I was looking through Emmetts Free hands, page 49, and was wondering whether these types of chords are well suited to playing with other chordal instruments especially piano.

What experience do folk have in regards to complementing the range of other chording instruments?

Greg.. Bsharp, anyone who likes to to stretch their fingers. I was hoping you guys might set us up for some cool research.

My approach is to play way too many notes at once haha, with the goal of playing huge thick chords without thinking too much if it steps on toes or whatever. I guess I want the piano/synth player to play as many huge open chords as desired too. A huge sonic mashup, but directly in synch rhythmically as the key point. Sorry not much help here. Its just a concept I go for and I'm not there at all yet, but I know that at times it has been brilliant. Other times maybe a bit weird.

Actually now that I think about it, that track that Emmett and Vance posted is a pretty sweet stick and piano concept. I'm not sure of that chord voicing style but it sounded pretty full and rich. And I guess I forgot to post my appreciation. Good mix of tones, crystal clear stick mixed in pretty well with the piano I thought.

But yeah, that page in free hands is a nice reference. I'd like to rethink my approach sometimes.

OIS.

How are ya maaaate. Yes, Gotta love the freely intended mash up.! I used to try a bit of that with a free trio I started out with. Thanks for reminding me of Emmett's duo post. Secretly I wish I had the knowledge of Jerry Goldsmith mixed with McCoy Tyner or something like that.

All I can do for now is sit at the lights and stop the cd player mid through an Alien cluster fuck chord, and try and hear/sing all the intervals I can.

I'd be curious to hear from anyone with a piano background as to how they like to use open voicings on top of any other type of voicing.

Too much fun....

Funny you bring this up when we recently got a new guitar teacher for the "advanced players" for the group guitar lessons I've been taking at Stickist Steve Osburn's store for a couple years now. This new guy is a fantastic fingerstyle player who showed us some "open chord" techniques. Since my NS is tuned like a guitar, I've been applying what I learned directly to the NS. When pulling out the Grand, of course I have often have to move one finger over for the straight fourth's tuning on the melody side.

But what fascinates me about this guy is how he plays melodic parts by playing these open chords at a moderately fast pace, giving the illusion of comping his own solo, somewhat mimicking two guitars playing at the same time, but it's only one guy.

So, if a guitar can sound like two, what's the maximum amount of harmonies that could be played on a Stick, as we have another set of six strings (the bass side)? You might think 4 as 2X2 by what I describe, but lately I've been experimenting using the 5,6,&8th strings on my Grand to emulate scalar basslines simulating 4ths tuning (I use MR tuning), occasionally hitting the 7th to get the real low bass tones, but my focus is on the 5,6,&8. Would this be "open fingering" to play a "closed" scale? Hint: I play the ascending scale starting on the 8th string, skipping the seventh and continue on with the 6th and 5th on the melody side..

Fun to experiment with, the more things this new teacher keeps showing us, the more ideas I get for playing the Stick, some of which may be far fetched. Now, if could could just get a decent song together using all of these ideas.

Mr. Balogh.

Vids please, just a little practice diary thingamie watsit..! Sounds like luscious stuff.

I messed up on my post - he explained the mechanics of THREE part harmony on guitar -
Say for a simple three chord progression, create a simple pattern of the bottom notes of each of the three chords, then build two melodies out of the next two highest notes. I believe it's just part of typical fingerstyle guitar, but my mind starts going to the Stick.

Seven part harmony on a Stick? Give me a little time on that, I have to make something out of it all, maybe I'll put it in a vid for you.

Here's the idea, I found someone's Youtube vid that's a bit more simple - each of the three triad tones are held for the same length, what I was shown was a variation applying different patterns within the total length of each triad. The open chord voiceings can make the triads more interesting, and sometimes easier to use. You read three tablatures at once:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1nX5hnLdgw[/youtube]