The Steel Guitar Forum

Any of you guys play THE STICK?

Man I havent heard anyone talk about those in years. I always loved Tony Levin's playing on those King Crimson albums.

The Stick has come a long way since it was first put into production in 1974. Be sure to check out their web site. They have quite a few videos posted.

I bought a 10 stringer from Emmett back in ‘03. Beautifully crafted and wonderful sounding and given the two hand piano-like playing approach very rich chord voicing are possible. A unique and creative instrument (IMO).

It's a whole 'nuther animal. I was talking to Doug Livingston one time a few years ago about how cool they were and how I just wanted one to peck around on and see if I could get anything going and he mentioned he had had one in his closet for the last 20 years. So he showed up at my gig one night and said "here ya go" and handed me this long case and said "you can have this for a long time". I haven't scratched the surface of the instrument in the 2 or 3 years I've had the thing although I've spent a lot of time on it. Tony Levin is OK but he's just a bass player playing Bass on a stick with a little extra stuff thrown in with his right hand. If you want to hear a genius stick player check out Randy Strom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nffzfBtv ... ed&search= Randy has been at it since maybe 1980 or before and he's astonishing. He sounds like Jaco Pastorious with one hand and John McLaughlin with the other. Randy plays a 12 string Warr Guitar http://www.warrguitars.com/WarrRSS/Warr%20Guitars.html nowadays tho because it sounds a little less like a Hohner Clav and more like a guitar.You play it like a stick tho.

I saw an instrumental trio once that consisted of harp, stick and hand drums. The stick is a very versatile instrument. It's like playing bass and guitar at once.

Ah the stick! The stick shtick can be sick in the right hands.

The biggest problem with the stick is that it is absolutely impossible to strap one on without looking like a goofball.

It's funny to hear the comment about the Clavinet-ish sound. I'd never really thought about it, but the stick really does have that percussive clavinet vibe to it. I wonder how it'd sound in that sort of Stevie Wonder/George Duke/Bernie Worrell style...probably pretty sweet if you could convince someone funky enough to play it.

I actually had the money to buy one together once, so I went and bought up some Stick player's CDs, and they all sounded alike. It's apparently really, really hard to get away from that strict, alternating tappy sound - a lot of the heavy metal tappers sound too much alike too. The only person I've personally ever heard in that style that impressed me greatly with their musicality is Stanley Jordan, and I already have guitars. I suspect it's like trying to pat your head and rub your tummy, trying to play quarter notes with one hand and eighth notes, sixteenths or triplets with the other just doesn't launch too easily with an ordinary human brain. I'll look into this Strom fellow.

I did some playing one night with Emmet Chapman. He is a fine musician and part genius for coming up with this instrument.

I liked the cut on Youtube of the guy playing the sticklike instrument...until the chick in the shiny dress with the music stand in front of her and singing everything but the melody showed up. Threw me in a zone that I have had to escape from many nights. He really is a great player on that instrument! It was facinating to watch his technique and hear his ideas.

The attack and the sound can be very one dimensional on the stick intruments. The balance between the "dingy" attack playing the bass/accomp and the same tone used on the melody neck....maybe a very different sound on each neck would be better. You can see the two outputs for the guitar so the necks are independant EQ wise.

Would not mind tinkering with one of those.

I suspect it's like trying to pat your head and rub your tummy, trying to play quarter notes with one hand and eighth notes, sixteenths or triplets with the other just doesn't launch too easily with an ordinary human brain.

One word: piano.

After checking out the prices of these beasts, I think someone needs to come out with a Stick Starter.

The 2 sides of the Stick and all the Stick-like instruments have and always have had seperate pickups and outputs. Most players use a modern bass amp w/a little compression for the left hand section and a rig suitable for a jazz fusion guitarist - like a Mesa rack system and multi-efx for the right hand section. Some sticks are midi-fied as well.There are 8,10 and 12 string sticks too just like pedal steels with all the gadgetry and subculture that goes with it. But like I said a lot of guys are jumping ship like Randy and Trey Gunn and going to the Warr because of its less clacky,more complete tonal spectrum.
Then you got geeks like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShR8H5Q ... ed&search=
who have taken the Stanley Jordan technique a step further and can do a helluva lot but still don't have the bass end range of a Stick or Warr.

I was in a club in London one night and Nick Beggs played one ... now he mostly just played bass on it , but it was great... and he covered all kinds of music. I think this instrument has a great future in the right hands . Nick used to play with that boy band in the 80's Kajagoogoo... yes boy bands could even play instruments back then.... musical instruments that is

Richard Nelson wrote:Nick used to play with that boy band in the 80's Kajagoogoo... yes boy bands could even play instruments back then.... musical instruments that is

Nicky Beggs was/is a tremendous player.

What was the deal with all the great bass players in the pretty boy "new wave" bands? Nick was always very creative, John Taylor of Duran Duran was a monster, Bow Wow Wow's bassist Leigh Gorman was always a jaw dropper too. Heck, even "that guy" in Missing Persons was a secret badass, particularly on the less popular "Color in Your Life" album.

Whoops, I am the king of topic drift. Back to the stick.