The one truly new and innovative instrument I found at the NAMM show

Out at the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, CA several weeks ago, I spent the first couple of days wandering around in a sort of days. There is just so much going on there: tons of people, some of them rock stars; 5 huge halls plus several of other levels of big rooms stuffed with instruments, equipment and displays; everywhere, the sounds of instruments being either professionally demoed or tried out by potential buyers. It is a massive, teeming spectacle, the beating heart of the modern musical instrument industry.

One thing I noticed though, was that there wasn’t much there that really jumped out and caught your eye as being truly new and innovative, at least in the area of stringed instruments and the like. The large rooms filled entirely by Gibson and Fender were cool, classy and beautiful, but they were more museums of past accomplishments rather than showcases of new innovation. One company was showcasing their custom 6-string electric guitars built using custom-made and screen printed 2-gallon gas cans, and that was pretty cool. Another company had some neat inexpensive Made in the USA plastic ukuleles, which were interesting. But nothing that jumped out and made you say “wow!”

Except for one. 

At one booth down in basement-level “Hall E”, about as far as you could get from the shining museums of Fender and Gibson, was a man named Andy Graham and his SlapStick™. The first sense I had when walking up was that somebody was very energetically playing an electric bass of some sort. Then as I got closer, I saw a guy holding a strange contraption and going to town on it - slapping and thumping it, using both hands and even his foot to coax out different pitches and rhythms. He was playing his own patented invention, the Slaperoo Slapstick™.

The story of this instrument's creation should appeal to any handmade/homemade music enthusiast.

The Slapstick comes in three sizes, the larger S-100 Pro (roughly comparable to an upright bass), the mid-sized M-100 Mezzo (cello-size) and smaller N-100 Noodle (guitar-size). The core concept is a ½” wide stainless steel shipping band stretched tight on a frame made from aluminum hollow square tube stock. A threaded handle allows the tension of the stainless steel band to be adjusted, and a single-pole magnetic pickup captures the vibrations for passing off to an amplifier. They aren’t cheap - the smallest one goes for $249 and the biggest “Pro” Model retails for $799.

The story of this instrument’s creation should appeal to any handmade/homemade music enthusiast. Andy has been a drummer for many years, and like a lot of drummers was working a day job to pay the bills. His job had him working with large shipping crates, and one day he started thumbing one of the tightly-stretched metal bands that held the crate together. It made a nice pleasing thump, and he found that he could vary the pitch by pressing it down at different places - like any stringed instrument, but with a nice thick and thumpy bass note from the wide metal band.

Andy headed into his small one-room shop (where he still builds all of the instruments by hand!) and soon had developed the prototype of what would become the SlapStick. He soon filed for a patent for his invention and eventually it was granted. He first showcased the SlapStick at the NAMM show in 2013, and won best of show. He has been there ever since, and people are still amazed by the sounds his unique instrument creates.

Being involved in the cigar box guitar and handmade/homemade movements as I am, sometimes I find myself getting a little jaded when it comes to new inventions. I slip into the mindset that it’s all been done before, that there really isn’t anything truly new under the sun.

Andy Graham and his SlapStick helps remind us that it really is still possible to come up with something new and innovative, just by combining ingenuity and vision with readily available parts and materials. Whether or not we ever get a patent and have a booth at the NAMM show, we can all take inspiration and encouragement from Andy’s story.