GUILLERMO CIDES 

(Chapman Stick)

“It’s all about becoming a better person. This is what music means to me and this is what we have in mind to create music and go ahead with projects like UPF. We can change the world because we all are the world and we all are the music. Let’s change ourselves.”- Guillermo Cides

The Stickista Guillermo Cides is an Argentinian musician recognized internationally for his concerts and CDs played with the Stick. A pioneer in solo Stick concerts in his country, Cides has performed a large number of concerts in different countries throughout a musical career of more than 15 years, becoming one of the most highly regarded players of this instrument.

In the decade of the 90s appeared the first concertists and Chapman Stick solo recordings, and Guillermo Cides was one of the most active performers with his albums ‘El mundo interior de los planetas’, ‘Primitivo’ and the brilliant ‘The Bach Tribute’, completely played with the Stick.

As one of the few exponents of this instrument in the world, he has played as an artist guest in concerts of Roger Hodgson (Supertramp); Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Jethro Tull; Fish (Marillion), John Wetton (Asia, UK); Rick Wakeman (Yes); Trey Gunn (King Crimson), California Guitar Trio and has also toured world wide offering his own shows.

The Chapman Stick combines bass / chords and guitar, is hung diagonally on the chest and is played by tapping the strings with the fingers of both hands simultaneously with a piano-like logic, transforming the musician into a tactile percussionist. It was invented by the Californian luthier Emmett Chapman in the 1970s and is at present hand-made by its inventor.

Guillermo Cides would cultivate his own style with the Stick, marked specially by popular melodies combined with modern sounds and a style of playing that would characterize him in the future. The multiplicity of sounds in the stage generated with the Chapman Stick turned him into a real one-man band. From 1994 he began to experiment with loops, a technology based on recording sounds onstage at the same moment in which they are played and in this way generating complex sonic environments. He was to apply this modern technique in particular to popular and classic melodies (J. S. Bach).