In my opinion a basic harmonic knowledge is essential to understand better your instrument and of course music in general, the level of it it depends on what kind of music you want to do with The Stick, if you want to play some Michael Brecker stuff then you´ll have to study quite a lot.

Don´t believe missconceptions such as "knowing a lot of harmony takes away the music" that is not true at all, knowing harmony helps you play and most important understand and use logically what you hear, it makes your life easier, all great musicians that made history were well trained in harmony, Mozart, Debussy, Coltrane, Parker, Holdsworth, Miles, Pastorius, Metheny, all played and wrote incredibly beautiful music, so, in my opinion learning harmony is a must.

Not much more that I can add, except to say that this thread continues to produce great insights!

To GC's and Emmett's posts: much of what is suggested seems fairly out of the realm of my past experience ... which definitely indicates that I need to think about it further.



The fact that there is a "normal" (or "easy") way that something is done almost guarantees that it wouldn't be how I would end up doing it. When I found out about the Stick, I couldn't recall actually ever hearing one before, and had no idea who Tony Levin was. (I think that I knew that King Crimson was a band.)

No thorough theory knowledge, but "Music Theory Everyone SHOULD KNOW"

also a very simple way to understand :

This is the best advise in my opinion. I am constantly working on memorizing note positions and as GC mentioned, playing the same note with both hands simultaneously over and over until you don't miss. That's been an issue for me because the left and right hand are moving simultaneously but at different distances to reach the same note.

Free Hands is theory.
So if you choose to play a Chapman Stick, then you should learn some Chapman Stick Free Hands theory.

Been a long time, but here is my 2 cents worth.
Coming from an engineering background, I relate playing the stick like a new building. The architect makes the outside look the way he wants it, (articulation, note selection and all the other things you notice), and the engineer does the work of proving mathematically that it works, (music theory).

So I try to play things that sound good to my ear, and then try to understand how it fits into the context of music theory.

"So I try to play things that sound good to my ear, and then try to understand how it fits into the context of music theory."

BOOM !!

This is right on the money

for the last couple of days i'm watching
Robert Greenberg – Understanding the Fundamentals of Music (2007)
16 videos course 45 min each + pdf book
clarify many things regarding theory
highly highly recommended !

I guess free hands may not necessarily be theory, but it definitely shows the theoretical possibilities of the stick, if you can grab the notes.

Parallel Galaxy or the offset modal system, may be more theory, than the discipline of fingers on strings. The offset modal system is a short but complicated, idea, which i still do not grasp, but i am working on.
Basically i think it has a lot to do with the way we create music with the instrument, and the endless possibilities therein.
I have perused the offset modal system a few times, someday maybe i will understand it. This is a lesson I like to refer to from time to time. Genius.