About where should the top fret go? When I went to the Stick site pictures at http://www.stick.com/instruments/, I noticed that there were differences as to how high the stick should ride.

There's your answer really

I reckon you'd do well starting with the first inlay at around shoulder height and the 12th fret inlay around the 'navel position' and making subtle adjustments as required.

Hi Frederik,

The Stick, unlike other instruments, is designed to be positioned on your body to facilitate tapping specifically.

The way the belthook and strap system tilts the headstock back toward the shoulder is particularly important, and no other instrument I've seen can accomplish this particular position without the player having to push his right leg forward to tilt it back.

The main thing you want to look out for is positioning the instrument so that you have freedom of movement for both hands to as much of the fretboard as possible, and with the least amount of wrist bending.

Here are the three things I recommend to accomplish this.

1. The first inlay (the second fret, on both 34" and 36" scale instruments) should be a your left shoulder height. The position of the belt hook on the instrument and the position of the instrument on your body work together to accomplish this setting.

2. The outside edge of the instrument (where the 1st string is) should be just inside your shoulder joint, so that you can pivot your arm up and down at the shoulder without having to pull your arm back or push it forward. Tightening or loosening the shoulder strap accomplishes this setting.

3. The 12th fret inlay should be in the horizontal center of your body. This means the belt hook should be slightly to the right of center.

A lot of players would disagree with me about these guidelines, but that's what I teach my students. They can tell you if it works for them or not.

This picture of Virginia Splendore is a good example of the positioning I'm talking about:

It's working for me, as the 3-digit technique (a long discussion on the "before the crash" forum, and maybe a new debate to come)

Ah, the 3 vs.4 debate. Steve lives closer to me than Greg...

Marty

Both are great:

4 fingers approach is efficient but musically limiting
3 fingers approach is more creative

Combining both is killer!


My 2 cents.

O.

Hi Bruno,

Thank for reminding me. There is indeed a connection between instrument positioning and the kinds of fingerings a player can easily use.

I really like to play sustaining arpeggios in the left hand, which is much easier to do if the instrument is held more vertically. This sound is like having a sustain pedal or open strings, adding a lot of ringing presence to the sound.

The down side to more vertical positioning is that it becomes harder to integrate the 4th finger higher up on the 1st string. As a predominantly 3-finger melody player, I don't really care about this, and the above advantage in the left hand far outweighs the ease of use with the 4th melody finger you get from a lower angle.

If you're really into using 4 fingers on the right hand, you'll find a more vertical position challenging (unless you've got really long fingers like Bob Culbertson, who positions his instrument about as vertically as you can).

Right! When I play "vertical", I naturally play more often with only 3 fingers. Wrists are less stressed (I know that many very skilled Stick players plays more horizontal and that works for them, but it now hurts me! Control of the notes is better and articulation is more fluent. I may play now some times some notes with the pinky, but only for occasional effects (I think I have now the same approach than Ron Baggerman who plays mainly with 3 fingers, and uses his pinky at some point)

Greg, just to clarify, do you predominantly play 4 fingers on the left-hand, bass side, or do you also stick with 3 fingers for that hand as well?

Kris

Hi Kris,

I use four fingers on the left hand. The role they play differes depending on what I'm doing. If I'm playing a line, I will usually use a sequence of 1,2,4 or 1,2,3, so it's basically a "three-finger" technique, but 3 and 4 are interchangable.

For chords you do what you have to do to play the chord.

Hope that clarifies things.