The Secret behind the Squiggles: Guitars with Optimally Curved Frets

Year: 2019 Authors: Mitchell Chavarria; Jordan Schettler

Core claim

A D12-based mathematical framework makes Bach’s tuning method optimal and yields a curved-fret guitar temperament optimized for 16 common chords.

Topics

temperament, curved frets, dihedral group action, guitar chords, Bach tuning

Domains

group theory, Fourier series, wave equation, octave equivalence, optimization, instrument design, music technology, woodworking

Methods

mathematical framework, group action analysis, weighted optimization, Mathematica code, experimental listening

Media

guitar frets, cubic splines, audio files, woodworking machine

Source status

This page publishes metadata and extracted analytical signals only. Raw PDF and full OCR text are kept local for now.