?

What sound library are you using? Do you play Linnstrument live?

Can some of these techniques be used on the Akai Force or Launchpad which only have a third of the pads?

What are you using for your VSTs? Particularly that wurlitzer/rhodes sound?

U like this better than the push?

yoooo