(posting this a bit early since i'll be traveling on the official day)

The stick has been a big part of what brings me happiness in life. So i'd like to say happy anniversary to Emmett and everyone past and present at stick enterprises. Here's a modest happy birthday rendition for you and thanks for being such an inspiration. (improvised in A major since it's A Major occasion)

Mike, I would have to agree with you. The Chapman Stick has been a pure source of joy for me for many years and too am wishing SE all the best for Fifty freeking years of bringing it and bringing it big time!

BTW, I am also a big fan of your efforts. Loved the tremolo / compression tones you get. I feel like you like Bill Frisell the same way I like Bill Frisell - cheers!

Much Joy, the Stick brings. If only to myself.

Tappy birthday. Going strong, never will it end. Stick alive forever.

Tappy Stick 50th to all my awesome eccentric fellow Stickists! Here's to 500 more!!!!

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Emmett, congratulations on the 50th anniversary of your epiphany! We've all benefited greatly from it, so thank you!

"I had a revelation! A vision! A picture in my head! A picture of this! This is what makes time travel possible: the flux capacitor! It's taken me nearly thirty years and my entire family fortune to realize the vision of that day!"

-- Dr. Emmett Brown


Great Emmetts think alike!

Very nice!!! Congratulations to all the Chapman family and thanks for changing my life!!!

Emmett, this is a most important milestone not only in your life but in the evolution of musical instrument design and playing technique.

While there have been others who have pursued this direction, at the end of the day, there is only one Stick, and it is your design which nobody can ever deny.

Cheers !!

Know that your creations bring much joy and creativity to all who hear them and have the opportunity to play them world wide.

Big George
E.Derby CT

https://youtu.be/B9DSlXuMRkA
A tune called Emmett and Yuta recorded in 2014
Indeed the journey has been life changing

Steve A

Much appreciated words from all of you. Fifty years of doing one thing, that turned into a few hundred things, is indeed life fulfilling. Now I hear this sentiment echoing back to me - changing lives, maybe even saving two or three. That's a great personal reward.

Now some smart-ass words in return:

- To Mike, I never played the Birthday Song because I couldn't reckon with one chord. It falls on the first syllable of the named person. Your soulful and exploring rendition in A puts that chord at the subdominant D major. Still, I'd like to hit Db7 first, or even Ab7 with a passing tone back to A and then to subdominant D. I have a similar harmony problem at "Rain" in "Over the Rainbow".

- To Mark, the name "Emmett" is of humble Irish origins (though I'm not Irish). It means an ant that lives in the mud (but there's a google of us). As for the "flux capacitor", it would likely store magnetic force as a power source, but who needs it? It has nothing to do with gravity or time travel (as far as anyone knows) and seems to be its own circumscribed thing (diminishing by the cube of the distance).

- To Steve, the song is still a beauty with the expansive harmony stretching at the edges, but what about that slowly descending bass movement? Have Yuta and I been walking toward early retirement? (As explained, these are my wise ass comments.)

Also to Big George, big thanks for crediting my Stick design and especially the playing method that I discovered on Aug. 26th, 1969.

Finally, my gratitude to Gene and Robin for hosting a recent Free Hands Academy concert evening celebrating of the 50th year of "Free Hands" at The Guitar Merchant on Sat., August 3rd. After the performances, Yuta and I were awarded a a plaque and a rose bouquet and I gave special thanks as in this link (hope it activates):

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/bba49f ... 001/927154

All the Best, Emmett.