The Chapman Stick - Megatar Comparison Website » Chapman Stick

Bob Culbertson’s Acoustic Stick

f1xSTRM — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:35:07 +0000

This mongo-cool video of Bob Culbertson -- who by the way showed me the predecessor of the "MegBar" -- has an animated background, as he plays on his unique "acoustic stick".

I like the tone of this instrument better than the tone of a standard stick. What say you?

Bob Culbertson Acoustic Chapman Stick

A Sound Fit For Angels?

f1xSTRM — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:31:01 +0000

Russell Cushman has an interesting weblog on blogger called the Navasota Current -- which relates to Navasota Texas where he apparently lives -- and recently he put an outstanding post giving a review of Chapman Stick player Jim Kam.

Sample quote: "Once again, I’ll skip the rest, and just cover it with adjectives. Heavenly. Mesmerizing. Otherworldish. Haunting, complex, addictive, awesomely beautiful."

He writes it better than I can report it so let me just give you the link here --

A Sound Fit for Angels

Chapman Stick and Mobius Megatar — How to Approach Them

f1xSTRM — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:54:13 +0000

"When a bass-player or guitar-player first encounters a dedicated two-handed tapping instrument, his past training predisposes him to think of problems.

"And perhaps these problems he thinks about do not really exist ..."

In this interesting article in the ownline ArticlesBase directory, Traktor Topaz shares some interesting insights from the point of view of a bass player encountering a two-handed tapping instrument for the first time.

Read the complete article here --

ArticlesBase: "Chapman Stick and Mobius Megatar -- How to Approach Them"

James Bond on Eigenharp

f1xSTRM — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:22:58 +0000

From LinkFilter.Net

"Does anyone remember the Chapman Stick? This is like that, from the 21st century digital age.

It looks like something played by the alien musicians in the bar in Star Wars. It can be made to sound like it too.

This is the Eigenharp - described by its developers as "the most expressive electronic musical instrument ever made". One of my colleagues calls it more simply "a sci-fi bassoon".

Can guitar hero help you play?

f1xSTRM — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:16:18 +0000

On November 1, 2009, Mr. Paul Walters made an interesting post on the New York Times website. Mr. Walters apparently is a lifelong classical vocalist, and he's known around here more because he's a longtime performer on the Chapman Stick.

Apparently his 12-year-old son began playing RockBand -- a type of game with a controller that seems to deliver the visceral sensation of playing music -- and Mr. Walters bought that was kind of a waste of time, although Mr. Walters and his wife noticed that the sun became rather skillful at hearing the intertwining musical parts of the songs he is performing inside the game.

Then, when the son began to take lessons on Stick, the son was rather quickly able to realize both independence and interdependence of all the fingers on both hands. This is one of the trickiest aspects of playing piano or playing Mobius Megatar or other tapping instruments, although as always it becomes easier with practice and a good learning method.

Mr. Walters concludes, "as much as I personally despise such gaming devices, I have come to appreciate their use as a learning and developmental tool."

Wow! Now if we could only learn karate by watching action movies ...

News from Spectrasonics

f1xSTRM — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:09:25 +0000

Spectrasonics Company announces they have published their "total bass module," which is called the Trilian total bass module. Eric Persing, who is the founder of Spectrasonics, says "our very first product was the best-selling bass legends sample library. Then in 2002, we introduced trilogy -- the world's first bass virtual instrument. Now we are pleased to release Trilian, which represents a whole new generation of our base development."

The program is designed from the ground up to be the most versatile bass virtual instrument available today with new levels of real-time performance for acoustic and electric basses, with full expression.

Acoustic and electric basses in Trilian are sampled at an extremely high level of detail. Over 60 different electric basses -- from 4 to 8 strings -- are recorded in Ingrid, Kate, threadless, slapped,, and muted technique variations, including Chapman Stick.

More information? See spectrasonics.net

Master Tapper Steve Adelson’s Ultimate Stick

f1xSTRM — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:22:35 +0000

Congratulations to Steve Adelson of New Yawk, for the recent publication of 'Ultimate Stick,' new instructional material for Chapman Stick, Warr Guitar, Mobius Megatar and other two-handed tapping instruments tuned in the 'Inverted-Fifths' tuning popularized by Emmett Chapman in the 1970's.

This is a further contribution from Steve Adelson, whose Stickology educational books was published last year by the Mel Bay company.

Congratulations, Steve, for making two-handed tapping and specialty tapping instruments better known to the world at large!