Introduction
My name is Hanspeter Kruesi and I am a professional guitarist since 1998, my musical influences can be found in the great protagonists of the different genres from rock, jazz, blues, flamenco to classical music. Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Gary Moore, George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Ry Cooder, Albert Collins, SRV, Robben Ford, Joe Bonamassa, Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucia, Stanley Jordan to name only the most important. But I can also be very enthusiastic about expressive pianists like Brad Mehldau or Ketih Jarett. Many ideas for my guitar playing come from my piano playing, as this is my original " mother tongue ". Music has always been my passion, which I have pursued with consistency and passion since I was 16 years old.
My speciality is my unique combination of the Touch Technique ( Stanley Jordan ) with conventional playing techniques. The Touch Technique is basically to play piano on the guitar by making chords with the left hand and playing the melody with the right hand. Unlike the usual "Tappers" which are playing 12 string sticks or similar multi-string instruments, I found the approach of combining conventional playing techniques from Blues, Rock, Jazz with Touch Technique very exciting, because each playing technique has its own sound and expression. I combine these purely technical aspects of guitar playing with an improvisation concept and the expression of colours. pictures and emotions. This synaesthetic approach to music has always been my talent and I have invested years in researching the expression of emotions and colors in musical expression. Thus, for me, individual tones, individual passages or chords are assigned to colours and feelings. You can play a single tone in the colour " blue " or also in the colour " green ". Especially on the guitar, where you have a direct influence on every single note, such nuances are possible and can be musically represented, if you deal with the subject more detailed. A passage with identical tones sounds completely different depending on the colour played. So I have developed improvisational concepts where, from a certain level of automatism, you visualize only one color or one image and then just go into the flow and play freely. Whole chords progressions can follow in a chosen colour, but don't have to have a direct connection from the usual harmony theory. Music is basicly only 12 tones which are emotionally observed and played. This is the core of my work. This can be experienced at my color music concerts in particular but also at my normal concerts. Music is my passion and vocation. I have dedicated my whole life to music and have focused exclusively on perfecting my playing and exploring new and exciting ways to make and experience music.
This knowledge and experience is the core of my teaching concept and I pass this on to interested students in the different areas of my guitar academy. This can be learned by everyone and is possible from the entry level on.
You can get a comprehensive overview of my entire work at Hanspeter Kruesi.com
My Merits
Since 1999 I have been present worldwide on the web about guitar, guitar music and guitar playing. My music has already been played on various international radio stations, my videos and recordings have received very positive attention and mention in other professional portals. I have been receiving emails from fans all over the world for years, who especially rate my guitar videos and guitar pieces very positively. From 2006 - 2012 I was in the top 4 featured instructors on www.guitartricks.com, the leading online guitar portal worldwide at that time and looked after over 80000 students online - in 2007 I was even an endorser and online instructor on gibson.com. My pioneering work in the field of online education has been recognized by the trade press several times and received very positive attention in the national association SMPV. Since 2013 I run the HPCrazy Academy on YouTube which has become very popular. My music has been heard in Hollywood productions, on Swiss television and other TV stations. In 2016 a Flamenco piece of mine on Spotify reached over 120000 streams. 2017 a piece of me on YouTube reached over 1500000 streams.
Credits
1999 - 2005 : Various mandates in Swiss Universities of Music - ACM ( today ZKdK ) and WIAM. Various guest mandates in guitar workshops in other music schools. 1999 - today : Countless professional concerts and shows as guitarist in various cover bands and since 2005 concerts in Germany and abroad. SMPV ( Swiss Music Pedagogical Association ) Accreditation ( authorization ) 1999 - 2007 for private university education and SMPV consulting and teaching activities. Featured online instuctor at guitartricks.com ( 2006 - 2012 ), featured online instructor at Gibson.com ( 2007 ) and support of over 80000 students online. Running a successful guitar channel on YouTube under the name HPCrazy with currently over 27000 subscribers, over 100000 visitors / month and over 600000 viewed minutes / month. ( Feb 2020 ). Presence of my music in TV and film productions on Swiss television, BBC, ABC and many others. Streams on Spotify and YouTube with songs that reached 150000 streams - one on YouTube reached 1.5 Mio streams.
Background
I have been playing the piano since I was 6 years old and from my teenage years on I had a lot of gigs and was on my way to become a professional pianist at the age of 20. On my 20th birthday I bought a guitar and made my big dream come true. Only half a year later I had my first permanent engagement in a professional Rock n Roll Band - Hamp goes wild. Until the age of 24 I was a professional pianist and played in many jazz clubs, formations, private and public events and as a guitarist I was mainly active in the Rock n Roll scene.
Studies
At the age of 25 I started studying music as a pianist, but unfortunately had to stop studying piano due to a chronic tendonitis. After an examination I changed to guitar as my main subject, which I finished 5 years later with a diploma. This change was not easy, because at that time I didn't play guitar professionally enough to compete with the level I originally had at the piano. Therefore, I practiced between 10 - 16 hours per day during my studies to make up for this deficit. The change was very difficult from a professional point of view, but nevertheless I had a lot of gigs as a guitarist in cover bands on medium to big events, at open airs in Switzerland in different rock and blues bands and also at different jazz festivals including the Jazz Festival Montreux as a guest soloist. Looking back, I can say that I was glad to have switched to the guitar, because it was always my passion and without the described dramatic course with the injury I probably wouldn't have done so.
Early Professional Years
After my guitar studies I founded a guitar school in 1999 in connection with the website www.gitarrist.ch - at that time the guitar school was called " The School " and was at Ark Guitars in Wetzikon. Gitarrist.ch was at that time a so called " Guitar Sites "where interested guitarists could get a lot of tips, info's and inspirations and I enjoyed a very high traffic and the corresponding attention of the users. Beside the development of my " The School " I had a mandate in an institution for difficult to educate teenagers for a short time. It was only a short intermezzo, but there I learned the basics of music therapy, which then had an important influence in later teaching concepts, because there I learned how to work emotionally with students who have no previous knowledge of music or guitar playing at all. Shortly after that I got mandates at 2 different music universities ( ACM, WIAM ). After some time I ended these mandates, because I wanted to put all my attention on to internet projects. Online I moved in the scene of the so called Guitar Sites, a principle of the mediation of learning contents by online platforms, which was emerging at that time. At that time there were a handful of people from all over the world and through the internet all participants received a great international attention within a short time. I ran the Gitarrenforum.eu myself - one of the leading German-language portals in Europe and at the same time I ran an English portal under the NicName HPCrazy.
During these years I made many performances and concerts in Switzerland and in 2003 I started as a composer for TV and film. Right at the beginning, my piece " Keys of Destiny " was used as the title melody of a 24 hour special broadcast of Swiss Television for the 175th birthday of the SBB - our national train company. Afterwards, many uses of my music followed on Swiss television and also first uses in foreign television stations. At that time download and streaming services did not exist yet, but my guitar music was played on many internet radio stations around the globe. In 2008 my music was signed by various music libraries and Hollywood agencies, which led to my music being used in major productions of the BBC and ABC. My music has been used in episodes of Ugly Betty and Dr House. Through the libraries my music was also placed in other TV stations in other countries. There were so many different shows that I had lost the overview a bit to list them here correctly.
I would especially like to mention a project from the year 2003, where a concert of mine was broadcasted live from the ETH Zurich into the internet. 4 important IT companies participated in this project: ETH Zurich, Switch, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Students.ch. What is standard today was realized for the first time and found a lot of attention in the IT scene. The first stable HD live transmission to the internet. This was only possible at the ETH Zurich because there the internet wires there were fast enough. In 2006 I received a mandate as an instructor at Guitartricks.com - at that time the leading portal worldwide for guitar and guitarlessons and in 2007 I was also an instructor at Gibson.com. Until 2012 I was in the top 4 online instructors of these portals worldwide. In 2012 I ended my mandates in the online education sector, because I wanted to concentrate on color music concerts and composition, but soon after I started the HPCrazy YouTube Channel.
Activities to date
In 2013 I resumed work on the HPCrazy YouTube Channel and within a short time the channel had about 50000 views per month. Since then, the numbers have steadily increased and I have been involved and involved in the YouTube infrastructure over these years. The idea was to create a free guitar academy, where interested guitarists can be educated and inspired. The ETH Lausanne which followed a similar concept at that time inspired me to take this step and so the HPCrazy Guitar Academy with its various departments was created, which is now in the form it is now. Today the concept is that the YouTube Channel is free of charge, the membership where you get access to the teaching material of the videos is available as a cheap subscription. If you want personal attention you can have private online lessons. With the HPCrazy guitar study and a possible diploma award this online education system is complete and has the appropriate experience.
Beside the HPCrazy Guitar Academy there were many concerts with color music, but also the beginning of the Guitar Nights.
Personal words and outlook
I found it very difficult to write a resume because I don't like to look back and I don't like writing about myself.
This CV shows the most important stations, which are worth mentioning in my opinion, but there were times when there was a real hype and this text does not reflect that realistically. Personally, I was always only interested in the music and that's why I left out many offers and opportunities in the times of hype to serve the music. From my point of view the HPCrazy Guitar Academy is what I would have wished for as an aspiring musician and guitarist. That is the reason why I put so much time and energy into it.
Especially my own studies time I found very difficult. In my opinion, many of the curriculum contents were not necessary, led in the wrong direction or had the wrong value. I was someone who came from a practical background and wanted to see the reality in music and its expression. So for me the most important learning success of my studies was to recognize what I did not want and how to do it differently. So I spent the first years after my studies to forget everything that was taught at the university and to go my own way.
I recognized the Internet early on as THE medium of the future for music creators with a pioneering spirit. Especially in the years 1999 - 2005 there was a lot that was not yet part of everyday life and this was a very exciting time with many possibilities, visions and ideas that could be implemented. This was the main reason for me to turn away from the conventional music business in 2003 and to dedicate myself completely to the development of online education systems and online performance and promotion opportunities. I was always only interested in music - music in its perfection and beauty. Music as a form of personal expression and music as an art form far away from the notions of a deadlocked music industry. This is the centre of my work as a teacher and lecturer as well as a performing artist. That was the real reason for the artist name HPCrazy - some people said I was crazy to put everything on the map of internet and new concepts instead of going the usual way, which would have been possible. But my father had always taught me that you shouldn't listen to others when it comes to implementation, but to go your own way consistently and professionally to achieve real success.