Learn-Chapman-Stick.com
Instructional resources for the Free Hands two-handed tapping method. Website by Stick Enterprises, Inc.

     Free Hands is the name Emmett Chapman, musician and inventor, gave to his two-handed tapping method for guitar that he discovered in 1969. What makes Free Hands different from other two-handed tapping methods is that each hand has the same relationship with the fretboard because they come from opposite sides. As the fingers line up parallel to the frets, the same types of parts can be executed in each hand, using similar fingerings - bass, melody, chords, are all at your fingertips, all at once.
     Emmett discovered this method on his 9-string "Freedom Guitar" in August of 1969, and later redesigned that guitar to create the Chapman Stick. He combined his original lessons for his new two-handed tapping method into a book called Free Hands which was first published by Stick Enterprises in 1976. You can use the Free Hands method on any fretted, stringed instrument, but this page focuses on instructional resources specifically created for our Chapman Stick® Touchboard® instruments and the NS/Stick™ multimode tapping intrument.
     If you'd like to read about the origin of the Free Hands tapping method, please see: "The Evolution of a Musical Art" and Emmett's Free Hands Parallel Two-Handed Tapping Method.