When I started playing the Chapman Stick back in 2001 I immediately fell in love to 
have the ability to play two handed basslines. On the inverted fifth tuning you can 
cover an extremely wirde range of notes with only one hand, but with two hands you 
can increase speed and  melodic flexibility with ease. Further this playing technique
is perfect to be used for funk basslines which are my personal passion. 
Everybody on the 1... 
I practiced the instrument using the playing technique originally invented by Emmett, 
but quickly discovered Jim Lampi and Ron Baggerman as my personal favorites. 
Rom is the Rock'n'Roll godfather of playing the Chapman Stick, a one man Rock 
show playing incredible basslines, guitar solo like melodies and singing right along. 
Jim is a more quiet, but extremely deep musician. For me he evolved the Chapman 
Stick to be played like a Grand Piano - which I find incredible as this was my first 
instrument for a long time. 
After years of practicing and playing, I discovered two things that came in my mind 
again and again. The first is a fretless Chapman Stick bass side, and the second is a 
bass only Chapman Stick, dedicated to play two handed basslines. 
After some discussions with Emmett, the solution was very easy: A custom SB8 
with two identical sets of strings in inverted fifth tuning, one set of them fretless. 
I can now easily switch from playing fretless to fretted, mix playing on both sides 
and process the sound independently. I currently prefer a very rough, direct funk 
sound on the fretted strings and a wide chorus on the fretless side. 
Anyway this sound preference almost changes every two days. 
Emmett built this one of a kind instrument for me in 2011/2012. It is made from 
light bamboo, stained yellow finish, PASV-4, black tuners, white pearl linear inlays 
and a rubber "butt". 
I used this instrument a lot on "Another Life" I recorded with my friend Peter Alexius 
and Adrian Belews bass player Julie Slick in 2012. The record is available as a 
download only at: http://sam-music.bandcamp.com/album/another-life
You can listen to some track for free. Please check out "Large-Scale Structure" 
and "The Funk, Inverted" featuring my custom half fretless SB8. 

And my personal thanks go to Emmett Chapman for building this wonderful
instrument for me.
 

	Marc Mennigmann December 2013
	http://www.mennigmann.com
.	.

Marc es un ejemplo de músico, multi-instrumentista, con esa inquietud, con ganas de
experimentar. En la que le lleva a necesitar un instrumento que le permita sacar fuera
de su cabeza montones de ideas que antes tenía retenidas por falta de la herramienta
adecuada. 
Marc, vielen Dank für deinen Text.