Victor Tsaran | guitars | music | technology | and more

I heard of Chapman Stick before and, in fact, it is on the list of instruments I would like to own and learn to play in the near future. So, thanks, Disc Makers, for reminding us about Chapman's Stick in the form of such a passionate article.

Article by Stephen Wise, who writes instrument and gear reviews for Music After 50, where this review first appeared.

Stephen Wise has owned a Chapman Stick for 30 years.

Another trait that The Stick® shares with the saxophone is that it is a modern instrument, developed from the ground up to be easily played using a logical technique. I know all of these things because I have been a Stick® owner for over 30 years. Although I have learned to play more than a dozen instruments over the years, if you came to me today and told me that I could only have one instrument for the rest of my life, I would keep my Stick®!

The Stick® was first marketed by Emmett Chapman in 1974, the culmination of his experiments in “touch playing” of fretted instruments in the guitar family. As a jazz guitarist, limited to six strings and five fingers, Emmett began to envy the freedom and space that keyboard musicians enjoyed, but still wanted to have the degree of nuance that only fingers on strings can deliver. In a flash of inspiration, he up-ended his guitar, reached around the neck with both hands, and began tapping out riffs.

Read more of The Chapman Stick – Versatile, Unique, and Portable