Language and music have similarities in this regard. We all use language, and we all have a basic relationship to music as listeners, singers, hummers, dancers, etc.

Most of us can increase our understanding of how language works by studying another language

Learning how to play your first instrument is like learning your first foreign language. Knowing some languages might make it easier to learn another language, and knowing others might make it less easy but understanding that you can learn another language makes it easier to learn a or third or fourth, I think.

Is it easier to learn Italian if you already know Spanish? Maybe, because they have more in common than Italian and Urdu do. But maybe that difference will make for a better understanding, a more thorough learning. If you learn two languages that have a lot of similarities, are you ever really able to think clearly in one or the other, or do they tend to blur in the mind? I don't know the answer, as I suspect it's different for different people.

I'm not convinced that knowing how to play the bass or guitar is any more of an advantage for learning The Stick than knowing any other instrument.

But knowing how to play any instrument well - understanding how rhythm and harmony work, how music works, would probably make it easier to learn how to play another instrument well than starting from scratch.

I second the notion that everyone should study the piano. It just makes things so much clearer as far as the theory of Western music is concerned. If Western music is what you want to play....

I've had a few students who came to The Stick later in life, and as their first attempt to learn an instrument. Though this might seem like a big challenge, their inspiration and dedication have proven to be all they needed to make real progress. But I do think it's decidedly easier to learn to play when you have a grounding in the language of music that comes from having successfully studied another instrument previously.

Sometimes it can be a detriment as many guitarists or bassist come in thinking that the Stick is like a "bass or guitar on steroids" which, to me, immediately closes off a big chunk of the big picture.


I've always agreed with this and most educators do too. At the university where I studied music, every student in the music program was required to study piano whether they were majoring in piano or not.

I do think that any and all previous musical experience only helps for pretty much the reasons that Greg iterated. I have always played multiple instruments. By the time I decided to attack the Stick, I had performed in front of people on sax, keys, guitar, bass and drums and also dabbled in some study of flute, clarinet and violin. When the Stick came, there was never a question in my mind of "if I could play", it was only a question of how long will it take.

My Stick experiences reflect a lot of the issues people have talked about... when I first got a Stick in the mid 90s I was very much looking at it as a replacement for bass and guitar (I had previous experience in flute, guitar and piano). I stuck with Free Hands for some time, but the instrument still didn't quite "click" with me. I didn't think I wanted to play solo music, which the Stick seemed most ideal for, and thought for multi-track compositions it was better to focus on keys, guitar and bass. I decided to trade my old 10 string for an NS/Stick.

This worked well for me in a church band role for a few years, playing basslines with the left and simple block chords on the right. I was still thinking in terms of the bass plus keyboard/guitar role.

Sometime around 2003 I got my first acoustic guitar and it made a profound impact on my approach to music. Suddenly not tied to electricity and cables, the immediacy and organic nature of the instrument gave me a new appreciation for developing pieces to play solo on one instrument (and the acoustic Tull pieces I had already learned on electric sounded so much better!) I wasn't expecting the difference between electric and acoustic guitar to be so dramatic.

So this got me going back to the NS and trying to do some solo pieces, such as baroque keyboard music. I ran into some limitations and since I was no longer playing in a band or even playing the NS much, decided it would be worth it to try a Grand Stick, with a dual parallel 4ths tuning I had considered before the NS/Stick was announced.

With the previous things I had learned on other instruments, and more general music exposure and education under my belt (recently having finished music grad school), but for the first time NOT approaching the Stick as a bass/guitar replacement, things started to make more sense, but I still wasn't sure. After thinking about it a few months and a couple conversations with Greg I switched to mirrored 4ths.

As recently as the Charlottesville seminar in 2004, I was still at a crossroads, I was considering focusing on acoustic guitar or the Stick. But with a little more effort the Stick came to life and it was one discovery after another of how I could assimilate my various influences, both concepts and techniques, realize them on the Stick and come up with my own voice. Once it really clicked I've barely spent time on another instrument, it's like an orange you can keep squeezing and never runs out of juice.

For me there's certainly a magic there, obviously I'll disagree with Ray a bit that it's in the 5ths tuning but more in terms of the tap technique opening up the freedom to play in two complimentary pitch regions- I'm amazed sometimes how intuitive it is to come up with arrangement ideas, to realize harmony and melody at once (and everything in between) with all sorts of expressive possibilities. The learning curve can be steep when approaching it as a solo instrument but on the other hand the ceiling seems much higher.... I've not run into a song or musical concept I couldn't realize on the Stick, and I constantly have things running through my mind I want to try.

My studies of Ian Anderson's acoustic guitar playing, trying to learn the bass/guitar keyboard parts of Marillion songs, etc. all gave me material I could try to translate to the Stick, so I'd say my previous experience was important if not essential before starting the Stick. At first I felt like I was in the vacuum with the instrument, thinking I could pull things out of mid air and be creative with it (so many possibilities!) but it took some years of grounding: assimilating my influences, ear training, learning to "speak" on other instruments, etc.- before a "vision" became clear.

Unlike so many, I came to the Stick NOT being a bass player, actually never having laid hands on a bass. I've been drumming since I was 8, and for me that has been the the most helpful experience in learning Stick. The understanding of rhythms and of two-handed independence was a huge help. I've played guitar for almost 25 years now, and while I still play, I'm really concentrating on Stick, and I don't think that much technique from guitar crosses over much to Stick. More in terms of rhythms and theory, but not technique.

Kris

Quite extensive posts, very interesting to see the multitude of experiences.

The problem with adapting to Stick is the approach to the instrument, not the previous experience.
Chapman Stick isn't any more difficult to learn than other instruments.
Chapman Stick isn't a guitar+bass solution.
Chapman Stick rocks!
It is a unique and valid instrument, and we have to see it like that or else there will be no evolution. And a lot of people around this forum and out are doing exactly that

That's why you should always strive to learn music!
Don't memorize patterns and diagrams if you don't understand their essence, and you'll avoid being locked in.
I only have Greg's book and it tries to do just that for example, IMO.

P.S. Nice analogy with the languages, Greg.

I would think that the only folks who could give a sensible answer to this one would be those who teach. After all, I've just acquired my first Stick and I bring to it many years experience as a bassist and as many tinkering around with guitars, keys and drums so I'll never be able to know what it would be like to learn it with no prior musical experience.

What I can say is that to be reasonably proficient on an instrument closely related to the stick - bass guitar shares roughly the same scale length, has frets, pickups etc. - and yet sound like a complete beginner can be quite a frustrating thing so maybe you'd be better to actually *be* a complete beginner so that your expectations are more easily fulfilled?

Cheers

Ed

Indeed, I think a lot of that can come from *other people* who expect you to be knocking full tunes out within hours

Having all that theory knowledge of harmony and scales and ear training has gotta count for something! And the discipline of practicing right from the start!

It's interesting you should bring up the discipline of practice as I was just having this discussion with some friends a few days ago.

Not necessarily Stick related ... and possibly a topic that should have had it's own thread ... but ...

I notice that most of the time (and I emphasize "most" because there are obviously exceptions to every rule) when I end up playing in bands with people who had a formal education as a kid (i.e. band kid), these people are generally better at rehearsing and preparing than people who are essentially "street learned." They aren't necessarily better players and certainly not necessarily better musicians. They are just usually better at the process of preparing music and making it performance ready.

Of course you run across "street smart" players who are good at rehearsing because of habits they've picked up from others over the years. But at the same time, I've been in bands with more than my share of guys whose idea of a rehearsal involves showing up with a case of beer and just running tunes until they're too bombed to play anymore.

Any thoughts? Am I completely off base?

Having played piano before helped me a lot.

But there are some difficulties one cannot escape: fixing and tuning your instrument, descending scale which is different from ascending (very!), proximity between consecutive strings (which is an important factor to be taken into account, mainly with Grand Stick).

Anyway, beyond your past experience, this beautiful instrument demands a lot (A LOT) of work ... And every day !