The
Stick is an electric stringed instrument (8, 10 or 12) to be
played with the
tapping technique.
Emmett Chapman invented
it in 1974, thanks to his beautiful
mind! He started
as guitarist and the need to play with two
hands on the fingerboard,
brought him to develope the tapping
technique (already
used in the 40’s by a couple of guitar players).
Let’s take the 10
string Stick, it comes with two sections of strings
5 bass tuned in
ascendent 5ths and 5 melody tuned in
ascendent straight
4ths, with the lowest strings positioned in the
center of the fingerboard
so that one plays it crossing the hands:
left on bass side,
(like from first to 12 fret), right hand on melody
side, (like from
8 up to 25 fret). The range of the instrument is
more or less like
a piano.
So resuming.Two
hands crossed on the fingerboard, each finger
produce the note
that the fingertip tap. In this way, you can play
bass lines toghether
with melodies or rythmical chords, or chords
on the bass side
with deep bass as root and large interval to the
3rds and 7ths or
6ths or whatever you need, toghether with
melodies or chords
on the melody side. It’s polyphonic exactly
like a piano.
The Stick it’s a
stereo instrument, meanning that the bass and
melody sides go
out with two separated mono cords and it comes
with 3 choises of
pickup: standard passive pickup, Block wich
can be active (EMG)
or Passive.
.
These last two
have a switch to turn the instrument from stero to mono, so it can be plugged
with a normal mono/mono
jack to go
to one single amplifier (The dedicated StickAmp added since few days to
the Stick Ent features) or to go
out separating
the two sides to two bass and guitar amps. Is it difficult to play? It
depends on you. It’s a very instinctive
instrument
and an instinctive player can enjoy it really immediatly. It comes with
a lot of instructional methods books,
audio CDs,
VHS, by the main teachers and Emmett himself, for those players who need
to learn by a method, so you
won’t get
lost on it anyway!
* El
autor del articulo se reserva el derecho de autorización de ser
publicado en cualquier otro medio
Virna
(Virginia) Splendore multi-instrumentista italiana residente en Roma.
Stickista desde
1985.Representante oficial de Chapman Stick Ent. en Italia.
Organiza seminarios
anualmente en Milan y Roma.
Participa en el
de otros paises como profesora. Dos discos publicados hasta
la fecha con su
grupo Splendore : "Guilty" y "Different Things"
Agradezco a Virna
Splendore nos acerque al mundo del stick.
Este nuevo instrumento,
inventado por Emmet Chapman hace 3 décadas.
La producción
es construida artesanalmente por él mismo. Un instrumento con
caracter própio
que ofrece una paleta de posibilidades nuevas a otros ejecutantes
de instrumentos
tradicionales ( guitarra,bajo,piano,etc) dándose el caso que el
stick
se convierte, para
muchos de éstos músicos, en el instrumento principal .
