‘Is that a sitar?’ asks a bleary-eyed concert-goer. ‘No,’ responds an attentive musician who is bent on correcting him. ‘Haven't you ever seen a dulcimer before?’ And so is acted out a nightly ritual: the attempt to understand that thing the bassist was playing. The correct answer always being, ‘it was a Chapman Stick.’
The Stick is a curious instrument that is fighting to stay alive in a world full of guitars and basses. It belongs to their family, albeit a very distant second cousin. To generate sound, the strings are tapped with the fingers, not plucked or strummed, and it's range is close to that of a piano... a claim few guitars or basses would dare try and make. The Stick is the result of the vision of one man, Emmett Chapman, who sold his first instrument in 1974. Since then the instrument has remained the same in concept, but has been refined in its mechanics. So if it isn't a guitar or a bass, or the aforementioned sitar or dulcimer, what is the Chapman Stick?
The answer lies in not comparing it to anything. Yes, it resembles instruments that are familiar, but it is a new instrument. (The first since the saxophone). The Stick can generate melody and harmony at once, but in a manner never before conceived. Ensembles are fattened by its tremendous range and solo performers can create an orchestral accompaniment, even using it as a MIDI trigger.
The standard Stick has either 10 or 12 strings which can be tuned in any configuration you would like. Standard tuning has the bass side in fifths with the lowest string in the center. The melody side is in fourths ascending from the center. This may sound confusing at first, but take a moment and think about it. By playing the note C in the bass, and playing a C triad on the melody side, you can shift both hands over to the next string. You go down a fifth to F in the bass, but up a fourth to F in the melody. The Stick is a very geometric instrument.
Coming from a bassist's point of view, the Stick was a bass that happened to have all of these extra strings. I set out trying to play bass lines on it becoming very frustrated. This is the most pivotal point for a few Stick owners. This is the precise moment before you either choose to dedicate yourself or drive to the pawn shop.
It's the discovery that you play Stick lines on it. Not a translation of piano or guitar or bass. (Notice I didn't say interpretation.) It requires new thinking and a new language. New music is approached with how the Stick can contribute its own creative characteristics.
Imagine playing an instrument that has been invented in your lifetime. That is part of the unique opportunity Stick players have. It will take years for the instrument to become part of the musical mainstream mainly due to the stereotype that has been placed upon it... that it is merely a rogue guitar or bass and has no place in modern music. For those of you who share that opinion, listen to Trey Gunn's One thousand Years or Emmett Chapman's Parallel Galaxy, and ask yourself the question again.
Emmett Chapman's newsletter for Stick users, ‘Keepin' in Touch,’ can be obtained by writing to:
Stick Enterprises Inc. 6011 Woodlake Ave Woodland Hills, CA 91367-3238 Or E-mail him at stick@earthlink.net
