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 Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician 
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Post Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
This idea has been bouncing around in my head for some time now.

Not all young gifted musicians are getting lessons sitting at their Steinway Grand in the front parlor of their rich and famous mansion. In fact, if you do a bit of research, most gifted and talented are from 'humble' backgrounds (maybe their living conditions forged their musical aspirations - I'm not a shrink so what do I know). Think of the possibilities if a gifted kid could have her/his own Stick to explore the musical frontier?

Anyway, I thought "wouldn't it be great if the Srick Community set up a foundation to gift Sticks to the younger generation from the older folks who either no longer wish to play or are incapable of playing (as in taking a dirt nap)"?

I guess it would be like a Trust with a Trustee who would decide who gets a Stick from the pool of available Sticks from donators and a pool of young musicians in need. I'm not a lawyer, but it should be a simple task to set up (legal Stickists please speak up here). In other realms of organizations (like the gooberment) I wouldn't trust the system to pick a trustworthy Trustee, but I would trust the Stickists to pick and keep tabs on an honest person to assume the task.

To show I'm not just playing with this idea in 'virtual reality' I shall be the first to officially offer my Grand Bamboo to the Trust upon my exit from three dimensional reality.

Anybody else?

If not, I shall be a man out-standing in his field (by himself enjoying the view)

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Sat Mar 28, 2015 3:10 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
It's a noble idea. My Graphite Grand however will be gifted to my Son upon my death.

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Sat Mar 28, 2015 3:45 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
The idea would need to be a bit more comprehensive, since piano teachers are easy to find, but Stick teachers number fewer than 10. As well as, old pianos can be reconditioned by techs that are not too hard to find. There is only one Emmett Chapman. I hear he has some help in the shop, but not too much.

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Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:44 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
So, this idea of passing on your Stick after death has me thinking...
What's going to happen on the day when Emmett and company cease operations?

It's not a pleasant thought, but what happens to the Stick community and who will take the reins of providing the world with fine instruments. It seems like the entire Stick world would be in deep, deep trouble if that day ever arrives.

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Sat Mar 28, 2015 4:58 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
WerkSpace wrote:
So, this idea of passing on your Stick after death has me thinking...
What's going to happen on the day when Emmett and company cease operations?

It's not a pleasant thought, but what happens to the Stick community and who will take the reins of providing the world with fine instruments. It seems like the entire Stick world would be in deep, deep trouble if that day ever arrives.

Someone will need to have the money to continue with Railboard production, at the very least.


Sat Mar 28, 2015 5:26 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
I don't think the Stick will end even if Stick Enterprises does. I could see individuals making their own Sticks. Technology has come pretty far in the way of like 3D scanning/printing. A lot of the parts could be reproduced in that manner. Not to mention the fact the actual body of the Stick would be relatively easy for a decent carpenter to reproduce, take the necessary measurements, laminate a blank from a wood of your choice, cut the measurements you took. As far as the hardware goes, the bridge/tailpiece and the Flaps, you probably wouldn't even have to try to 3D print them, you could machine them with ease. However I could see the pickups and strings being a problem to reproduce as they are setup and made especially for the tapping action.

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Sat Mar 28, 2015 8:09 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
ToxiNN wrote:
I don't think the Stick will end even if Stick Enterprises does. I could see individuals making their own Sticks. Technology has come pretty far in the way of like 3D scanning/printing. A lot of the parts could be reproduced in that manner. Not to mention the fact the actual body of the Stick would be relatively easy for a decent carpenter to reproduce, take the necessary measurements, laminate a blank from a wood of your choice, cut the measurements you took. As far as the hardware goes, the bridge/tailpiece and the Flaps, you probably wouldn't even have to try to 3D print them, you could machine them with ease. However I could see the pickups and strings being a problem to reproduce as they are setup and made especially for the tapping action.


A thing that's missing here is that it isn't that easy to make a Stick. There's a good reason why other tapping instruments are not as successful as the Stick (and they shouldn't be called Sticks but that's a different topic altogether).

Without getting into discussions of patents and trademarks:

Machining custom parts is not cheap, neither is crafting the wooden portion. Sticks rely very heavily on their high level of accuracy in production. Higher accuracy means more money. A carpenter probably couldn't do it, at least not in a time efficient manner (especially if he doesn't know things about fretted instruments). A skilled luthier would be more apt to it, but even then, if they aren't familiar with the Free Hands method, they aren't going to get right the first time either.

The frets of a Stick are leveled and shaped in a very specific way also, it's not like a guitar. The bass strings' frets in the middle are more relieved and slightly flatter to let the string ring properly when the instrument is adjusted to be perfectly flat.

3D printing isn't anywhere near the stage where it could produce an instrument like the Stick in a practical way (not to say it will never be possible, but it's going to be a while). It's not at level where it could make an instrument like the Railboard either, since the only semi-commercially viable application of it is in thermoplastics. The only parts I can think of being made that way would be the pickup module and the belt hook, but there's not a good reason to do so. It's much more effective to manufacture them by injection molding, (which isn't cheap either, it's my understanding that's why the Block modules are made of machined acetal plastic, rather than injection molded like the Stickup).

We can't discount the effort that goes into the setup of the instrument either. Emmett spends a long time doing setup on each instrument. This isn't something that can be learned in a day.

I think the takeaway message I have here is that additive manufacturing is not at a very advanced level yet. It can't make too many useful things just yet. But give it 5 or 10 years and we'll see. A Railboard 2.0 might be cheaper that way in the future, could cut out (no pun intended) the intermediate step of the fly cutter cutting the bass string relief process.

A more on topic thing for me to add to this discussion:

I've wanted to start some sort of charity that does fix up instruments for less fortunate kids. Music is such an important thing for anyone to learn, and neglecting setup of a stringed instrument has more than likely deterred a large number of kids who would have otherwise very much enjoyed it. The gift of an instrument is most likely the best physical, non-life sustaining object someone could give to another human being (maybe some exceptions of kazoos and recorders need to be made here).

I think this could be a really good idea. I would definitely give money to something like that when I have a real job (should be in about a year or so).

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Sat Mar 28, 2015 9:13 pm
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
WerkSpace wrote:
What's going to happen on the day when Emmett and company cease operations?

I believe this was named as one of the reasons for the creation of Railboard. The Railboard construction is 'frozen' in a computer model, all you need to reproduce it (along with the complex frets) is a CNC machine and a aluminum blank. Anodize it, add some furniture and electronics, and you're ready to go. This is not a cheap process, of course, but it does not require involving a skilled luthier in the production.

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Mon Mar 30, 2015 12:57 am
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
You guys are treading on very muddy, hazardous ground. I'm sure the Chapmans have a plan to continue to safeguard their legacy. It is entirely premature to speculate on reproductions of their designs.

k

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Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:34 am
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Post Re: Gifting Your Stick To a Young Aspiring Musician
And frankly, just as in the pricing thread, it's their business, literally, not ours. I actually mentioned this on the forum years ago, what will happen in the future. But again, not my business, I'm sure there's a plan.

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Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:48 am
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