Album Notes

Everything you hear on this CD (except steel guitar, ukulele or percussion) was recorded using The Chapman Grand Stick or the new, smaller SG12 Stick. Both instruments have 12 strings (6 melody and 6 bass) and are equipped with MIDI pickups, which allows me to create all of the additional string and keyboard sounds heard on this recording. Tracks 4, 7, 11 & 13 feature the new SG-12 Stick. Hope you enjoy it. Aloha nui loa!

Other musicians featured in this recording:

Don McClellan- Hawaiian steel guitar on tracks 1, 5, & 6
Mika Villaren- ukulele on tracks 3 & 12
Kris Thomas- percussion on track 7

Background on The Chapman Stick:

The Chapman Stick® is a revolutionary new stringed instrument invented in Los Angeles, CA by Emmett Chapman in 1974. Michael was one of Emmett’s first music students and has been playing The Stick since 1976. The newest member of the guitar and bass family of instruments, The Stick is played with both hands- more like a piano than a guitar. Rather than picking, plucking or strumming, each hand lightly taps the strings against the frets and the vibration of the strings is ‘heard’ by a sensitive pickup and then amplified. The result is music that sounds unlike any other instrument.

Over the years, Emmett has introduced many different models of The Stick:
The original 10 string Stick in 1974, the 12 string Grand Stick in 1991, the 10 string Alto Stick in 2004 and the Stick Guitar 12 ("SG12") in 2009. Both the Alto and SG12 Sticks are about 10 inches shorter than Chapman’s other models and the notes are in a much higher register. For more info on Emmett, his amazing stringed instruments and two handed tapping technique, please visit: www.Stick.com