Sermon on The Evils of Inverted-Fifths Tuning!
Disclaimer:
Mobius Megatar strongly believes that the tuning we call "BassBottom" is rational, quickly learned, clear to visualize even when playing with both hands, and most powerful when learned. In addition it permits guitar players and bass players to quickly transfer 85-95% of their existing learning to two-handed touch-style play.
The BassBottom tuning makes it possible to learn two-handed touch-style slightly faster than to learn piano, bass, or guitar, as detailed below.
However, there also exists a popular tuning for touch-style players, developed by Emmett Chapman (developer of 'The Stick' musical instrument), where bass strings are tuned in fifths, and they 'ascend' in the direction opposite to normal bass and guitar. For musicians considering this 'Inverted-Fifths' tuning, we will here present our strongest 'sermon' with details on why BassBottom tuning is better.
But Remember -- If You Wish, We Can Provide 'Inverted-Fifths' Tuning
Some people do order our instruments 'Stick-Tuned' which we call "Inverted Fifths", because these people already know how to play in that tuning. That makes perfect sense.
So if you want that tuning, we can provide it, and it will include the Buzz Feiten Intonation System built in, tone controls, and all the advantages of Mobius Megatar instruments.
Bass and Melody
Specialty touch-style instruments normally have two sets of strings on one neck. Although you can tune these two sets of strings like two guitars, it is more common to use one set as the 'bass' strings, and the other set as the 'melody' strings.
When we compare 'Inverted-Fifths' tuning with 'BassBottom' tuning, we're talking about how the bass strings are tuned, because in both tunings there is no difference in the melody strings. The melody strings are tuned much like a guitar, in straight fourths, though slightly lower, because of the long neck.
The simplest methods of playing touch-style music is to use one hand to play bass strings -- by touching the strings to the frets -- and to use the other hand to play the melody strings. This is much like a keyboard player on stage who uses two keyboards: one for each hand. By using separate string-sets, one never has any conflict with both hands wanting to play on the same string.
So in this comparison, we're assuming the melody is the same in the two tunings; Only the bass strings tuning differs.
A Detailed Comparison
by Traktor Topaz
I've learned both tunings -- the 'Inverted-Fifths' tuning and the 'BassBottom' tuning -- and bounced back and forth for a while, examining each of them, and here's what I perceive as true after studying this for a long, long time ...
The inverted fifths tuning came about due to a particular musical technique, as best I can determine. Emmett Chapman was learning to tap on his six-string guitar, with the tuners elevated, and the first technique he came up with was very similar to what Jimmie Webster had done many years earlier. With the left hand, placed a few frets above the nut, he'd tap a chord. Then with the right hand positioned further up the neck, he'd tap out a melody line.
Now sometimes the melody line stole a string that was ringing with a chord tone, but in practice that doesn't really matter much. The technique sounds quite good. The chord-form that's used is to hit a root with your left first finger and some harmony notes a few strings higher. (Ie: playing chords in fourths tuning)
However, I suppose Emmett Chapman decided it would be cool if he added a couple of lower-pitched bass strings. Where would be a good place to put them? Right below the lowest guitar string! So he did that.
Since the purpose of these lower-pitched strings was to give him low roots, I suppose he came to the conclusion that the lowest-pitched bass string should be nearest the lowest-pitched guitar string in fourths. (If the low bass strings were further away, it would be a greater stretch to finger the chord tones in the melody strings.)
Now he could play a low-pitched root on the bass string or the next bass string, and he could play chord tones on the melody strings, while playing a melody with right hand further up the neck. If you look at Chapter Two of his Free-Hands book you'll see that technique spelled out. It's placed at Chapter Two instead of in a footnote later, because this technique came first. (Almost nobody else uses this technique, because playing with each hand upon its own string-set turns out to be simpler, as things developed.)
Chapman later went to more strings on the bass side, settling on four for his design patent, and making five by the time he started making instruments for other folks. By then he had developed another left-hand technique which was a kind of driving bassline using lots of root-five-octave and some other modal notes. (See the book 'Rapid Fire Bass' by Frank Paul, in the Learning section of this website.) This works fine in fifths, though it also works fine in fourths. And so Chapman had learned to play with this offbeat tuning, and he made instruments that way, and other folks learned to play that way, and finally, many musicians learned to play that way, though in my opinion, many found it difficult.
Contrary to How a Human Normally Operates
It's inherently difficult to play using two string-sets tuned differently, because it goes against the way a human works. Any child learns that it's difficult to pat your head while rubbing your tummy, but it's *easy* to simply pat both your head and tummy!
In addition, this wacky tuning requires that you keep two separate models (notes to frets) in your head, and you must learn to perform completely different hand motions in left and right hands to play the same series of notes. This is certainly "interesting" but then so is learning to play the trumpet with one hand and the banjo with the other. If you really like puzzles, then this is swell.
But what if you just want to play music?
Let's Examine the Simpler Alternative
Instead of this odd tuning, suppose that you instead just tune the bass strings in fourths, ascending in the same direction as the melody strings, just like any guitarist or bass player would understand. Let's say you choose the exact same notes for the bass strings as used in a standard 6-string bass. Now any bass-player in the world can pick it up and he knows where the notes are.
Now, let's place your left hand over bass strings just above fret two.
Let's place your right hand over melody strings just above fret twelve.
(Fret two and fret twelve both have double-dots on a Megatar fretboard.)
Now the notes under your two hands are exactly identical all the way across each set of six strings. Two octaves apart, but exactly the same set of notes from low to high.
Right there. Is that simpler?
Existing Bass Player or Guitar Player?
Now suppose you're already a bass player or a guitar player, and you know some chord shapes or scales on strings in fourths. Can you immediately play the shapes you know? Yes.
Using Your Head
We humans figure out how to do things by maintaining a model in our heads. For example, suppose you want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and there are no lights. You can still navigate there, perhaps by feeling the walls, because inside your head you have a model of your home.
In the same way, you know how to drive to some neighboring town, and you can give directions to your friend, because you have a model inside your head. You don't have to drive there, writing down notes as you go. You just travel through the model in your head, and write down the directions as you go.
Now let's consider the model in your head for playing a touch-style instrument. Which is simpler and clearer -- Two different models? Or one model? Which is clearer for any human? Will a human learn faster with a clear and simple model, or with a complex and contradictory one?
Using What You Already Know
Now, suppose you learn to arpeggiate some chord shapes with your left hand.
Now this may come as a shock, but if you've been training your left hand for years, you really weren't training your left hand.
You were actually training your *head.*
And you're really in luck, because you've got a right hand and it's wired into the very same head!
What your left hand knows, your right almost knows already. It is quite surprising how quickly your right hand learns to fret strings, even when you've never done that before.
This means that learning leaps forward in bounds, instead of grinding slowly.
And since the shapes are identical below the two hands, you can now train your two hands simultaneously. This also speeds learning.
Adding Up the Evidence
Now let's add it up -- One set of scales instead of two. One simple model instead of two conflicting models. Identical notes below the hands instead of different ones. Identical hand motions instead of different ones. Practice with both hands simultaneously.
Conclusion?
Here's what's true -- BassBottom is simpler, faster to learn, clearer in your mind, and is more powerful once learned.
Pros and Cons
Advantages of Inverted-Fifths Tuning:
Break you out of habits.
I suppose so, just in the same way that playing barefoot on a stage covered with broken glass would teach you a new way to rock around.
Nice chord forms. Yes, true. But having played chords in fourths they're functionally just as good, and many are easier to fret, requiring less stretch. Each tuning has nice chord forms. The difference is that BassBottom chord shapes work in both hands, and Fifths requires you to learn completely different ones for the two hands. Frankly, it's not a smart place to spend your learning hours. Learning two things instead of one thing will take, obviously, twice as long!
If you like challenges and puzzles and doing things the hard way, the Fifths has a lot to offer.
But your audience will never clap harder just because it was difficult.
If you like challenge, why not use a simple, clear, powerful system, and use your learning time to go further with your music? If you're afraid of getting into a rut, learn to read and let other folks minds drive your fingers, and pretty soon there's no rut to follow.
I know some real good players who can play in Fifths. If they'd learned Fourths, they'd still be real good players, but most likely their music would be further along. Some of these good players will loudly tout the advantages of Fifths. Unfortunately, how would they know? They've never learned Fourths!
The Emperor's New Clothes
This peculiar tuning - the Inverted-Fifths Tuning -- is a terrible, terrible case of Emperor's New Clothes. Anyone, including you, who really looks at this will see clarity. And clarity is not in Inverted-Fifths tuning.
Let's say you've been playing bass for years. Why throw away so much that you've learned? Why take the awkward and difficult path through a bunch of brambles, when the paved road provides so much greater speed? For just a moment, think about all the music in the world produced by bass players for years and years, using Fourths. If you think that all that music just sucks, and nothing good has ever been done by all the bass-players in the world, then by all means try Fifths. But why not thirds? Why not seconds? Why not alternate thirds and fifths? Why not Hawaiian slack-key tuning on the bass, and crafty tuning on the melody? Why not?
Because it would be loco, that's why.
Instead, try playing the bass strings in the Fourths that you know. If you run out of great music to play let me know. In the meantime, you'll make far more progress, learn twice as fast, build on what you already know, and be playing lots more music much faster.
And what if you're a new musician, or have no existing experience with stringed instruments? Then the sanity of using a simple, clear, and powerful method becomes even more obvious, because it will give you a simpler learning path, faster progress, more fun, and more skill in the end.
That's the end of my sermon. I hope you're saved.
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