Seeing how I am lurking on this site today your post grabbed my attention. As a player of the Box Guitar my primary focus to bring out the most of this instrument is melody. Melody was the name of my old yellow labrador retriever, she was special and unique as a melody should be. The relationship between chords and melody is only as diverse as time spent in re-writing the tune in your head and hopefully on the strings. I would like to site Uli Jon Roth as a master of squeezing the most melody out a chord like a heinz ketchup packet on your favorite fries of france. Melody is a gift if you so desire.

I would say so too!

mad_monk: thanks for helping me to discover:

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Harmony and Voice Leading (book)

Very interesting. Read through index and a couple of pages.
(Is it possible to go through “all” of this material without being in a class?)
It does go beyond my present understanding in various chapters.
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Website with Bach Chorales:
http://www.jsbchorales.net/index.shtml
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Program: Practica Musica
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Website: Michael Leibson / thinking Music
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Hi Dave,

I don't think one has to be in a class to use the book, unless one has no prior experience reading music. Even then, Practica Musica can help. It has its own basic theory book linked directly to the computer exercises.
The real value in going to school is that you are forced to go through the material on a schedule, and to put in few hours a day. If you have the discipline to keep at it, even if it's just one hour a day, then I'd say class is unnecessary. You may have to read the same passage several times, and scramble to look up something you've missed, but it's all in the book. And there are resources on the web to help.
I appreciate the positive feedback.

Mad Monk.

postscript: Do you have a copy of Mikrokosmos vol. 1 lying around from your early piano days...? Perfect for getting to know the fretboard in mirrored fourths.

Mad Monk,

I was never exposed to Mikrokosmos vol. 1.
I have reviewed the book and placed it on order. (Thanks for the pointer.)
Believing that I have the correct discipline I have also ordered Mikrokosmos vol. 1.

I have dedicated, for the time being, two hours a day to Stick studies.

(I need to develop and define the best use of that time.)
It really is too easy to find myself goofing around on the Stick. Transcribing my favorite piano pieces to “Stickese” and then spending more that a couple of hours doing research and reading here at Stickist.com.

My previous experience with Piano and Violin have taught me that I may not be all that happy with my progress 6 months from now if I don’t find the correct focus.
(That is what my favorite music teacher was able to do for me.)

Once again thanks for the help.

>>>you should be able to reach all of the intervals in question, even in 5ths, the only real exception being major and minor 2nds.<<<

Here's why I say the Stick's potential is still in its infancy. All intervals , all chords, scales, modes etc. are easily found with some applied ingenuity. I play minor 2nds often (think Thelonius Monk inthe piano cracks). On a standard grand Stick the 3rd string and the 11th are unisons. I play the 3rd string with my index and play the 11th with my right thumb, one fret lower or higher and voila, a minor 2nd. You can play a fast chromatic scale with ths knowledge by alternating these two fingers and ascending accordingly to achieve the goal. There are so many variables within the Stick's tuning and use of 8, 9 or 10 fingers, that with an exploring mind, any repertoire can be mastered.

It's a great point you make, Steve.

Learn the relationships of the different sides of the instrument to each other. I do the same with string 12 in the high bass 4th. The thumb plays 4 frets down and plays the higher note for the minor 2nd (or 3 frets down for a major 2nd), and the other fingers on the right hand can fill out the chord.

An interesting way this relates to the examples that Randy has been presenting is that in situations where two musical lines intersect at a single note, on a single keyboard, can only be played singly, whereas we can double that note on two strings.

A Choice
So Randy, what do you think is more useful for learning a piece, to rewrite the arrangement, segregating the left and right hands each on their own staff, and move the borrowed note, or to make some indication on the original score that shows the note played by the other hand?

These particular Bach pieces were written for church choir and would also have been played on pipe organ with two manuals, so go ahead and double the note, (in one hand in this case, in fourths)...sounding it in just one voice is also acceptable...likewise for the classroom exercises.

Edit:That doesn't really answer your question, does it....
In fifths you'd have to borrow the note, so I'd leave the score alone except to add, "RH" in this case over the borrowed note, so that the continuity of voices is easier to follow on the page. Is that what you'd do? But these don't have to be sounded twice.

For 28 years I have made a point of playing only those pieces which can be reproduced on the Stick exactly as written. One reason was that I wanted to find the threshold of what was playable in this method, and to understand the limiting factors. When I used the classic tuning, I played with the right thumb, swapped notes between hands, and played left-hand chords using strings borrowed from the melody side. Eventually (after 12 years), this same attitude of exploration led me to change the tuning to mirrored fourths, and now those techniques are rarely needed.


Mad Monk.

My guitarist friend at Billy Hydes where I teach drums, just lent me a copy of the voice leading/harmony book. Wow, I'm just gonna have to get lost in that for a while, and still make it back from the abyss of the harmony central galaxy.

Thanks, Radkon, for giving it a look. Let us know what you think.

I recommended the Aldwell and Schachter book because it is a good one and currently costs very little on Amazon. The one I used in school is somewhat less rigorous (also less well-organized) and currently the most-used in the US:

http://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Ste ... 268&sr=8-1

I'm going to a different school in the fall to do the second year yet again, with the tougher book (along with some texts on modern harmony and counterpoint). These classes are just like language classes in that you can repeat them profitably; I intend to know this stuff inside-out on the Stick.


Mad Monk.