I just attended some of the London Stick event, which was excellent - thanks guys. We had I think 9 attendees with a bunch of different tunings and string arrangements, which let me to thinking (oh dear) as follows...

Say you take a Classic tuned Stick and reverse the bass side stringing, so the thickest string is where you'd find it on a bass guitar, and tune the bass side in 4ths going up. You now have both sides in 4ths.

Now, if I have the idea right...whether you change the 'pitch' base' of one or both sides or leave it where it is, the 'melody' set of chord and scale shapes now fits both hands, gravity works with pitch both sides (up a string = up a 4th), and there's less ground to cover on the bass side, perhaps making walking basses etc. easier?. I guess it might at first thought also appear to make octave playing a breeze and hand independence less of a challenge?

I assume some of you will have done this - what are the disadvantages, and if it worked/works for you, what pitch base do you find works best for each side (of a 10 string), and is there a name for this tuning ('Lazy Man's Stick Tuning')?

Thanks, Max

I've heard this called Parallel Fourths, but not necessarily here in the Stick community.

Kris

I have tried this setup but keeping the bass in fifth's. But I think as far as 'Stick' playing
what you loose is the added ergonomic chord shaping ability which is a big part of what
makes the Stick work so well (as a Stick). That being said, and recently returning myself
from the Southern California Stick Seminar I was privileged to watch a performance by one of our illustrious members who played in fourths on a 12 string Stick Guitar and i was really
more amazed by his playing that Bob Culbertsons not because he was "better" but because
it was such a different take, and yet he was playing Mozart and Bach So what it comes down to is, as always, the possibilities are wide open, so go for if you want. But becoming
more conservative in my old age I would say develop Stick consciousness; inverted
bass in fifth's and melody in forth's first and then start exploring the peripheries...
*J*
.~

Very dangerous, my friend.



I think you end up with a Stickbass, with 2 extra strings. Anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks guys - I think you're right, BergerStick, it would be like an SB8 in 4ths. But with a 10 string, I'd have to 'step back' in pitch between 6 and 5, otherwise I'll pop string 1 when I tune it up.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this is a polycarbonate Stick with no truss rod, so I'd have to keep the overall string tension fairly similar to Classic. I guess a suitable bass tuning for straight 4ths might be C F Bb Eb Ab at fret 0? I could leave the melody side as standard, i.e.

C F Bb Eb Ab F# B E A D

...or maybe tune the Melody down a semitone to F Bb Eb Ab Dd. Then I'd have an 'unmatched non-reciprocal unmirrored 4ths' tuning, but with quite a lot of the same name notes on the same frets That should also have slightly less string tension overall than standard.

The problem for me with moving to something like this tuning AFTER say learning how to play Classic tuning for a couple of years, would be the reluctance to un-learn the stuff because of the feeling that I'd put so much time into learning it in the first place. I suspect as I'm a beginner it may be easier to do it the other way round, ie. try this tuning and revert to Classic fairly quickly if it doesn't work out.

Now - man who impressed 'J' with your playing of a Stick Guitar tuned in 4ths at the South California Stick Seminar, are you out there, or anyone else please with ideas on this?

P.S. I'm kind of reminded of last weekend, when Jim Lampi ask 9 UK Stick players if anyone had tried juggling, and everybody had. It feels like if you haven't messed with Stick tuning, you've missed out on part of the experience

I tried this on a Grand Stick for some time before changing to mirrored 4ths. There is an immediate access to bass guitar patterns if you're doing a lot of standard bass lines, but I think you give up a lot in terms of chord shaping and accompaniment possibilities, it's more awkward on the fingers I found.

Thanks Rob - so mirrored 4ths are more awkward for bass side chording etc. than straight 4ths. I guess with a mirrored 4th bass side, bass chord, scale, or lick patterns are then the same as the Melody equivalents but, err, mirrored? (Duh!).

Max

Straight 4ths is more awkward for chording (perhaps that is what you meant?)... yes, in mirrored 4ths a lot of the patterns are the same but go the opposite directions, although in practical terms the fret spacing and the way chords are typically voiced on the bass side (with the root much lower than the rest of the chord) still lead to fairly different approaches with each hand most of the time I'm playing.

I didn't find that mirroring the 4ths led to as much confusion as I thought might happen when playing bass patterns I already knew- you can still play them all, just a bit of a mental adjustment.

It's 5th's straight across the board for me!

I think what Rob says is true and he probably has the most experience with it.

I play stick with 4ths bass, initially spending a year in Rob's mirrored fourths tuning before finally settling on a parallel 4ths tuning popular on the W@rr guitar (I know, heresy), called uncrossed 4ths, where the bass is on the bottom tuned BEADGC and the melody strings are on the top tuned BEADGC and the hands no longer cross. The subject of 5ths/4ths and crossed uncrossed has been the subject of hot debate in the past and there are detailed threads on it and I don't want to open pandora's box.

Personally I would discourage the tuning you are considering because of the reach involved in getting to the thick bass strings - which is one of the reasons Emmett came to his initial 9 string tuning - to keep the oft used fat strings accessible on the board. Also Rob is probably right to say that chording is somewhat less ergonomic with 4ths not mirrored. I would counter with the argument that if chording is awkward in this orientation, it is no more awkward than it is for stanley jordan on two guitars or for anyone playing NS stick, or dual guitar SG12 tunings. Range is an issue though and that is why Rob's bass strings are raised up a 4th.

I'm not any authority but if you're after 4ths, my vote would be for Rob's mirrored 4ths or uncrossed parallel 4ths, not the crossed parallel 4ths setup. Either way, you basically need at least 12 strings for bass in 4ths to work.

In the end i think it comes down to personal preferences - what you can live with and what you cannot. For me the logic of two identical sides of the fretboard in parallel with the exact same tuning one octave apart and the full fretboard available was just so appealing that I can accept any trade offs.

The beauty of the stick is that it can be setup for any tuning and some experimenting is not a big deal.