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Rock (and other traditions) guitarist love to play guitar, and love to play bass. Alas, unless you’re a Neil Youngian Man from Mars, you can only play one at a time. Sure, there are double neck guitars and Warr guitars, but these just let you quickly switch between playing one or the other, or do something
weirder that only Trey Gunn and his musical ilk know how.
Introducing the Pedal-pick 2-handed double-neck guitar. Played sitting, it has two parallel necks, separated by just enough space to avoid missfingering, and a 2 cluster of foot piano-like pedals, 6 on the left and 4 on the right. Each guitar-side pedal plucks a single string when pressed one notch, or if pressed fully, strums down low to high beginning with that string, except the rightmost, high E string pedal, which stums up, high to low (‘cause you gotta do that to play songs like Pink Floyd’s “Breathe”). The bass-side pedals pluck just one string, with extra travel to let you hit them softer or harder. The linkages are purely mechanical, giving as much feel as possible with a foot vs fingers.
Once built, you get to find out if it’s neurologically possible for a one-brained human to play it.
Michael Angelo Batio playing Arms Akimbo
https://youtu.be/Rz3JhKXJDTM
[bs0u0155, Apr 24 2016]
[link]
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Wouldn't it be easier to have the pedals do the frets? Because the frets are binary: down or up. Mm, but there are several frets. |
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I conclude the 2-neck guitar is best played as a team instrument, preferably with someone who has bathed? |
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No, Shirley, the necks should left- and right-handed.
Crabbing your right hand around to fret a leftward-
pointing neck is not only physically difficult, it also
looks uncool. In contrast, fretting two opposed necks
with arms akimbo* looks way cooler. |
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(*Arms Akimbo was a well-known Ethiopian discus
thrower.) |
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//No, Shirley, the necks should left- and right-handed…//
That was my first thought, then I let my mind be changed by pictures of Warr guitars. |
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It’s hard to guess if the disadvantage of “overhand” fretting on of the necks is outweighed by not being able to watch all your fingers and having up the neck be in opposite directions. I think I’d have to make one of each arrangements, and see which one worked (this said after trying to play opposite-handed, and rediscovering that I am among the least ambidextrous folk I know). |
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The key gadgetry are the pedal-controlled picks. Both arms akimbo/underhand vs one underhand/overhand like a Warr guitar would be a personal preference. |
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Arms akimbo would look way cooler – but the brain wiring to do it … I wonder if it’s possible. |
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//Arms akimbo would look way cooler – but the
brain wiring to do it … I wonder if it’s possible.// |
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OK, put both hands side by side on the table in
front of you, and tap various fingers, mirror-
imaging each hand (eg, left pinkie and right pinkie,
etc). |
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Now try the same, but in parallel (eg left pinkie
and right thumb). |
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I find "mirror imaging" much much easier - but
maybe that's just me. I suppose there's the
argument that pianists playing the same note
sequence on different octaves use "parallel" rather
than "mirror" fingering. |
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//Arms akimbo would look way cooler – but the brain wiring
to do it … I wonder if it’s possible.// |
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See link, But I don't think he has a normal brain. He may be
an experiment in how much its possible to distill the
essence of Spinal Tap into humanoid form. |
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