Totally Bizarre Instruments

A Brief History of the Stick

Emmett and Yuta Chapman

I created a new stringed instrument to embody all the advantages of the tapping method I had been playing on guitar. I needed an all-fingerboard instrument, an expanded playing surface of strings and frets with the room and the range to explore two-handed playing to its full extent. At the same time I reduced the design to the essentials, solely for this basic method.

A member of the guitar and bass family, The Stick introduced a full two-handed piano technique applied directly onto the strings. It has a longer natural sustain than guitar, and yet is extremely percussive, the "drumming" of fingers executing sharp, staccato rhythms. It also has a strong and distinctive bass voice. And so, the techniques of four major instruments - guitar, piano, bass and drums - are all brought together on this single Touchboard® instrument.

The technique came before the instrument, a sudden discovery while playing my guitar in 1969. No known guitarist, bassist, or fingerboard player had ever before used a basic three and four fingered technique in each hand simultaneously to play independent lines, scales and chords. It was unique, yet basic and logical - both hands aligned parallel to the frets and perpendicular to the strings, the fingers of each hand fitting sequentially into selected fret spaces at any point along the board.

This is the common orientation of a fingering hand, more or less at right angles to the neck, and has from antiquity been the manner in which pickers, pluckers and strummers of stringed instruments finger-stopped their notes, usually with the left hand. I dedicated this fingering role to both hands, each addressing the board from opposite sides, and I began to perform, teach, and demonstrate this new method, as well as inventing and manufacturing a new instrument to fully realize its potential.

By 1970 I was playing L.A. clubs with jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, using this light-touch method of independent hands to play simultaneous bass, chords and melody on my modified guitar. Later that year I built a bodiless version out of an ebony board and called it "The Electric Stick". Refinements of the instrument and the method then evolved together, with my first production run of Sticks in 1974, as well as my first nationally televised Stick performance on "What's My Line" that year.

Stick Enterprises was founded in 1974 to manufacture and distribute the Stick. Since then we have added many new features and created a variety of related tapping instruments, including 8, 10, and 12 string models, an 8-string NS/Stick bass guitar, and related accessories.

Emmett Chapman, President,
Stick Enterprises, Inc.

 

This is from the Chapman Stick website;  http://www.stick.com/history/stick/

The photo Sigod posted is a Warr guitar, similar to the stick.

And to Wizard/TRuestar, look at http://www.stick.com/method/ for a demonstration

yep





Edited by goose

theremins always make me think of cheesy 50s horror movies. 

sadly I've never played one, no. My friend was going to get one off eBay but then realised he couldn't play any musical instruments . I might well have access to one on my degree course next year though.

Roland has a similar device called the D-beam, and Korg does it with their Kaoss equipment. Both are similar, but use invisible sensors rather than an electrostatic antenna. It is really mindbogglingly amazingly fun to make sounds by moving your hands in the air.

We had some discussion about the theremin a while back- I'll see if I can dig up the thread.

 

There is also this thing called the Tannerin, which was used in The Beach Boys "Good Vibrations"

A custom Tannerin built by Tom Polk The Tannerin Tom built for Brian Wilson

Tannerin The Tannerin, built by Tom Polk, is an electronic instrument named after Paul Tanner, who originated its use in the 1950s. Dr. Tanner's instrument was formerly called an electro-theremin. The Tannerin produces a pure sine wave, variable over three or four octaves. It is played by sliding a knob along the length of the instrument, starting and stopping the tone with a contact switch located on the pitch knob and operated by one's forefinger. The Tannerin has fixed reference points on a dummy keyboard so the musician knows exactly where notes can be found. An electro-theremin created the spacy sound on the Beach Boys classic Good Vibrations. Tom Polk built a special Tannerin for Brian Wilson to use on his 1999-2000 tour. For more information on the Tannerin, visit