Roni Eytan

Roni Eytan – A Traveller Between Worlds

Bright, luminous, expressive, innocent and deeply emotional: this is how Roni Eytan describes the sound of the harmonica. For him, this small instrument is the most important and, at the same time, the most intimate way of expressing himself.

Cartoon, Trumpet and the Discovery of the Harmonica
Roni spends his childhood in Jerusalem. There he watches the animated film “Yellow Submarine”, with a soundtrack by the Beatles. At the time, Roni is particularly taken with the sound of the trumpet, so shortly afterwards he begins to learn to play it. With little success, as he laughingly recalls.

It is not until high school that he becomes completely absorbed by music. He is inspired by his classmates, many of whom play an instrument: guitar, piano, drums. Roni wants to be part of it and to learn an instrument too. One that is smaller than the trumpet, that nobody else plays yet, and that he can always carry with him. He chooses the harmonica, whose sound has fascinated him for a long time.

Roni starts teaching himself, coaxing notes and melodies out of it.

A Rocky Road
Eventually, Roni ends up in his first band. A musician had heard him at an evening jam session in his hometown. He liked Roni’s playing and invited him to join his band. And so Roni is given a completely unexpected opportunity: until then, he had only learned by feel, with no knowledge of music theory or sheet music and without a teacher. Now, at the age of 15, he is challenged in every respect. After a year, his progress is to be assessed so that he can stay in the band. Roni practises and studies for hours on end, especially during the summer holidays before Year 11. Looking back, he says it was his toughest test. But he passes it, and his goal is clear: to become a professional musician, or more precisely, a jazz musician.

European Tour and the Herbie Hancock Institute
After school, Roni begins studying music in Israel, but soon decides to go to Boston to study at the renowned Berklee College of Music. His teacher, a pianist, takes him along on a European tour. For the young Roni, this is the school of life. He meets musicians from the most diverse cultural backgrounds. They open up new musical spaces for him, which he gradually incorporates into his own: for example, he blends Arabic, Andalusian and North African influences into jazz sounds and increasingly finds a distinctive voice of his own.

In 2018, Roni becomes the first harmonica player ever to be accepted at the Herbie Hancock Institute in Washington. Here he learns above all from saxophonists, clarinettists and other wind players. He also receives lessons from the great Herbie Hancock himself.

Connecting Worlds
For now, Roni has arrived. He says he is doing what he loves. His friend, the instrument maker Brendan Power, has even built him a harmonica of his own: the first microtonal harmonica in the world. With it, Roni can produce notes that lie between the smallest steps of the scale. For him, this means being able to connect musical in-between worlds and to keep setting off on new, unexpected voyages of discovery.