Steve Adelson taught me this exercise to help me recognize triad inversions.

Finger a Dm triad in root position on the melody side. Drop the root note one note (either a semitone or a tone depending on where you're at in the scale) leaving the other two notes unchanged, keeping fingers in place wherever possible. This yields an F triad in 2nd inversion. Drop the "F" one note to "E" which yields an Am triad in 1st inversion. Drop the "A" one note to "G" which yields a "C" triad in Root position.

If you continue this, you will rotate through all the diatonic chords in the key of C major by 3rds (Dm-F-Am-C-Em-G-Bº-Dm). If you continue, the next "cycle" will change the inversions, i.e. Dm starts out in Root position, but the second time you come to Dm it will be in 2nd inversion.

As you do this you will notice certain patterns emerge. The inversions cycle in a repeating pattern: R-2nd-1st. The root note of each triad cycles from the lowest to the middle to the highest note and back to the lowest.

But the really interesting patterns are the visual patterns of the note placements. The chart below summarizes all of this and shows a diagram of how the RH notes appear on the melody side of the Stick in a standard (ascending 4ths) tuning. Root position triads all look similar, varying depending on whether the triad is major or minor. The same is true for the 1st and 2nd inversions. Diminished triads have their own unique fingering patterns for the root and inverted forms.

Hope some find this useful.

Edit to add: As Steve points out below, the diagrams are showing the Stick horizontally - as it appears when you're playing it – low notes to the left, high notes to the right, String 1 at the top, String 5 or 6 at the bottom. Hopefully this isn't confusing. If it is, let me know and I'll re-do the diagrams showing the Stick fretboard vertically.

Interesting chart. The squiggly graphics seem to be viewing the Stick horizontally, no?
Excellent exploration of this concept I would label as "Diatonic Triad Morphing".
My presentation was not nearly as graphic as yours.
FantaStick!
Glad you were inspired by this cool and logical fingerboard concept.

Steve A

Yes. That's the way I view it, from the players POV. Maybe that's not the best representation? If folks find it confusing, I can revise it if needed.

I think that in this sort of context even the word "horizontal" will be understood differently by different people?

Some will consider it to be 'along the frets', others 'along the neck/beam'.

To give an example, whenever I see TAB (which I don't use) or neck illustrations that have the neck across the page they feel totally wrong to me because my mental image of a fretboard layout has always had the neck/beam vertical and the frets horizontal (which is why I do my touchboard maps that way).

Others will feel differently (& have every right to do so)...

And this may or may not be relevant to your pdf?

Thanks, David. I’ll see if I can add something to make the orientation clear without cluttering up the diagrams. They’re actually the most important element of that doc so that needs to be right.

Do you think this works better?

Note that their are (excluding the Bº) six patterns:

Minor Root - Major Root
Minor 1st inversion - Major 1st inversion
Minor 2nd inversion - Major 2nd inversion

The diminished triad has three patterns, one each for Root, 1st and 2nd inversion.

That seems perfectly clear to me. Thank you Steve.

Steve S., this is very well organized on "paper".
The objective is to see how the triad shapes connect and morph with the logic of Emmett's magical tuning. It's spatial , mathematical and above all, useful for harmonic presentations. The concept is to make chord learning , visually and physically, less random and more integrated. Harmony, orchestration, and chord extensions are major strengths of The Stick. Creativity is at your fingertips
via technique, ear, spirit and familiarity with your instrument

Steve A

It would be nice to see this in an animation
whereby you can flick back and forth
between the chords and see where
the notes land on the fretboard.

If an app like FretBoard Evolution
https://asv.pt/fretboard-evolution/
had a script feature, this could be done easily.

How it was originally presented during a lesson.
Each triad, take the root and lower it a letter to create the next triad in the key:

D F A (lower D to C) etc.
F A C
A C E
C E G
E G B
G B D
B D F
D F A

Do this on the fretboard and voila
Steve A