Chapman Stick

• Oct 4, 2016 - 00:14

I'm trying to write a linked tab staff for a 10 string Chapman stick and am running into a problem.

A 10 string Stick is actually tuned as two five string fretboards. The strings are numbered from 1 to 10 with the string furthest from the player's head being string 1 (the same as a guitar). Stings 1 through 5 compose the treble side, strings 6-10 the bass. Strings 1-5 are tuned in fourths (unlike the guitar, the interval between stings 2 and 3 is a fourth instead of a third). MuseScore handles this tuning easily.

The bass side (strings 6-10), however, are reversed from that of a guitar. String 6 is the lowest iin pitch and the strings are tuned upwards in fifths from there. So, while string 1 is pitched highest on the treble side and 10 is pitched highest on the bass side. Weird, huh?

The fret finding algorithm assumes that higher pitches can only be found on the next lower string, but on the bass side of the Stick, higher pitches are found on the next higher string.

Is there a workaround for this?

Andy

Comments

• Nov 15, 2018 - 23:13

I believe the best way to make this work is to enter scores using tablature by selecting the proper string and fret. There have been some improvements that might help since the original post. These might be used if you enter notes that are improperly entered by MuseScore onto the tablature. You can now select notes on the same string by selecting an area, right click a note and use select>more... Using these options you can, for example, select all of the D's on string 7. Once these are selected, moving them to another string is standard.

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