I currently have two10-string Sticks, a Matched Reciprocal Railboard and a rosewood in Baritone Melody.

It occurred to me that if I “trade” these both for a 12-string model, that I may be able to play my (limited) repertoire on a single instrument rather than having to switch back-and-forth between the two of them.

True? If I were to do this, what would folks advise as the preferred tuning to specify to make for an easy transition from what I’m playing now?

Thanks!

As you are well aware I'm no expert, but I do observe that Baritone Melody is the 'inner 10' of Classic 12. So if you used Classic 12, your inner 10 would be in the same relationship as you are used to on the Rosewood, plus an extra higher string on each outer edge.

Just a thought...

IMO in general, what is i think most valuable is for the general melody line and bass chord shapes to be the same ( meaning that you don't run out of strings in either direction) and be in the same general vicinity on the fretboard. most any 12 string tuning will give you that. at least the 12 string classic MR and RMR will. after a few days the shifting of the fret positions up or down a fret or two won't be an issue , but you may feel differently about that

personally i like the between hand spacing the reciprocal tunings tend to give you more than the classic-ish tunings

There is one piece I can play on both of my instruments. The wider spacing of the Railboard seems to be more of a (minor) stumbling block than the hand position, so I’m not expecting that to be too much of an issue. More concerned about selecting a tuning in which I have to actually change the key to be able to play the piece, but suspect the extra string might make that unlikely. I guess I’m looking for advice on tuning choice. I note that Baritone Melody isn’t offered on Grand Sticks, so I’m guessing that MR might be a good choice.

The difference between MR and Classic on a 12-string is a whole-step difference in the melody. The overall range and crossover between bass and melody is very similar. As noted above, the main consideration between those two is how your hands will relate to each other due to that whole-step difference. With MR, the notes are also consistent across the frets reading across bass and melody. I think that helps some people navigate the fretboard.

The reason there's no baritone tuning on a 12-string is that it is basically the 12-string classic tuning, just the inner/lower 5 melody strings. Moving from 10-string baritone melody to 12-string classic just adds a higher / outer string to the melody side. Moving from 10-string classic to 12-string classic, add a lower / inner melody string. Moving from 10-string MR to 12-string MR adds lower / inner melody string. The bass is always the same in these tunings, just adding a higher / outer bass string when moving to 12-string.
(I think this is accurate, you can double check the tuning charts on stick.com).

I started on a 10-string baritone melody and had no issues moving to 12-string classic (I use high bass 4th). I've not personally used the MR tuning, but I'm not generally bothered by my hands being close. I've had Stick players note how close my hands get to each other, maybe I'm just used to that coming from piano?

Thanks Claire & David. It sounds like the choice of tuning comes down to whether I want the additional string to be on the lower/inside or higher/outside?

Which brings me back to the central question whether I can live with a single 12-string instrument to handle most arrangements, rather than having to switch between two depending on what piece I’m playing. I seem to recall that Greg’s “Tapping Into Bach” is arranged for 10-string baritone melody or a 12-string (not sure if it requires a specific tuning).

You're probably better off considering the relationship of the hands, as Mike suggested, it's the main difference between 12-string classic or MR.

Either 12-string classic or MR would cover both of your current 10-string melody ranges. I recommend you go look at the tuning charts and ranges, that should confirm if you can play what you're hoping to play.


It's for 10-string baritone melody or 12-string classic. If you ignore the outer bass and melody strings on a 12-string classic, you have a 10-string baritone melody tuning.

While doing tuning experiments I made up this illustration of 12-string classic, with octave numbers, in html.

There are a few others here, but I was exploring my interests which are not the same as yours, so most are probably not relevant?

However, if you're familiar with html & handy with a text editor (as I beleive you are?) you could copy the code and mess around with it to see how the ranges vary for differet tunings.

And here's a pdf of a spreadsheet I made based on the 10 & 12 string sections of https://stick.com/instruments/tunings/all/, but with the addition octave numbers, and adding Full Baritone to the 10's & Mirrorred 4ths to the 12's.

I believe baritone melody is the same as classic Grand minus the first string. If so, you would adapt well to Grand classic tuning. There were no alternate tunings for the first 20 years of The Stick's existence. Matched reciprocal was started to supposedly help with symmetrical string names, not necessarily for ease of playing. I've used classic for almost 40 years. I can adapt my lessons to accomodate other tunings, but personally I prefer the voicings and accessibility of standard classic tuning.. There are certain techniques and voicings that evolve well from this tuning. Polychords, The Claw, The Waterfall, extended chords, closed voicings, right hand thumb use....... YMMV
Steve Adelson