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An Exploration Into the Chapman Stick and Its Impact on Songwriting and Composition

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An Exploration Into the Chapman Stick and Its Impact on Songwriting and Composition An exploration into the Chapman stick and its impact on songwriting and composition Christopher Max Jones MA Songwriting Research methodologies and context MD PM7001 Word count 8,245 1 Abstract This research first reviewed the Chapman stick as a hybrid instrument by looking at the connection with four other instruments which are closely related to it. The review made use of a limited amount of literature, the reason being the lack of an extensive amount of material having been written with regard to this instrument. This is a result of the fact that the Chapman stick is relatively new, and so lacks history and tradition. I then extended the knowledge that has been gathered to this date by looking at the impact of the Chapman stick in the areas of songwriting and composition. Once I had ascertained the topics most pertinent, questionnaires and interviews were used in order to explore a small number of areas which formed the spine of my primary research. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5 Topic review ..................................................................................................................... 6 What is the Chapman stick? ..................................................................................................... 6 Structure of the instrument ...................................................................................................... 7 Guitar influence ....................................................................................................................... 7 The free hands technique and jazz ............................................................................................................... 8 Tuning / uniformity and transposition .......................................................................................................... 9 Bass Influence ........................................................................................................................ 10 Tuning in fifths and songwriting application ............................................................................................... 10 Percussive influence ............................................................................................................... 11 A piano like style .................................................................................................................... 12 The stick as an alternative to the keyboard ................................................................................................ 13 Effects and looping ................................................................................................................ 14 A brief evolution of the stick .................................................................................................. 15 Songwriting techniques .......................................................................................................... 16 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 17 My research ........................................................................................................................... 18 Initial questionnaire: ................................................................................................................................... 19 3 Main questionnaire: .................................................................................................................................... 20 Interviews:................................................................................................................................................... 20 Results ........................................................................................................................... 21 The stick and songwriting / composition ................................................................................. 21 The stick in connection with other instruments ....................................................................... 23 The Chapman stick and the NS stick ........................................................................................ 25 New instrument. The Sorof guitar board ................................................................................. 26 Effects, rigs and live work ....................................................................................................... 27 The stick and the cultural connection/ stick community .......................................................... 29 Publishing .............................................................................................................................. 30 New Book .................................................................................................................................................... 30 Musical material .......................................................................................................................................... 30 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 31 References...................................................................................................................... 32 Appendices ..................................................................................................................... 34 Appendix 1 Initial questionnaire ........................................................................................... 34 Appendix 2 Main Questionnaire .......................................................................................... 43 Appendix 3 Interview with Boris Bazurov ............................................................................... 81 Appendix 4 Interview with Mathias Sorof .............................................................................. 84 Appendix 5. Interview with Don Schiff. ................................................................................. 92 4 Introduction I have been a singer-songwriter for a number of years and have been involved with tapping for the last eight years, first with the acoustic guitar, then on the electric guitar, then baritone guitar and more recently on the stick. Craig Anderton recounts with regard to the stick, It’s not often that a new musical instrument becomes accepted as part of the musical mainstream but the stick has proven its staying power. The fact that the instrument continues to evolve and pick up more followers is a testament to Emmett Chapman’s original vision (Anderton in Reilly 2015: 175). Boris Bazurov, a Russian stickist that I first saw at the meeting of stick players in Majorca in 2015, calls Chapman the ‘Stradivarius of the modern era’ (20/3/2018). The creation of the stick was a result of the fact that Emmett Chapman was a jazz guitarist and had sounds in his head that needed to be realised. The instruments in production today are a result of him following his vision. My journey into the world of stick playing began with a recording done by Giovanni Cognoli on one of my tracks. The aesthetic quality alone captured my attention. The solo virtuoso playing of Guillermo Cides really confirmed my feeling that the stick could be a powerful songwriting tool, particularly when combined with effects pedals and loopstation, which Cides claims are part of the instrument itself (Cides 2015). This research is important because it is a responsibility for the players to advance the instrument. After about 40 years of having the stick in the world, at this point it is helpful to assess its place in the world of songwriting and composition, and to analyse the possibilities for the use of the Chapman stick, and to look at how players of this instrument and closely related tapping instruments can develop themselves both in a professional and amateur capacity. 5 Topic review What is the Chapman stick? Reilly recounts how the world was introduced to the Chapman stick on the song ‘Elephant Talk’ from the album Discipline by King Crimson. A polyrhythmic introduction to the song was employed (Reilly 2015: 154). Peter Gabriel, Midnight Oil and David Sylvian also used the stick in their line ups and the instrument gained popularity. Emmett Chapman produced the instruments, with a few thousand being in the hands of players and collectors around the world. In Reilly’s book J C Thomas notes that rather than being a new form of guitar, the stick embodies the superior parts of guitar and bass. He states that Emmett Chapman‘s work with the stick is as significant as John Coltrane’s work on composition and improvisation in the 1960s (2015:113). The Chapman stick is a member of a family of instruments that Daniel Schell names ‘Tiptars’ (1999:7) (derived from ‘tapping guitars’) in his interesting book My Space My Time (1999). Other instruments in this family are the Warr guitar (played by Trey Gunn), the Santucci treble bass and the Belgrado tap guitar (Schell:4). Although the instrument can be said to have evolved from tapping on the guitar, on the Chapman stick the ‘touchboard’ is predominantly tapped, so it is specifically designed for this. This is clear from the incredibly low action between the strings and the touchboard. 6 Structure of the instrument The stick can be
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