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.
. I
have a love-hate relationship with the Stick
.
I'll be honest;
I have a love-hate relationship with the Stick. Well, in truth it's actually
more like 98% love, and maybe 2% mild annoyance.
Don't get me wrong, I have forgiven it for consuming
my life since the early-2000s,
thus causing me to forsake what seemed like a
lifetime of bass playing and a few
personal relationships in the process. So what's
my "annoyance"?
Well to begin with, I guess I'm one of the few
bass players who never aspired to
sound like Tony Levin on the Stick. I
love Tony's bass playing and musicianship,
but I'm not one of these people who meditates
to "Elephant Talk" every day
(sorry, I know that's the Stick-player stereotype).
Incidentally, my favourite Tony
Levin impersonator isn't a Stick player,
but bassist Les Claypool of the band
Primus; something which happens to be relevant
to this article.
With absolutely no intention of being controversial
or disrespectful, I have to admit
that other Chapman Stick players were never a
major motivation for me to seek
out the instrument. I remember seeing this strange
looking thing in Guitar Player
magazines back in the 80's, but my exposure to
music on the Stick was minimal.
To be honest, I was probably more in love with
the concept of the instrument than
anything tangible. Deep down, maybe I'm just
a frustrated pianist. But that's OK.
I'd simply reached a point where I needed a different
form of self-expression,
and the Stick had been on my radar for about
a decade. I thought, "here's a cool
instrument that does bass stuff, but also other
stuff", which seemed like more than
enough (and it sure was!).
Obviously there are many Stick players whom I
admire, particularly in terms of
technique. But none of them really presented
me with a blueprint for how I wanted
to sound. I've thought about this often, and
asked myself why? This may surprise
you, but I'm just going to say it. I'm not really
a fan of tapping. Weird, huh?
So, as much as I love the feel, look, sound,
tuning, and sheer outrageous possibilities
of the Chapman Stick, I just plain don't love
tapping. Please forgive me.
It just sometimes sounds too....tappy. Now, I
realised early on that tapping is a
primary technique on the Stick; the two can not
really be separated. So instead of
trying to re-invent the instrument, I started
looking for different ways to make my
hands shape the sound. I say "my hands", because
this exploration can also be
undertaken with effects and equipment. But I'm
a person who likes simplicity and
hates relying on a lot of equipment, so I have
usually avoided the second option.
These days, I rarely just tap my way through
a piece without using many hammer-ons, pull-offs, and barring to create
open string sounds. Most importantly, I believe that it comes down to what
you want to "hear", and learning to project that sound.
Naturally, there's not a huge catalogue of Stick-based
music around (there was even
less when I first started playing, and no YouTube).
This is an amazing opportunity to
make this young instrument your own; by applying
artistic vision to your playing.
So how do you want to sound? If the answer is
"like Tony Levin", then sure, go for
that. He's a damn good role model (as mentioned
earlier, Les Claypool has been
known to say that he wanted his bass parts to
sound like Tony Levin playing the
Stick). But I also encourage you to explore the
music and artists you love, and think
about how to translate this to the Stick. For
example, much of the fluidity in modern
bass playing is derived from the study of jazz
saxophonists, rather than traditional bass playing. Some of the most important
moments for me as a Stick player have been discovering new musicians on
other instruments.
A guitarist named Carlos Vamos really
opened my ears to how beautiful and fluid
tapping can be. To my mind, he is years ahead
of most Stick players in this respect.
The first time I heard the artist Nils Frahm,
I thought "this guy is doing exactly what
I want to do" - but on a piano.
I've often wondered what Michael Hedges
would have done with a Stick. That's a
challenge, but a good one. There's very little
really percussive playing happening on
the Stick too; I'm still waiting for someone
to take it to a new level. Personally I also
listen a lot to singer/songwriters, and try to
use the concepts of story-telling and
repeated melodic hooks in the context of solo
instrumental music. Ultimately, I
encourage you to find your own sound and concepts.
Think
about how you want
to sound, and also how you want people to feel
when they hear that sound. It's all
a wonderful learning experience - at least 98%
of the time...
.
Interesting point
of view on interpretative resources in the instrument
Epakta |
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autor del articulo se reserva el derecho de autorización de ser
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