I've had a passion for music most of my life, playing trombone thru jr. high and high school as well as for a year or so when my church had an ensemble.

I spent about a decade singing in choir and learning to sing from an utterly fantastic choir director.

With the exceptions noted above, I've largely been without making music for most of my adult life, and I've felt it. My wife played piano growing up but, despite buying a keyboard for her (and for me to learn) not much musical has happened around my house.

I have carpal tunnel, been trying to fix it with non-invasive proceedures for about 5 years. I've given up on that and well be getting surgery early next year. But I haven't had the time, money, or physical ability to play or learn more music for most of my adult life.

Recently, a extremely musically talented friend of mine set up a small studio in his home. I went with him to buy a drum set and realized that drums (something I'd had zero interest in previously) were something I could play until my carpal tunnel surgery, so I picked up a practice pad and some sticks. Lessons start next month...

Anyway, I've known about the Stick for a while, being a King Crimson fan and having a very geeky interest in alternative instruments.

My musical tastes are all over the place, from classical, to classic rock, blues, some jazz and fusion, praise and worship music, and a lot of others (e.g. taiko drumming)

@SteveS already asked about which tuning was best to learn the Stick, so I'm glad to have read that thread.

Glad you found the thread useful. And I love your avatar (one of my favorite movies! )

Drums are addictive. Started taking lessons about 18 months ago, bought my first kit (a Roland TD-17KVX) late last summer, and still barging ahead. Just started getting the four-way coordination going in the last month, which I'm hoping will help a bit when my Stick arrives. I'm looking forward to laying down some beats to play over once I start to build a repertoire on the Stick.

I assume you have one on order - or did you buy one used? I'm waiting on a Railboard (last word was sometime before the end of August).

I was wondering how many, if anyone, would catch the reference.

I had the opportunity to pick up an Alesis Command X Mesh over Memorial Day sales, so I'm on a full kit now, such as it is. it's music, so I'm happy to be learning, tho lessons are coming as I said.

No, sadly I don't even have one on order yet.

My plans are to get the carpal tunnel surgery next spring, then after healing up to start taking piano lessons (Greg's not-quite-recommendation, but I liked his reasoning in one of his videos) at the same time I order my Railboard (probably 10 string MR tuning w/ pasv4 pickup if they have them again).

I've tried playing guitar in the past, but I'm missing all the meat from the tip of my left pinkie so fretting with that is extremely painful. Given that one of Greg's recommendations is to only usually play with 3 fingers (index, middle, ring) and that I'm not going to be fretting the way one would on a guitar, I'm pretty confident I'll be OK learning the Stick.

Hello and just want to say I had carpal tunnel syndrome both hands. Playing the Stick, my left hand fingers would numb after 5mins. of playing followed with - pain. The right hand was about 5mins. behind. Went to a surgeon who explained the procedure "Carpal Tunnel Release" said which one is worse we'll do that one first and added "my success rate is 95% and if you're happy with the results we'll schedule the other one".
He knows I'm a musician, checks the Stick out and says I should be able to play within a few days.
So he does my left hand, I have pain the first day, but it feels better the second. I pick up the Stick after a few days and start playing waiting to see if my L. hand would go numb. After about 10 mins. my r. hand goes numb, and I STOP. And I start to cry. Absolutely no numbness or pain in left hand.
Scheduled the r. hand the next day.
Gave me a new playing life.
Now if someone could only fix my back that easy.
Order your Stick Today!

Marty,

Thanks much for the encouragement!

I'll have to look into ordering my stick. I hear there's a lead time.

Guess I'll have to look into the carpal tunnel surgery sooner and see how much my crummy insurance is going to pay for it.

Thanks again!

No idea how old you are, but I found piano presented some obstacles. I'm 71, no arthritis, no carpel tunnel. But, if you look at your hands while playing piano, you'll see that the hands are at a very unnatural angle to the forearms, and I found that to be very uncomfortable, even after several months of playing on a daily basis. I think that some natural age-related inflexibility was getting in the way. To contrast, outside of a couple of months of some "drummer's elbow" (the same ailment as "tennis elbow"), I've had absolutely no trouble with drums.

FWIW, I'm not expecting any problems playing Stick (other than maybe some time to get some more callouses on my right hand - my left is good from years & years of guitar). The position of the hands seems to be much more natural than even guitar or bass playing.

And yeah - get that Stick ordered ASAP. It takes some time to build 'em...And who knows how much longer the supply chains are going to be screwed up? I had to wait two months for my drum kit last year, and changed my mind on a small mixer when my 1st choice wasn't going to be available for two months!!

Stick playing does not create callouses. The tapping technique is not as intrusive as when playing guitar. I still practice 3-5 hours/day and my fingertips are totally smooth. Better for feeling the strings and being expressive. And with the low action your hands won't get as tired. And you don't usually hold a chord position and strum for four measures. So many other physical advantages when navigating The Stick

Steve A

Thanks for the feedback. My plan for the piano lessons was to learn some music theory while waiting on my stick. I say "some" because I had one semester of music theory in HS and I'll be 65 this year.

I'd be just as happy or happier if someone could refer me to a stick oriented online music theory course.

As for ordering in advance, is there a deposit and when is the full amount due?

I figure I'm going to need a pre amp, even for headphones, and was looking at the 2 channel one Greg was touting that's available from SE (the StepABout), but that's close to $800 in addition to the nearly $2,500 for the stick and case itself.

Theory is theory. Doesn't matter the instrument. The one thing you'll have to familiarize yourself with is the patterns that most fretted-instrument players learn. What was a revelation to me is that the patterns that I've learned in playing tuned-in-fourths guitars and basses also exist in the tuned-in-fifths bass side of a stick in most tunings. They're not, strictly speaking, "mirrored" so much as "echoed", even if you're not doing Matched Reciprocal tuning (the patterns are duplicated but shifted by a few frets in classic and other tunings). Thus you can use the exact same pattern on both the melody and bass strings to create a major chord. However, the is the voicing will be different. In the C maj example below, on the bass side the voicing from low-to-high is E-C-G, on the melody side it's G-C-E. Of course this difference is critical both to the sound of the chord, and of course, when doing a arpeggio, but for fretted instrument players these patterns are "baked into" our heads.

And I will say, that exploring theory with a keyboard is definitely helpful, which is why I've kept mine.





Full info on the Stick.com site. $300 deposit, balance due when they are ready to ship unless they've made changes since I ordered mine in January.



Consider, for somewhat less, an amp modeler like the Line 6 HX Stomp, or the Headrush Gigboard (what I'm using). Not only will they give you all the effects you're likely to need until you start getting good enough that you are really refining your tone, they also provide all the amplification and tone shaping you need for headphones, then you can add either a combo amp or powered speakers to be able to fill a room. My understanding is that a preamp like the StepAbout is designed to be plugged into a power amp, so either way you'll have to pony up more $ as you progress. The big difference is with the StepAbout you apparently have much more EQ control, but then you'll have to add effects - reverb, delay, chorus, overdrive, flange etc.

Note that I've never even touched a Stick, so I may be talking nonsense here, but like you I've been studying a lot. If I've mis-spoken hopefully someone will JIH and deliver a good dope-slap!

I guess that's not surprising. Everyone who plays guitar remember well that first six months when your finger tips look like hamburger!!