*Spoken in the voice of a hypnotist with bulging eyes* Drop objections. Embrace user benefits. Drop objections. Embrace user benefits. Drop objections. Embrace user benefits. Oooooooh.

The health of any ecosystem is determined by it's diversity. If a diversity of ideas isn't cherished, the system is not as flexible as it might be. Looking for a culture of innovation.

Hey Jan, how do you get your attachments to display so large?

There's an instrument called the Barytone that has the ear bass strings like you suggest.

I was playing on a Dutch national TV show once and they also had a Barytone player on there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryton

I think what you get into with trying to make one instrument do everything "conceptually" is that it doesn't hold up in practice.

Your thumb will not be able to play compelling enough basslines on its own to make the scheme work.

I don´t know. It just happens.

Oh. I know all of a sudden. You´ve attached your pics to your posts..... I´ve copied the pics url and used the Img-function just next to "URL" and all the other functions that one can use in a post over the text field. YouTube, Facebook, Flickr slide shows etc..... The size of the pic in a post when using a pic posted on the internet depends on how big the pic itself is. When you attach a picture from your hard drive then the pic will show up as a thumb nail until you click on the pic....

Something like that....

Hi Greg,

I'm aware that it won't be able to play like a bassist with all his fingers available and no other duties.

But if I grab a 5 string quartal with the left hand on a Grand Stick, there's only one string left for playing the bass. If playing a 3 string quartal with the left hand on stick, I can reach some bass notes: which ones depend on how I have to grab it and the tuning chosen. 5 string quartals limit me even further as to what I can reach bass-wise even if allocating more strings to the bass side ala 7+5.

There's no way to play even a simple repeating ostinato of 1 5 1 b7 for example and REALLY no way of moving it around.

A person could have one stick for playing quartal tunes and another stick for playing non-3rd chords but that still wouldn't be as good as the viable solution we've already discovered: Bass strings on the back. Woohoo.

I don't see any way of playing what I want on an unmodified stick. I could start thinking to embrace open voicings but still, some 4 note chords require four fingers to play them. If all four fingers have been used up, there's no bass I can play except for reaching my left hand thumb over the top of the stick. I feel bass strings on the back are a better solution than that, except bass strings on the back don't exist yet. If my right hand is involved in chording, it severely restricts a melody I can play. For these situations the stick is not free hands at all.

A bass string or two on the back would make my right hand and the melody free from the mechanics of playing bass and chords. I think that would assist anyone's stick playing.

Hey Jan, where do you host your images?

None of the pics I´ve posted in this thread are mine. Find them on the internet. But I do have a pic sharing account on Flickr that I use often.

https://www.flickr.com/

If I had my druthers there'd be a modular stick situation for more strings on the back and a redesign of the belt hook where it comes out of the sides like this to stay out of the way of the backside strings.

I see double sided guitar/bass combinations already exist.



http://www.tdpri.com/forum/other-guitar ... -made.html

Scroll halfway down this next link to see a guy playing one in a video. Not tapping both sides at the same time of course.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Double-sided-Gu ... rmvSB=true

what sounds good in theory (all those notes) does not necessarily work in practice. playing the Stick is the ultimate lab experiment...

What can work in practice can't be shot down by biased objections with no basis in experience. I already know it can work just by taking a classical guitar which has about the same scale length and holding it like a stick, then turning it around and tapping it with my thumb on the back. I can reach a whole octave in one position on three strings major and minor no sweat. I also can do that while holding an imaginary 3 note quartal on the other side with my fingers. There. Concept proven. I'm moving forward with that.