22 December 2010

UPBEAT
Microtonal Guitarist Walks on the Wild Side of the Sound Scale
A full-time freelance musician for 39 years,
Neil “Stickman” Haverstick of Local 20-623
(Lakewood, CO) is a pioneer of the micro-
tonal music system in the US. With a little
help from his friends, who added frets to
regular 12-tone acoustic and electric guitars
to create instruments with 19, 31, and 34
tones per octave, Haverstick has been able
to explore new sounds and chords in mi-
crotonal music.

“Why just have 12 equally-spaced notes to

use when there are literally endless ways
to tune an instrument?” Haverstick asks,
explaining. “I don’t like just rehashing what
has already been done.”
The 59-year-old St. Louis, Missouri, na-
tive attributes his success as a musician,
composer, music theorist, and teacher to
his ability to play diverse genres, including
blues, jazz, classical, country, flamenco, and
folk. Haverstick performs varied gigs, from
bars, private parties, and weddings, to clas-
sical and pops concerts with the Colorado
Symphony Orchestra. He has played with
conductors Newton Wayland of Local 308
(Santa Barbara, CA) and Marin Alsop of
Local 802 (New York City) and accompanied
musicians including Bernadette Peters, Judy
Collins, and Bob Hope. While performing
with his four-piece K.C. Grits band in the
1970s, he shared the stage with Kansas,
Brewer and Shipley, and opened shows for
B.B. King of Local 71 (Memphis, TN), Steve
Miller Band, and King Sunny Adé.
Haverstick bought his first guitar for $3 from
his step uncle, Lindell Myers, who taught him
the chords to country artist Maybelle Carter’s
“Wildwood Flower.” His fascination with
unusual sounds first began when he turned
on the radio and heard The Yardbirds’ “Over
Under Sideways Down.” Initially, the 14-year-
old mistook Jeff Beck’s guitar riffs for a gypsy
violin melody. “I had never heard a guitar
sound like that and it set me on the path I am
still following today, looking for new worlds
of sound,” says Haverstick.
Then, Haverstick’s mother gave him a Har-
mony guitar for his 15th birthday. Haverstick
learned the basics of music theory from
musicians who were willing to share their
knowledge. One advised him to listen to
Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. Haverstick
admires the Baroque composer for his in-
nate ability to take three notes and create a
web of melodic lines that yield a 10-minute
fugue. Similarly, Haverstick recorded four
Guitarist Neil Haverstick of Local 20-623 (Lakewood, CO) explores a new world of
microtonal sounds with his fretless Ibanez seven-string guitar
movements of his 19-tone electric guitar
concerto, “Spider,” with the Colorado Cham-
ber Orchestra. Arranged by conductor Tom
Blomster of Local 20-623 and Local 154
(Denver, CO), the dynamic movements begin
Haverstick’s eighth album, Spider (2009).
Exotic music and culture have also inspired
and enthralled Haverstick. “If you’re study-
ing the tuning of China, you also study the
culture. The next thing is their instruments;
if there’s singing, it’s in the Chinese language,”
he says. “One thing leads to another. It’s the
language, it’s the food, it’s the clothing, it’s
the rhythms of the culture, they’re so impor-
tant.” He even learned how to play the oud,
an instrument that has been used in Middle
Eastern microtonal music for thousands of
years.
So far, Haverstick has released nine albums,
including a blues guitar tribute, Way Down
by the Mississippi (2008), and Fretless (2010),
a collection of 19-tone pieces from his previ-
ous albums. Over the years, he has garnered
accolades, such as winning Guitar Player
magazine’s 1992 Ultimate Guitar Competi-
tion in the Experimental Division for his
19-tone piece “Spider Chimes.”
When his daughter Neela was born 21
years ago, Haverstick began teaching music
theory as an alternative to playing in bars.
He taught students at Denver’s Swallowhill
Music School for 12 years and continues
to teach private lessons. He has also writ-
ten two books. His first, a Western music
theory book published in 1984, The Form
of No Forms: Modern Theory for Guitars,
received praise from late session musician
and guitarist Tommy Tedesco and jazz
guitarist Joe Pass. His most recent book,
19 Tones: A New Beginning, compares the
12- and 19-tone scales. One difference, ac-
cording to Haverstick, is that the latter scale
differentiates sounds considered identical
on the keyboard, such as C# and Db, which
yields more chord progressions.
An AFM member since 1983, Haverstick
has played banjo for Denver Center Theatre
Company musical productions, including
Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha and
Stephen Sondheim’s Company. He feels
fortunate to have met talented musicians,
including bassist and electric guitarist
Adolph Mares of Local 20-623, with whom
he has played numerous gigs.
“I have met some killer musicians through
the union. [It’s] just wonderful,” Haverstick
says. “I’ve been playing with some of these
people for 25 years. [You] can’t beat it.”
Haverstick continues to spend time study-
ing tunings worldwide and channeling his
creative imagination through composi-
tions. “I see myself as a sort of reporter,
experiencing what life sends my way, and
putting that experience into music, through
compositions,” he says. “Since discovering
the vast world of tunings, I feel like an
endless world of new ideas has revealed
itself to me.”