chapman stick – OZTHOUGHTS

I came across the Chapman Stick a couple of days ago for the first time and fell in love with it at once. It is the most amazingly versatile and pleasing electronic instrument I have heard, one that is capable of being played in real time without any pre-programming of its various voices.

As you can see, it owes its form and to a lesser degree, its function to a simple electric guitar, but it is way more than that. Unlike a guitar, which is essentially a plucked string instrument, this one is much more a sort of keyboard in which the strings are hit rather than being plucked, though you can of course, pluck the stings if that is the effect you desire.

I think probably it would be best to show you a video made by the guy who invented the instrument, in which he describes in fine detail exactly what and how it works and is played. And for those of you who prefer to get your information by reading it, here is how good old Wikipedia describes it.

A Chapman Stick looks like a wide version of the fretboard of an electric guitar, but with 8, 10 or 12 strings. It is, however, considerably longer and wider than a guitar fretboard. Unlike the electric guitar, it is usually played by tapping or fretting the strings, rather than plucking them. Instead of one hand fretting and the other hand plucking, both hands sound notes by striking the strings against the fingerboard just behind the appropriate frets for the desired notes.

For this reason, it can sound many more notes at once than some other stringed instruments, making it more comparable to a keyboard instrument than to other stringed instruments. This arrangement lends itself to playing many lines at once, and many Stick players have mastered performing bass, chords and melody lines simultaneously.

So now you know what it looks like and roughly how it works, here is a video in which Emmett Chapman (the guy who invented this wonderful instrument) describes it, tells us how it works and demonstrates it as well.

See what I mean? Isn’t that the most amazing instrument you have ever heard? Such a versatile and intuitive instrument, and capable of so many different tones, colours and styles.

As you will see in the following videos, it is an instrument that lends itself easily to just about any sort of music you can think of.

Continue reading “Chapman Stick – Extraordinary Instrument”

The period of the Great Depression, which was roughly the 30’s of the last century, produced some remarkable music in a whole slew of styles. But one thing about almost all of this music was that it denied the realities of what was happening to the USA at that time. However, there were two songs that in their differing ways did describe the realities of what was happening to so many people in that financial crash.

And it is the the first of these two songs I shall be looking at in this post, the second (Brother Can You Spare A Dime) I shall look at in the next post. and here is the link to that one. (Click here)

1: No One Knows You When You Are Down And Out.

Even though I am relating this song to the Great depression, it was in fact written in 1923, by a blues guitarist called Jimmy Cox, and had nothing to do with financial crashes on a national level, but was all about what happens when you go from being very rich to very poor – Obviously a very different situation to the total financial collapse of an entire country, but there are obvious parallels to be seen in the basic idea of this song and the Great Crash of 1929.

The first known recording of this song was by Bobby Leecan with the South Street Trio in 1927.

As you have heard, his version is a bit different to the one we all know and love, but it is actually the original version, and as such, it deserves to be recognised and played. And to be honest, I like its simplicity and straightforward Blues approach to the idea.

Blind Bobby Baker, another moderately obscure blues singer also recorded it in the late 20’s (1927 to be exact), but he changed the words to emphasise the depressing side of the song’s message rather more forcibly.

So here is his version, played on a very old 78 as you can see.

I rather think that the title on the video, which refers to “nobody nees you” didn’t mean nobody knees you, but needs you. Though when you think about it, both would work in the context of the song.

Continue reading “The Great Crash – Songs That Describe It. Pt 1”