Re: Chapman Stick/Jamman MIDI

[jspeer@haverford.edu]

> What is the Chapman Stick?  I see it mentioned around these parts all the
> time, but I have no idea what it is.  Is it just a regular guitar that's
> favored by looper types for some reason, or does it do something
> special?

Emmett Chapman first developed a certain method of playing an electric
instrument, which is most simply described as two hands approaching the
fingerboard perpendicularly from either side.  Each hand crosses over the
neck to tap on the strings on the opposite side.  He designed and built the
Stick to best suit this technique.  The pickups are super clean and high
output, the action is very low, as is the string tension.  One hand plays
bass-range strings, strung in 5th, while the other plays the guitar range,
in 4ths.  The range of the whole instrument is roughly the same as a piano.

I think the Stick is particularly well suited to looping for a number of
reasons, which I'll capsulize:  A very percussive attack is produced by the
tapping, and the long strings and pickups produce and extra rich sustained
sound.  MIDI pickups work especially well on the instrument, should you
choose to control loops via MIDI data.  The last biggie is that the
instrument can be operated with only one hand when necessary to make manual
adjustments with the other.

The Stick web site is:
http://clever.net/stick/stickwire/