Hey, I was in that band!

Kris

Hi Locks,

To carry the analogy one step further.... The Stick is very much like the English language. Starting from a foundation of guitar, but wanting to expand his musical vocabulary, Emmett introduced a new way to say things on strings. Much like the introduction of French to the Old Anglo-Saxon of Britain in 1066, Emmett envisioned bringing the harmonic capabilities of keyboard instruments to the fretboard (as he himself has said was an inspiration via McCoy Tyner: http://www.emmettchapman.net/music/freehandsmethod.html).

And just as William the Conquerer had no way of knowing where his little British escapade would lead, so, too, Emmett can watch and hope as the seeds of his invention are carried all around the world, propagated by him (Johnny Appleseed was John Chapman after all), and by you and me.

That's about as mixed a metaphor of which I'm capable before 9:00 am.

I think that a person coming to the Stick who plays many instruments has a one-up on someone who only plays only one.

The multi-instrumentalist has gone "back to go" many times. He realizes that each instrument has it's own technique to learn and over come.

The person who plays one instrument might think "the Stick is nothing like my guitar/bass, I thought I could just buy this thing and play it". They might then get frustrated and never touch the Stick again. I've seen it happen many times.

- David -

Yeah when I got my Stick almost a year ago (don't worry, there will be a birthday thread,) I thought I could just strap it on and start playing. I pretty much got owned. I would go through couple week periods of not playing and stuff, but I think that's the fun in it. I'm really comfortable with it in a band, but solo I'm still pretty scared!

This is certainly understandable. Solo is a different beast entirely.

What you should do Pete is find some open mics and start going. This is a great way to get over the solo jitters. Generally the skill and competence level is all over the map at these things, people's expectations aren't super high, and you will (and I promise this) be the best Stick player in the room.

I cut my solo chops at a Monday night open mic they used to host down at Union Street in downtown Detroit. I went every Monday for several months and tried to make it a point to play at least one new tune every week. It made all the difference in the world.

I'm going through this phase now, and it's been enormously helpful... I've been playing at a weekly open mic in town, and hope to keep going until they get sick of me! It's a great motivation to continually learn something new, so you don't feel like a broken record every week. And casual enough that mistakes (even bad ones) aren't a big deal, you (and the audience) can sort of laugh it off. Great way to become more at ease with the psychological challenges of live performance.

I didn't vote at all since I only have experience with having no prior instrument experience although I would think that prior experience would definitely be of value.

It is true that there will be well worn neuromuscular pathways of ingrained habit that laziness of mind could allow travel on from preceding instruments when it would be best avoids but the reality is one must establish new habits across the board anyway. If one is unwilling to suffer the humility of this experience it could be construed as a disadvantage but merely because it is being misapplied.

From a development of coordination perspective I don't even see how one could argue that inexperience could hold any advantage and the same would certainly hold true for theory, ear development, ect.

All in all with equality of commitment, I wholehearted believe that past musical training assuming it was of any real quality would have to be an advantage,

I believe that if prior experience held any significant disadvantage that must be overcome it would be the potential for diluted focus and one allowing unwillingness to endure the "set-back" of the learning curve to become their downfall. (at far as it pertains to the Stick)

I posted this before reading any posts other than the first one because I have to leave. But at least this is my opinion prior to reading the opinion of others.

-Curtis

Going back to the discipline: Glenn, you were right in the base! Having just finished a musical, I'm in an even better position of judgement as the folk involved in the music element ranged from both the street learned, to a diploma level pianist who'd been playing since she was 6 or 7. The "street" player had less discipline and awareness of being a rehearsal and kept noodling and so on, much to the annoyance of the rest, because he hadn't been put in that environment with a larger no. of musicians than a regular band before.
I couldn't call myself "unstreet" however I consider myself pretty disciplined, and that possibly comes from outdoor sports and serious camping, where you've gotta knuckle down and get the job done efficiently. Funny where skills transfer from....

Thanks for the kind words Glenn and company. I actually have a solo performance tomorrow night at my school's talent show (there was going to be one tonight too but was cancelled because of yesterday's snow day), and I think I'm comfortable...

I'm pretty sure there's an open mic in Saint Claire Shores, so I'll have to check it out.

I just got caught up reading the other posts to this thread. Wow, some great comments.

Curtis