I sleep emailed Stephen Hawking to explain my idea of black hole evaporation into the 4th dimension. Woke up in the morning and thought it was a dream until I saw a nice reply from one of his teaching assistants. At least they were kind.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Picking up Chapman Stick?
- Thread starter devnulljp
- Start date
I sleep emailed Stephen Hawking to explain my idea of black hole evaporation into the 4th dimension. Woke up in the morning and thought it was a dream until I saw a nice reply from one of his teaching assistants. At least they were kind.
I played a NS Stick for about a year (now for sale in the classifieds). I’ve been taking lessons every couple weeks for the last year and a half, and have moved on to touch guitar, which is more like a Warr. For me, I prefer the radiused neck. Rather than using Chapman’s 2 hands technique, I’ve been learning Markus Reuter’s, which is where the 2 hands are more like 1 big one. It’s less piano-like in approach but a big shift from bass. I have loved moving up into the guitar range—all sorts of new possibilities with pedals. The other thing about the NS stick or a Warr or Touch guitar is that you can also play it like a regular bass, though the strings are tuned in 5ths so patterns are different. I find it mind-expanding and enjoy mixing techniques.
YMMV.
YMMV.
I had a couple of Sticks and moved to the Warr Guitar as it offered the features I was looking for. It is definitively a unique instrument and beyond the cool rhythmic/harmonic experiments you can do it will widely expand your composition skills - if you are into that. If it serves inspiring you to take a sept forward here is a solo online thing I did on my 12 string beast a few months back.
It's a learning curve that is curvier than the curviest alpine road in the mountains. Make sure you're ready for the commitment. I played with a Stickist, and that's what convinced me not to get one.
I haven't yet tried crossing my Stick with a looper, thanks for the inspiration! Gots homework to do!
yes, between this song which I saw a genesis / prog cover band play and the bass player played the stick and watching tony levin with gabriel I always thought it would be cool to play one but I think just by watching that it would take years that I don't have to learn it..although I do play piano it might be quicker, the price also is prohibitive....
This. I have a 10-string ironwood Stick
. Back in the day, I was fortunate enough to take lessons with the amazing Bob Culbertson. I felt like I was getting pretty competent, too, but I had to stop the lessons when parenthood kicked in. From a tactile point of view, I find the Stick to be the most satisfying sensation of any instrument I’ve played. It just feels good to play. The unusual tuning will get your brain thinking about patterns in unusual ways, and I found it was really enlightening to take some of that thinking back to the bass.There used to be a an internet forum called Stickwire, much like talkbass, where Stick
players would hang out and share ideas. I was there all the time (made some lifelong friends there), up until it started breaking into factions. Like @winston said, if you said the wrong thing at the wrong time, you would be placed in a box. You had to learn a certain style of discussion etiquette, like always putting the after using the word Stick. I still do it reflexively today. WAAY more militant and passionate than the “tort and flats” thing here which is more like a lighthearted joke. Try the instrument, pass on the personalities.But back to the instrument, I found it to be really great. It’s very easy to get a clean, articulate sound. Two-handed bass lines open up things you’d never even try on a bass. And it’s really fun to have clean bass on one channel, and run the treble side through effects. Which brings up my last point: it’s a stereo instrument (at least they were for years.). So you need a stereo cord that splits into two on the other end. This allows you to use separate processing on the bass and treble sides. So, think about two amps.
I certainly think it’s worth a try. You might really like it. If not, they seem to really hold value, so you won’t be out much if you want to pass it on to someone else. Good luck!
I had one a long time ago and sometimes get the itch for another (right up until I see the new price list usually!)
I figured playing guit@r and bass, it would be the perfect instrument for me -but really it isn't like either of those instruments and must be approached entirely as a new instrument in its own right.
The reversed bass strings and the melody strings tuned in straight 4ths prevented much of what I've been doing instinctively for the last 40 years and the very close string spacing (all along the neck the same spacing as if it were a 6 string guit@r at the nut!) made it very difficult to get along with -especially with hands like mine!
I love the sound of the bass strings -especially with the older "Stick Up" pickup. Today they use EMGs or Villex pickups and it isn't the same sound IMHO. There is a grand stick which places 10 strings on the neck of the 12 string neck and this would give a wider string spacing though.
It's a very different instrument for sure: the crossed hand playing system, the playing angle, the straps and belts to wear it, the tuning and the tendency to 'over press' the strings down and send them slightly sharp due to their lower tension and gauges (without offense to anyone, I often find them a little out of tune when played). I also think the chord voicings in the left hand all begin to sound a bit 'samey' after a while too. It has a killer bass sound though and that's the part I miss the most. You really have to make it sound beautiful like Bob Culbertson or Greg Howard does, and not like two guit@rs being played badly together. IMHO.
I wonder if an uncrossed Warr guit@r would be more to my liking but at these prices it's not the type of thing you would just buy to see how you get along on it....
I figured playing guit@r and bass, it would be the perfect instrument for me -but really it isn't like either of those instruments and must be approached entirely as a new instrument in its own right.
The reversed bass strings and the melody strings tuned in straight 4ths prevented much of what I've been doing instinctively for the last 40 years and the very close string spacing (all along the neck the same spacing as if it were a 6 string guit@r at the nut!) made it very difficult to get along with -especially with hands like mine!
I love the sound of the bass strings -especially with the older "Stick Up" pickup. Today they use EMGs or Villex pickups and it isn't the same sound IMHO. There is a grand stick which places 10 strings on the neck of the 12 string neck and this would give a wider string spacing though.
It's a very different instrument for sure: the crossed hand playing system, the playing angle, the straps and belts to wear it, the tuning and the tendency to 'over press' the strings down and send them slightly sharp due to their lower tension and gauges (without offense to anyone, I often find them a little out of tune when played). I also think the chord voicings in the left hand all begin to sound a bit 'samey' after a while too. It has a killer bass sound though and that's the part I miss the most. You really have to make it sound beautiful like Bob Culbertson or Greg Howard does, and not like two guit@rs being played badly together. IMHO.
I wonder if an uncrossed Warr guit@r would be more to my liking but at these prices it's not the type of thing you would just buy to see how you get along on it....
I owned an NS Stick for a while, perhaps the best bass tone I ever had. No one better at the NS Stick than Don Schiff, IMHO, who combined tapping with a conventional style of playing.
I was in a band in El Lay with Emmett's daughter Grace back in the early 80's and had a chance to meet and talk with Emmett on several occasions, including once a few years later at NAAM. He's a very gracious and friendly fellow. A bit of an eccentric I suppose, but that only makes sense to me. Grace was great to work with, she was our lead singer, but I moved on when things seemed to get a bit stagnant.
Nice folks the whole family. As far as learning to play a Stick goes. Steep curve, but there are many success stories I guess. Any used ones in your area?
I’ve always thought they were cool but never really wanted to learn the traditional stick once I learned more about them as it’s too different with its weird (to me anyways) tuning and all. But going down that rabbit hole is what eventually got me into 7 string basses. Wanted the NS stick at one point. It is an interesting instrument designed by Steinberger and the Chapman stick guys together. Doesn't use a stick tuning, it’s essentially an 8 string extended range bass that’s optimized for tapping
And this
I noticed in a lot of those videos that a 7 string would be plenty enough because the players rarely ever used certain strings.
Eventually I picked up a 7 string conklin used at guitar center.
I can’t remember for sure but that bass was like 15 or 16 lbs. I sold it because with the family and actively gigging again and not using it for gigs because it was too heavy I didn’t have much time to play it. But sitting at home for this pandemic stuff I’ve been GASing for another 7. Especially now that that there are much lighter alternatives like the keisel which I’ve heard some of those 7s have actually come out to weigh 8-9 lbs. which is really my ideal range for weight because it’s not back breaking heavy but it’s heavy enough that it doesn’t flop around when playing. With a 7 in that weight range I could definitely bring it to gigs and use it for certain songs, as a backup, or even as my main bass.
Last edited:
They are difficult even if you play piano and got the independence down. You still have to play it clean. It is a commitment money and time. When I visit my friend in Vermont, I would tinker with it some, but I decided it is not for me. If I was given one, it will not be played.
Yup, lots of options, lots of ways to play it. Still hard pretty much any way you choose to approach it.
I’m going to go the other way on the difficulty thing. At least with the technique I’m learning, where the two hands work together (so less piano-like), I can already play most of the basslines I’ve written for my various bands over the years. The two hands thing is starting to come, though it’s different than the stick technique—think of one giant 8-fingered hand for arpeggios, chords, and broken chords. I’m no virtuoso, and I’ve been studying for I guess 19 months, practicing less than 30 mins per day, with days (sometimes a week) off, plus writing sludgy indie rock on it with my wife. YMMV of course. I am highly motivated: a hand condition makes bass playing without gloves painful and sometimes with; tapping is not.
im not saying it’s easy, but I don’t think it’s a lot harder than learning bass or guitar.
im not saying it’s easy, but I don’t think it’s a lot harder than learning bass or guitar.
I picked up Chapman Stick in 1986, after I'd been playing bass for a dozen years.
Long story short, I sold the Stick in 1991. There were four factors that contributed to my losing interest in the instrument ...well, five if you include the fact that I am habitually lazy and never practice any instrument as much as I should:
1) The reciprocal fifths tuning lends itself to a lot of interesting music because of melodic and intervallic patterns that fall easily under the fingers...but it also is an obstacle to executing other types of melodic and intervallic patterns, and that became a bit of a liability. The Stick all too easily can coerce one to play certain types of passages, while making certain other types of passages physically awkward (E.g., lots of whole-tone or chromatic music, especially those that involve intervals of 4 half-steps, don't lie under a single hand comfortable unless you've got the wingspan of an albatross). Sadly, at the time I was playing the Stick I was involved in an ensemble whose material all seemed to fall into that latter category!
2) There is a character -- or, I would argue, a lack of character -- to the upper half of the instrument (the "melody" strings, the ones traditionally tuned in fourths) that I have never heard any Stick player, regardless of how experienced and/or virtuosic, overcome. To my ear this is inherent in the instrument, a result of both the tapping gesture combined with the construction materials and electronics of the Stick. I couldn't get past how unengaging that sound was, and so I rarely if ever used a good 50% of the instrument's capabilities. (In hindsight, if they had made the bass-only version of the Stick in 1986, that would have been a better choice for achieving my musical objectives.)
3) Tony Levin's voice on the instrument is so distinctive, and so appealing, that after a few years I realized that all I was using the Stick for was to emulate Tony! That kinda defeats the whole point of being a musician.
4) The instrument I owned was one of the polycarbonate models, which were notorious for not holding their tuning. Of course, I didn't realize that was an issue with all polycarbonate Sticks when I owned mine, I just thought either I had a lemon or my ears were turning to poo.
Anyway, it was a fascinating experience, and I do still love some Stick players (especially Tony Levin) but recognizing it wasn't the right fit for my musical goals was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Here's me in 1987, before the bloom was off the rose:
Last edited:
