Hi Greg.

Does your Stick Book come in a 12 string classic tuning version or does one size fit all? I ordered through SE hoping to get a 12 string ver., but was sent a book for 10 string.

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi Kevin,

When I wrote the book there were very few Grand Sticks in the world, and the majority of instruments are still 10-strings (it's probably 4:1).

Since everything that you can do in 10-strings can be done in 12 it made more sense to me to write the versions for the three tunings (Baritone Melody, Classic, and Matched Reciprocal)

If you have a 12-string Classic, you can use either the Baritone Melody or the Classic version. I like to recommend the Baritone Melody because it will have you playing the 6th and 7th strings, whereas with the Classic version you won't use the 6th melody string if you play the exercises as written.

But...you can take transpose any of the exercises up or down from string to string as long as you have room.

So feel free to take the concepts in the book and expand them beyond what's written. I offered some ideas about this at 9:53 in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVNNUHKZWLw

Which version of the book did you get?

If I were to make a version for 12-strings, I'd actually have to make 2 versions, one for Classic and one for MR, and I'd rather focus on creating new materials, since this book is perfectly usable as it is for 12-string instruments.

Thanks for the question.

Thanks Greg.
Got the 10 string classic tuning version,vol 1, 2nd edition.

Kev

Hi Kev,

One thing I would recommend is that you learn the exercises as written in the book, and then just shift everything over one string (down a 4th in the melody, up a 5th in the bass). This will get you used to playing on the lowest melody and highest bass strings.

Also, for any exercise that doesn't use the lowest bass string, you can play the melody side down a string and play the bass side down one string and up two frets. I haven't actually gone through the book to see which exercises will actually work for this, but I'm sure there are a few.

If you have the Stick Book CD, some of the melody exercises are an octave up from what's on the discs.