Here's the review of the 2004 Stick Seminar in Zaandam/Holland
June 2004
I'm sitting in Schipol airport waiting for the 'plane to take me back to London after an exhausting but absolutely amazing weekend at the Zaandam Stick seminar.
I'm not a great fan of people who write gushing letters of thanks, but it was so good I felt I really should write something before I attempt to catch up on my sleep!
I bought a stick only a few weeks ago having thought about it for many years, and I came to the seminar to "jump in at the deep end" and decide whether the stick was for me or not. I'm now in no doubt that it's something I need to learn to play.
For the benefit of others who may read this who weren't there, here's a quickish run-down of the weekend from the perspective of a complete newcomer to the Stick world (and fraternity!)...
I was a little nervous about finding the place having only been to the Netherlands once before, and never having heard of Zaandam, but Ron sent out some useful directions. A map would be even more useful for someone like me with no sense of direction whatsoever, but now I'm getting picky!
Due to this poor sense of direction I was a little late getting to my accomodation and was confronted by a group (what is the collective term for stick players? A bristle?) who were so obviously stickists: not because they were carrying their instruments (they weren’t), or because they were all middle aged hippies as I had feared - in fact I was relieved to see most were younger than me (OK – there was the occasional middle aged hippy too!). No - it was the look of absolute glee on their faces at the prospect of the weekend ahead, along with the kind of smile that means "phew - I've never met these people before; I can’t understand what half of them are saying, but they're OK".
My new-found friends took me to my home for the next couple of days - "Frank's place" - a dentist's surgery & workshop temporarily converted into our dormitory!
Friday night started with a gig by the teachers: Ron Baggerman, Jim Lampi, Bob Culbertson and Andre Pelat, and opened by none other than Frank, my landlord for the weekend! It was a long time since I'd heard/seen a stick played live, and it's generally been as a supporting instrument within a band context, so to see it acting as the lead instrument of the band was a real revelation. I'd never heard any of the aforementioned musicians before so I finished the evening feeling absolutely stunned. We bedded down back at Frank's place with nothing to disturb our sleep but the eerie glow of rows of dentures grinning at us though the gloom, and the occasional compressor starting up to keep Frank's laboratory from going into meltdown.
Daytime consisted of various stick seminars with our in-house experts. What impressed me was the amazing diversity in the teaching. Ron did some excellent groundwork exercises, starting very simply and slowly - just what I needed! Andre's exercises built on this and reawakened distant memories of classical guitar lessons from years ago.
Jim and Bob spent a lot of time talking about scale and chord theory respectively, and then applying it to the stick. I'm not a professional musician but I've been playing and learning various instruments for 3O years. What I learned in Jim & Bob's tutorials was such a revelation that I wondered what I'd been doing in all the preceding years!
Saturday night featured a surprise canal trip followed by individual concerts by our tutors in various venues around the town. The only shame was that there wasn't time to get to all the venues during the evening, so difficult decisions had to be made. I chose to catch Jim Lampi (it's difficult to see the join between the man and his instrument- it's so natural) at one end of town giving me just enough time to cadge a lift to the other end of town to here Andre Pelat and an amazing avante garde violinist before popping over the road to be awestruck by the end of Bob Culbertson's set. An excellent, albeit exhausting evening!
Sunday consisted of more seminars (wake up brain, you're being taught by the best stick musicians in the world –you’re not allowed to fall asleep!), and in the evening more gigging – this time some of the students got to join in and we were in for a real treat – especially from a couple of mad French funksters!
All too soon it was Monday morning and time to step out of that brief bubble of Stick heaven and back into reality.
January 2005
I’m writing this paragraph 8 months after I starting the first one – I fell asleep on the plane mid-sentence and have spent the rest of the year intending to finish this off!
I came back to London and had a month or so practicing the Stick in every spare moment. Then two very busy projects and general despondency at my lack of progress caused me to not touch the thing for 3 months. Before Christmas I picked it up again and realised that I had made progress – just not as much as I would have liked. My Dad challenged me to do a Stick version of Watermelon man, and before I knew what was happening I couldn’t put the thing down throughout Christmas and the New Year.
Now the next Zaandaam Stick Seminar is looming and I can’t wait to go – just have to prepare the wife and children for another weekend without me, and for weeks of me going on about the weekend when I get back…and I need to prepare my back for another few nights on Frank’s workshop floor gazing at those rows of gleaming dentures…
Thanks, Ron and Frank!
All the best,
Ian
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Interview Spring 2004
1.Which Stick do you play ?
10 String made of wood - maybe rosewood
2.What tuning do you use?
Dabbling with matched reciprocal, but open to suggestions. Battling with
5ths on the bass
3.Which gauge strings?
No idea. Probably standard
4.How long do you play Stick?
About 3 weeks
5.Which other instruments do you play and how long?
Guitar 25 years
Bass 3 years (but wouldn't call myself a bass player)
Piano once upon a time
6.If you would have to choose to 4 levels of playing in which 1=absolute
beginner 2=beginner but knows some music theory,play a simple song
3=intermediate 4=advanced , which number would you give yourself?
= 2
7.Please give me also a number(1,2,3 or 4) of the level of knowledge/skill
of
the next subject:
-Reading Staff Notation
= 2
-Reading Tablature
= 2
-Can you play major/minor chords? In open and close harmony?
= 2
-Do you know all 7 modes/scales/chords ?
= 2
-Can you play chordprogressions?
= 2
-Can you play a song?
= 2
8.Do you play in a band or solo?
Play in band but not with stick! (Bass & guit)
9.Which specific subjects would you like the teachers to concentrate on?
L/H fingering, chords, scales. R/H chording
10.On Saturdaynight you can also play a few songs at the pubconcerts, would
you
like to play a few songs as well?
No thanks - I'll spare everyone the pain.
11.On Sundaynight we’ve got the Jamsession, would you like to jam with us?
Probably not - might have to see how brave/intoxicated I am!
12.Which kind of music do you like?
Most melodic music (i.e. not really drum & bass etc)
Guess I tend towards rock-based stuff. Radiohead, U2 big influences, also
more prog stuff like Iona.
13.How did you discover the Stick?
Saw (I believe) Jim Lampi on MIDI'd stick accompanying Bruce Cockburn at
Greenbelt festival many years ago. Amazing!
14.What is your goal in music
To be good enough at it for it to be a means of
communication/expression/bringing pleasure to others (earning a living would
be nice too but I'm not that optimistic!)
15.Do you eat meat/fish or are you vegetarian ?
I eat most things if they don't eat me first!
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