I know there is another tuning thread but the discussion I'm seeking is a little more philosophical in nature. Sorry if this has been beaten to do death but I've been away from the Stick community for a while and I'm very interested in this topic, so here it goes.

Where I'm coming from:

Like many others I started tapping on electric bass, and like many who start this way I was interested in the Stick because of its design being made to accommodate the technique. So I started with an SB8 because it was most familiar to me (I played a 6-string bass almost exclusively before then). About a year later I attended the West Texas Stick Seminar with Greg instructing. Even though I was the odd man out with the SB8 I still learned a lot, mostly about the basics of good tone production and single note repetition. I also took away with me the realization of what the 5ths tuning was and how it enabled chordal self-accompaniment. So a couple of years later I was able to get a 10-string and I can still remember that although I struggled with the basic left-hand technique, I felt somehow already primed for it and I think that's a testament to Greg's pedagogical expertise. I floundered for a few years with the fifths tuning and remained pretty stagnant during that time. Fast-forward to 2008. I decided it was time to finally tackle the 5ths tuning, as I felt I never truly had. I went for a Grand as I probably should have in the first place because you get a whole other string worth of extended chords, plus I wanted a 5ths tuned Stick with midi.

Anyway, the point of telling all of this is that since getting this new Stick last summer I have worked more intensely than I ever have and I find I have finally "gotten" the left hand 5ths tuning. Not to say I have mastered it by any stretch. No, by "gotten" I mean that I finally understand the genius of Emmett's tuning scheme and how it really does make the Stick "proper" a very different instrument from an SB8 or an NS. I mostly played the SB8 in a band setting and I hardly wrote any solo material for it. The 4ths tuning just doesn't enable me to create a "complete" sonic space like the 5ths tuning does. Now I'm starting to write more and I find the self-accompanimental improvisational style the tuning affords to be exhilarating and inspiring. I feel like I'm finally playing "The Stick."

So that's been my journey so far, coming from tapping in 4ths to discovering the 5ths tuning, and I think that for me, the 5ths tuning defines the Stick as I understand it now.

Dave

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Very interesting topic! I think tuning helps define your approach but if you tune a guitar traditionally, to an open G chord or some other exotic tuning it's still a guitar. So obviously tuning doesn't define what a guitar is.

Being the inventer I'd love to see Emmett chime in on this. From what I understand Emmett discovered/invented the playing method 1st, then he created and tweaked the Stick and it's traditional tunings to take full advantage of the playing method. So "I would think" Emmett might say the playing method defines the instrument and the tuning is a byproduct of the method.

Of course ... I could be TOTALLY off base here!!!

Hi Ray,

The method and tuning are really independent elements. You can play Free Hands on any tuning. What makes it Free Hands is the player's ability to line up the fingertips along the string with each hand in the same fashion.

It's hard to say how the Stick would have developed differently had Emmett been using a tuning other than the one he had on his 9-string "Freedom Guitar" in 1969 when he made his method discovery.

First Stick prototype, 1970 ©Stick Enterprises

On that instrument he extended the overall range by inverting the pitches of the lowest three strings to extend down to low D (below bass low E), (something he was already doing on an 8-string guitar previously, with the three lowest strings):



This desire, to have access to the greatest accompaniment range with the strings available, was the reason for the development of the tuning in the first place, before his method discovery. It's been echoed since by the New Standard Tuning (Crafty tuning) on guitar, which also uses 5ths to expand the range of a group of strings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Standard_Tuning

Maybe, on a 12-string instrument the range becomes less of an issue. But having 3 1/2 octaves under your hand at once is a pretty powerful orchestrating tool. Six strings in 5ths, starting at Low C reach all the way to G above middle C at the 8th fret.

You can read about the development of the ClassicTM Stick tuning here:

http://www.stick.com/interviews/chapman_06_06/

It's interesting to speculate about how things would have developed differently had he used a more conventional tuning. Arguably, Stick music would be a totally different thing had he not been able to take advantage of the great range and chord possibilities offered by these inverted 5ths (and argue we have and do ).

All great points Greg and i enjoyed the articles you posted hyperlinks for ... and the SB8 tuned in accending 4ths is still a Stick. I guess my thought was I don't think tuning defines the instrument as much as the playing method. A guitar tuned anyway is a guitar, A stick tuned in straight 4ths (SB8) is still a stick. So what DOES define the instrument? My "Emmett" example was based on what I've read about how he invented the free hands playing method and the Stick grew out of his desire to have an instrument made to take full advantage of that method. Hense ... my conclusion that the method defined the instrument and the tunings grew from there.

Emmett's a deep thinker ... I wish he would give us his 2 cents on the topic. it's ALMOST a topic with no one right answer, but still i'd love to hear his views being the inventor of our beloved musical instrument.

And of course Greg .... thank you for your food for thought as well!

Thanks for everyone's thoughts in this thread. That was the article I was looking for, Greg, thanks for posting the link!

I think this portion of the article is the crux of the question:



So if the tuning had an influence on the technique it may be impossible to separate the two as far as the origin of the instrument is concerned, but as far as what the Stick has become it would appear that the method has transcended the tuning. I tend to agree with this, even though I have come to embrace the inverted 5ths as a more powerful avenue of expression for me personally, because I did start out tuned in 4ths, and as I said before Greg's seminar helped with the basics of the method like getting the best tone and ergonomic considerations, things that are indeed universal to the method regardless of tuning.

Hi David,

Emmett has made custom-tuned instruments almost since the beginning for other players.

So you are right, that the method transcended the vehicle it was discovered on almost immediately.

Stanley Jordan, who came to the same method concept as Emmett, but at a later time, is the best illustration I can think of that shows that the Free Hands approach is independent of the tuning and structure of the instrument.

Free Hands can work on any stringed instrument where the hands can approach the fretboard (or "fretless-board") from opposite sides:



The important thing is the consistency of hand orientation with the strings, lining the fingers up along the string with the frets in ascending sequence from first to 4th finger. This is the key to the method's success, and one reason (I believe) why earlier tappers, who used the conventional guitar hand orientation, didn't catch on.

As many tapping guitarists who use the Free Hands orientation are showing, you don't have to have the neck at as vertical an angle as The Stick is usually held to play this way, (but it is certainly a lot easier on your right wrist if you do).