Чапман Стик: Гитара отбасының аспабы

Stringed instrument of the guitar family

The Chapman Stick is an electric musical instrument devised by Emmett Chapman in the early 1970s. A member of the guitar family, the Chapman Stick usually has ten or twelve individually tuned strings and is used to play bass lines, melody lines, chords, or textures. Designed as a fully polyphonic chordal instrument, it can also cover several of these musical parts simultaneously. The Stick is available with passive or active pickup modules that are plugged into a separate instrument amplifier. With a special synthesizer pickup, it can be used to trigger synthesizers and send MIDI messages to electronic instruments.

In 1969, jazz guitarist Emmett Chapman developed the two handed tapping technique (in which both hands play parallel to the frets) and applied it to his playing. At the time, Chapman was playing a 9 string long scale guitar, but decided to develop a new instrument for use with "free hands" to use the method's full potential. The Chapman Stick took five years to develop, during which Chapman also opted to set up a business to sell it. The first production model of the Stick was launched in 1974. On October 10 of the same year, Chapman brought his instrument to public attention by demonstrating it on the game show What's My Line? Former Weather Report bassist Alphonso Johnson was among the first musicians to introduce the Chapman Stick to the public. Session player Tony Levin was also an early user and was playing the instrument from the mid 1970s: he would bring it to sessions and tours with Peter Gabriel, and featured it in his work as a member of King Crimson from 1981 onwards. He would also use it with Liquid Tension Experiment and in sessions for bands including Pink Floyd and Yes. Levin formed the band Stick Men, consisting of one drummer and two Stick players. Recordings that have been influential on Stick players, because of the prominent role the Stick plays, include the 1981 King Crimson album Discipline (played by Tony Levin) and Emmett Chapman's own album Parallel Galaxy. Amy Grant's hit single "Angels" also featured a Stick solo (played by Andy Widders Ellis). The Stick made a disguised appearance in David Lynch's film Dune as Gurney Halleck's baliset, although the scene where Halleck (played by Patrick Stewart) plays the instrument was removed from the theatrical version and can only be seen in the extended versions. The piece being played in the scene is from Emmett Chapman's recording of his original song "Back Yard" from a cassette recording. Wayne Lytle, creator of Animusic, commented that on his piece "Stick Figures", his inspiration for the semi anthropomorphic bass guitar was the Chapman Stick.

Chapman Sticks have been made from many materials. The first were made from hardwoods, most from ironwood, but some from ebony and other exotic woods, until the early 1980s. The next group was made from an injection molded polycarbonate resin through 1989. These were followed by one piece hardwood structures with an adjustable truss rod, and for a time from 2001 to the mid to late 2000s (although not currently available), the "Stick XG" (Extended Graphite) was made of structural graphite, continuous strand carbon fiber. Today, they are made from laminated hardwoods (including padauk, Indian rosewood, tarara, maple, wenge, and mahogany), and laminated bamboo, as well as graphite. In contrast to the guitar or bass, the Stick is set up with very little relief in the fretboard. It is very flat compared to a guitar, which has a slight bow. Combined with a long scale length, stainless steel pyramidal fret rails, very low string action, and very sensitive pickups, this setup is advantageous to the tapping style of play. The rear surface of the instrument is not curved like a guitar neck, but has deep beveled edges (also a design trademark of the Stick).

The original (now called "Classic") tuning consists of five bass strings (six on the Grand Sticks), tuned upwards in all fifths tuning, with the low string in the middle of the fretboard, and five melody strings (6 on Grand Stick), tuned upwards (this means from lowest pitched string to highest pitched string) in all fourths tuning, again with the low string in the middle of the fretboard. The hardware is fully adjustable to accommodate any gauge string at any position. On the 36" scale instrument, notes can range from low C (above B on a 5 string bass) to high D (a whole step below the high E string on guitar). On the two guitar scale models (Alto Stick and Stick Guitar), the notes range from F below guitar low E to F# above guitar high E.

Tuning configurations may change depending on the player's style: a player playing as a lead instrument will choose an overall higher pitch tuning, with more separation or overlap between the melody and bass courses. The stringing/tuning configuration of the Chapman Stick is advantageous to the player who wishes to play large, fully voiced chords with close inner note relationships. In contrast to a standard guitar, where one tends to "run out of options" within a particular fingering, the Stick tuning results in up to four or even five octaves of note choices under each hand's fretting position. The classic tuning shows another advantage as well: The regular tunings in fourths and fifths remain consistent in each of the two parts of the instrument; regular tunings facilitate learning by beginners, as well as transposition and improvisation by advanced players. Also, the bass/melody division allows microtonal tunings. The manufacturer's website has more detailed information on tunings.

The Stick is available with passive or active pickup modules. Customized Roland GK 3 pickups are available for the treble or bass side of the instrument, allowing the instrument to trigger or control one or two guitar synthesizers such as the Roland GR 20 or Axon AX 100, and also to drive other MIDI instruments or sequencers chained to the guitar synthesizer. The hammer on style of playing produces a rising waveform transient that is easily tracked by this type of device. Standard output is two channel, through a TRS 1/4" phone connector, with bass and melody courses output separately. There are separate volume controls for bass and melody. The ACTV 2 and PASV 4 pickup modules also have mono operation modes. The Stick can be plugged into any standard guitar amp or bass amplifier, to good effect. However, because of the very high impedance of the passive pickups, an instrument preamp is often employed, especially for full range amplification systems (PA system, keyboard amps, etc.). British musician Nick Beggs uses a Grand Stick, fully MIDI capable of triggering from both bass and melody strings. He has named this modified instrument the "Virtual Stick".