Perspective Note :
OK, as you guys might know, I'm just now making sounds on the stick (I want to get to lessons as soon as my busy work season settles down. People tend to think warm air = scuba, but the diving in the puget sound I think is better during winter. People figure that out their second year of diving.)
But i digress [You'll come to find I do that a lot. Like right here!! ooh recursive digression?].
Anyway, I'm just wrestling with the stick, but no longer in a negative way (Thanks Emmett for the message and...permission? encouragement? to go ahead and have a personal identity and direction and relationship with the instrument and the music.)
Wow, Jim's one messed up puppy huh.

but this phase doesn't seem too unusual, i'm letting go of the hang up that this is some sort of guitar.

now on to the specifics and something that's actually of utility

So, I'm just messing around familiarizing myself and one challenge/frustration is I'll so a little pattern on the melody side with the right hand and then i think "oh, I'll play that in unison" or "I'll transpose that to the bass side and see what I can add back on the melody side"
but, the tuning differences make that less-than-instantaneous and, often, quite challenging in terms of the fingering.
I have extremely limited experience (I'll call it just "exposure") violin family and 5ths tuning. So that might be part of it.

Now, i'm just spitballin here, but the evolution of the tuning -- the preserving the note names (pitch class) but moving the octaves seems to suggest a focus on harmonic function as opposed to melodic function (hence the inversions that seem to crop up so early??)

Then I happen more on Rob Martino's work (or stumbled on the awareness that he plays in mirrored 4ths -- didn't realize that before)

On one hand I really am enjoying how regular the tuning is (on each side individually) in terms of simplification of thought and wonder if "global" simplification across the two sides would be helpful

On the other hand, I wonder if I would be cheating myself of a new opportunity that a new approach (5ths for me) would offer.


On one hand, I really enjoy contrapuntal music just as a form. It's something that's always just spoke to me and when i play an instrument i can actually pretend to play, it's where I seem to find my own personal pocket.

On the other hand, other guys seem to have plenty of facility navigating 5ths for interesting bass figures

I'm on a railboard and it seems, even if it were something to explore -- 12 strings seems to be what folks choose given the compressed range???


I'e read the article and watched the FF on tunings (good stuff for me)

I don't know. it's not really a question or even a musing. Maybe it's just the reaction to the inflection point in the learning curve where the two sides are harmonic instead of melodic mirrors.


any thoughts would be appreciated. I mean, who else am I gonna talk about this stuff with? I think I need another cup of coffee now

It's certainly easier to play contrapuntally if you have the same tuning in each hand, but there are some pretty nice strategies for working it out if you have 5ths in the left hand. I play true unisons at every gig, sometimes as a soloing device, or if a tune calls for it (think Black Dog).

The key to unisons is knowing your melody scales cold, so that you can apply the same fingering to the left hand, just offset by two frets when you transition from string to string. These are easier with 3 fingered scales than with 4 fingered scales, but you can do them with 4-fingered scales as well.

For contrapuntal music, knowing that there are different ways to navigate in the left hand (4 notes per string with 1-2-1-3 fingering, or 1-2-3 with offsets) gives you flexibility as well.

either way, The Stick can easily accommodate your tuning of choice and you can experiment without messing it up or having to buy a new nut.

Hope that helps.

I'd say, give fifths a try. It works better for your Railboard--as you noticed, you really need 12 strings to really do 4ths tuning right.

I was drawn to the 4th side, I'll admit, particularly by the same Rob Martino who rocks like a really rocking thing. But gradually the 5ths just became...I hate to use this word...but beautiful. Like light shining from the skies--I got it.

You can always go to 4ths later, as did the aforementioned Rob and many others. Or do both, as MichNS and others do.

Your solution is to start with 5ths on the Railboard, then buy a 12-string and try 4ths on it. You can always switch back and forth!

There, fixed it for ya! (Probably not. But give the 5ths a chance!)

Your 5th Columnist

5th also helps you "think out of the box" with bass lines... It's easy to craft bass lines in 4ths, but the 5ths tuning pushes you to think of things much differently. give it a try

The good part (either way) is not much of a bass player so I'm not sure I have much of a box when it comes to basslines

my previous interest and experience was in classic[al] guitar...so I didn't even fit in with "normal" guitar players.
and I tended toward german stuff it lead me more along "harmonize the CF" 4 part. so the baseline was simply another voice for me more than "hey Mr bass player"

I did have (and would sort of lie to reconstruct - with a more mature perspective) great fascination with self-harmonizing systems (canon and fugue and so forth)

though, when I look through my own mind...that whole wing has been so neglected for so long, there may be little to salvage. which might be freeing

You know, I tried mirrored fourths for a few months and really, really liked it. Finding notes, sight-reading, playing scales, very easy especially since I have a good understanding of guitar. But some things I didn't like. I felt boxed in due to a tendency to 'position play' and my left hand was killing me... And, my 'powerchords' (5ths) just didn't sound as clean, and weren't as easy to execute as they are in a 5ths tuning. So, I decided to go back to where I started and do matched reciprocal. Actually, I have tried every tuning and found that for one reason or another I liked it a lot. RMR on a Railboard seems to really resonate I feel like... so that's where my Railboard is tuned, and my Grand is in MR. Now it's just practice, practice, practice.

lol Regardless of the tuning you choose, just remember that all of the notes are there, so anything is possible!

well, I bought my railboard used and the previous owner lost all the D#s while restringing it.


Update : really? nothing!?! is this a forum or an oil painting? This is the last time I waste my A material on you lot. Pearls before swine I tell ya.

It should be possible to play four-part chorales and hymns on a railboard. I myself play them on an SG-12, so I know whereof I speak. You will have to put fourths in the bass in order to play passing tones in the lower two voices, but the range of a ten-string will still cover vocal pieces with D2 as the lowest note. Both hands will usually be playing toward the middle of the instrument.

For polyphonic keyboard music, though, you will generally need six strings for the bass side, in fourths. If anyone suggests otherwise, ask them how many keyboard pieces they can actually play.


Mad Monk.

If that's your A material stick w/ the Stick. And just as a suggestion, Baritone Melody, any of the Matched Reciprocals, but on a ten-string, stick with the bass 5ths. It will give you much pleasure.

Also: If you want tell Stick Jokes, check out Steve Adelson's book.

Oh you wouldn't say that upon hearing me play* the stick

*I use the term loosely