Welcome on that forum Abi,

the Chapman stick is a really fun instrument to explore. Not easy but I guess to play harp is not easy neighter. Just lood at it as a pleasure to explore your musical world and to put your lyrics on top of it.

By the way...we all love to see pictures of stick players instrument. Your welcome to put some...

Hi Abi, and welcome! I also hail from Mass, "Southcoast" area, about an hour south of Boston. I am about 3 years into my fantastic journey as a stickist, coming from drumming for over 50 years. Also self taught on a few other instruments, but woefully ignorant of music theory and with no idea how to approach the Stick. I ended up taking lessons (which I highly recommend) with Steve Adelson who really enlightened me, and I continue to push forward.
I look forward to a possible New England gathering in the near future, that would be a real treat! In the meantime, find any time you can to play! Sometimes it's a real challenge, life gets in the way. But stick with it (punny hahaha!), it's well worth the time spent.

I took up the Stick in '87, and my Beth & I adopted in '04.

My practicing took a body blow! Yeah, full-time work and parenting. It changed everything. That's Ok...

Before we got Sofia, I had a recording studio, and I was the principle percussionist for a chamber orchestra. I was also studying composition and orchestration, and practiced Bach on the keyboard.

Now I just play Stick. It's all I have time for. I'm practicing a lot of Ted Greene-type chords right now, and I jam twice a week with a little 60's rock/bluegrass quartet, and consider myself lucky.

Our daughter is an incredible child. admittedly going through the trials of adolescence (hell on earth!). She's quite gifted in everything she does. She learned three new guitar chords, and a whole song, last night, in twenty minutes, and sang it for me. She's memorized about five Disney musicals and Broadway shows, and sings them all the time around the house.

Anyway that's my story. I hope you can save some energy each day for the Stick, and be OK with it if you can't. I've been playing for thirty years and feel that I've just scratched the surface. I have my goals.

Get a teacher! That'll smooth your path. I figure I could have learned everything I've done in five years, not thirty, and that includes full-time work and parenting. I had no pedagogy, the way I did in music school, where everything is laid out for you on a centuries-old plate.

Good luck!
R

Welcome Abi, to the Greatest Flow On Earth! (the Stick, and this tight community). "What instruments do you play?" "I play the harp and the Stick." (followed by thinking you play harmonica and drums). I always say Chapman Stick because it's gonna require explanation anyway...and a photo in the phone (my wallpaper) of me with it strapped on so as to alleviate some of the further descriptive. But talk about two instruments that normally don't come up in conversation when asked what you play! Lotsa great ideas on this forum to invigorate your practice routine, and lotsa audio/visual examples by a bunch of happy campers. There used to be an improvisational jazz band in the jersey area led by Arnie Lawrence, a multi-reedist alumni of Woody Herman's Thundering Herd, called Treasure Isle that had up to 11 musicians on stage at once, and frequently included a female harpist. First (and last) harpist I've ever seen in a band, not orchestra, setting. Anyhow, Enjoy!

Welcome, Abi, to Stickland! Can't wait to see what you're doing with the Chapman Stick! You might try doing some video lessons with several awesome teachers on this forum. And a few people are in your area in Boston-ish to rock out with. There's quite a few of us in the Detroit Metro Area here in Michigan as well. And you can teach yourself quite a lot (of bad habits) but it's all about rocking out, and we all have our rocks in the stream coming down from Stick Mountain.

And like Rodrigo (bachdois) I like poetry too! My day job is technical writing, but I dig poetry, too, and went to school for English a couple of times. Nice to meet you!

--Stickist Steve #42

Welcome, Abi!

I'm new, too - and even newer to the Stick. In fact, I have yet to receive mine, and yet to even see one in person. I'm looking forward to it!

Fascinating how many folks are drawn to the Stick during the season of parenting! We have seven, from 13-3, and we love it. The idea of ever playing in a group setting again seemed far off, but now several of our children are learning to play various instruments, so the Stick seemed a great way to compliment their work. The four older children, all girls (13, 12, 12, 9) played and sang together at their first open mic a few nights ago (Sunday) at a ukulele festival. It was a blast! They even came up with their own stage names.

What a great season in life!