Back around 2001, I was attending a church were I was the head musician for Praise and Worship. We had several line ups that changed from time to time but the one constant was the lack of a dedicated Bass player.
Enter the Internet..
One day while browsing the Internet for guitars I stumbled onto a picture of an instrument called "The Austin Douglas guitar" made by Mark Warr. It was then I realized I had to get one of these and my Bass player woes would be gone! Well.. as things would go it didn't turn out to be an easy transition and long story short.. I ended up purchasing a used Chapman Stick instead after what seemed like an eternal wait and not without its own drama!
Ironically, by the time I finally received my used Chapman Stick I was no longer attending that church! Life is so full of irony isn't it? So I began my journey with 2 handed tapping using the "Freehands" technique as taught by Emmet Chapman. Rather quickly I found this instrument to be a wonderful composing tool for me! Much more than keyboard because of my Guitar background.
At this time, I started attending a new church and found that just participating in the congregation was a nice change after years of playing music in church! I was doing pretty good with learning and attended a few Stick seminars in Oceanside CA with Greg Howard and Tom Griesgraber. This was a great time for learning and composing!
Then, the praise and worship leaders of my new church learned of my musical background and asked me to join them but on Guitar and perhaps working in Chapman Stick when possible. So there I was once again playing guitar for church. However it did in fact work out that I was able to incorporate the Chapman Stick with some of my original tunes, although it was not very frequent.
The Start of Jacob's Ladder...
Tragedy struck our awesome church, our senior pastor (Jim Roam) became fatally ill and actually departed from us with much sadness. The transition of pastors was difficult but we ended up with an interim pastor (David Wright) that was incredibly supportive of my Chapman Stick work. In fact it was this pastor that asked me to work up a set and play a jazz concert at a park for our "Friends Day" picnic. This event would inspire me and 3 of the musicians from this line up to form the band "Jacob's Ladder".
The Recording Project...
The timing was right so I purchased some gear to get a ProTools recording setup at home and went to work recording all the songs I had composed on Chapman Stick.
The project featured myself on Chapman Stick, Guitar, Bass and Keyboards with additions from:
Joseph Gonzales (my son) on Drums
Jon Heideman on Keyboard
Darrell Owens on Alto Sax
Matt Horne on Alto Sax
Tim Freeman on Trombone.
I had the CD replicated in 2007 and then we started gigging as Jacob's Ladder with an additional musician on Bass Guitar, Curtis Clark. This line up lasted about a year with a handful of performances but it was a tough time for me physically due some health issues so we didn't get out as much as I wanted to and because we were all adults with families of our own, time was at a premium.
Our bass player moved on to form his own Jazz trio, so we regrouped with an additional musician (Andrew Ferrell) on Guitar. In his audition, he was supposed to audition for Bass but when I heard him play guitar, I told him STOP. You're playing Guitar! I'm playing Bass!
2 Pots on the Stove...
As things would go, Jacob's ladder continued to rehearse and play a few gigs. However I got approached by my former pastor (David Wright) to fill-in for his guitarist during a hiatus and would only be temporary. So I did! There I was back once again, playing guitar for church and the temporary status ended up turning into 2 years! It was at this time I pulled the plug on Jacob's Ladder! Things were starting to feel too much like work with playing at church and trying to get 5 grown men with fulltime jobs and families to make time and effort to learn new songs and the gigs we were getting were not what I was hoping for. It was a sad time but the last gig we did was the nail in the coffin for me! We did a great performance and our sets went without a hitch however the hiring client and some of the hosts there were so rude!! I told myself, I'm done!
Departure from the Chapman Stick...
So as time went on I began spending more time on Keyboard and less time on guitar and almost NO time on Chapman Stick. Not sure why, it just didn't appeal to me anymore, so I sold it back to Stick Enterprises. I spent most of my time after selling the Chapman Stick on Keyboard but my composing stalled out.
Enter the Megatar...
After about 2 years from selling my Chapman Stick, I got the bug again to get back into 2 handed tapping guitar but perhaps on my own "homebuilt" instrument. So I ran the numbers and even made several "clay" models to figure out what this instrument would look like.. So of course after a lot of consideration I began to look at some other instruments out there and I came across an instrument that I swore I'd never own but you know the more I looked at it, I realized that the instrument I was going to attempt to "build" was already there waiting to be purchased. So I sold off a few instruments and ordered my Megatar.
A New spin on the same technique...
Now the Megatar is NOT a replacement for the Chapman Stick and to say that it is, would be a rather silly statement!
The Stick has a very proprietary ergonomic all of its own. In addition to that, it has a sharp fast attack when the strings are struck and very "Bright" sound overall. The Bass strings have a sound somewhere between slapping and plucking, a very unique sound all its own. The string spacing on the Chapman Stick is tighter than that of a regular electric guitar so it makes forming chords on the bass side very easy especially due to the inverted 5ths tuning. It's very easy to accompany the melody side by playing both bass notes with tritones or simple triads on the bass side of the instrument. This is called the "Pop Baroque Technique".
The Megatar has a much more traditional electric bass guitar sound and feel with Bartolini pickups and wider string spacing. The attack is not as sharp but does have added sustain, the overall tone is much more of a "Fender Bass" rounded out sound. The thinner melody strings have a very "Humbucker" tone also vs the bright single coil sounding "Stickup"(think Les Paul vs Strat). The difference is so apparent, that Chapman Stick Players often say the Bartolini pickups on Megatar's and Warr Guitars sound dull and lifeless. After playing the Megatar for over 3 years now, I just hear "Bass Guitar" but when I hear the Chapman Stick even in my own recordings I can really hear the bright fast attack.
The Next Steps...
So this leads me to where I'm at now. My goals have shifted over the years but this year I've drawn a hard line in the sand. I'm determined to find "Mastery" in music on Touchstyle guitar in the genre of Jazz/Fusion or whatever its called these days! Progress is slow and steady but I haven't noodled around like I used to in about 6 months! The past 6 months have been very deliberate and almost a day hasn't passed where I'm actually playing or working on something new or that needs more work! True practice as opposed to the horrible ruts I found myself in most of my adult life!
Looking forward to bigger and better things!
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