Hey all, I'm the proud owner of a Railboard Stick and excited to begin this new musical journey. Before this I've played bass guitar for about 20 years, but admittedly I'm not very strong on theory.

My main question is should I stick with the raised matched reciprocal tuning? Or would another tuning be more suitable for learning? I'm concerned that any instruction books will be assuming the default tuning.

Also, any tips for playing smooth descending lines? I can play an ascending scale on the melody strings quite smoothly, but playing down the scale sounds quite choppy.

I've going over the basic lessons from Rob Culbertson and Greg Howard, and I can do the basic major/minor shapes on the bass strings and some basic rhythms. Past that though, I'm not sure what to try next. Any recommendations welcome. Thanks!

Welcome!

The one big thing that comes to mind is hand independence.

But you may want to start by taking a song you can play on bass and play the bass part in the Stick.

It'd also be useful to know what you hope to do with the Stick.

I got a lot of good out of these:

What's fun about music is every one can take the path he wants to travel and explore on. Many musicians like to learn songs they know, they like a lot a reproduce it in their own way. On my side I prefer to play a chord or a bass line with my left hand and use the melody side to improvise in the scale corresponding to what I do on the other hand. I also like to play chords other than the root chord and improvise on the root chord. An example? Let's say I want to improvise on Dm with my right hand, I play sometimes Bbmaj7, C7 on the left hand. Or Em7, Bbmaj7, A7, Gm, C7 and play my resolution on Dm. So much fun to explore...

Welcome! I just started playing the Stick in March, and also got a Railboard! Its been quite a journey so far. I would not worry about tuning, as any technique you lean will carry over to Classical or MR tuning, its just a matter of transposing a few frets.

I have been taking a few lessons here and there from Greg, and they have helped me get on my feet alot. Like you my theory is not the best, but the stick is forcing me to think about it more so thats a good thing in my book.

As for me, I found a pretty basic song to learn...and just trying to arrange it and practice it is forcing me learn a ton of technique. Its very slow going. As I read somewhere here before, simple is hard! I try to balance 1/3 song work / 1/3 notes, theory, scales ect / and 1/3 screwing around and noodling.

Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck!

i had MR tinung on my railboard and after a month moved to the recommended RMR tunung which i am happy with

instructional material should be the barrier for tuning choice-especially if yor going for 5th/4th tuning

in fact the RMR tuning is not far from classic tuning - melody side is the same
bass is raised 2 steps

As far as playing descending lines, practice having very precise and purposeful movements
. Also drive your movements from your larger muscles in your hands.

I'll second the recommendation to get lessons from Greg. He's very good at correcting technique over video chat.

This is good stuff, thanks for the input everyone. btw my tuning is RMR, I always forget about the raised part (these tunings are all new to me).

Hey Factorplayer!

Everyone comes across that same hurdle of making the descending lines flow more easily.
Don't worry it will come in time. I would suggest that you start early with Greg Howard's hand movement strategies. This really is the most significant advancement in stick technique in recent years and helps get more out of your chops.

Bob C also referred to descending lines as kind of raking sort of....although Emmett does do that sometimes. With Bob C it's more like a legato falling onto the fret type of movement.

Honestly many folk are talking of Greg's hand movement dvd as central to their technique and fluency. It helps avoid the typewriter method of playing. On a personal note, I made myself a promise over ten years ago to never play repeated notes with the same finger. I've pretty much based my own technique around that along side of all the contributions from the great teachers in this community.

You'll find your own way, for sure. Enjoy the ride!

Welcome, factorplayer!


Hand movement is really the key to getting those descending scales to sound smooth. I waffle between thinking that that advice is genius, or it's really obvious: I'll settle for obvious genius. Gotta move that hand around and not try to move just the fingers. Stick is a different beast than other instruments.

Which nicely segues into my admitting that I play the same note all the time with the same finger on piano--indeed, it would be weird and inefficient not to. But with the Stick, there is the thought that you can't play a consecutive note with the same finger, because...I believe it's because it's thought that you can't play a note strongly or cleanly with the same finger as using multiple fingers.

I am not a world class Stickist, although I am a world-class Stick enthusiast, and a half-ass decent composer and performer on a number of instruments, of which three of them are some kind of a Stick. And I don't want to go out of my way to be contrary, which I admit I do do from time to time.

So I'll simply humbly ask, Stickrad, since it's now crucial and essential to your sound and style (and with the observation that this is also something that several much-better players than me have espoused), what's the big deal with not playing the repeating notes with the same finger? (And I swear I'm not trying to be cool, or contrary, or to fight in front of "the kids"....) Thanks!