Canadian Bass Guitar Luthier, I heard 35 years ago and not able to figured yet

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Hello there, I am an amateur luthier. I heard something very interesting about an canadian luthier around 35 years ago. I could not figured out since that day , but I recently found biomechanics science and this forum.

Problem , a luthier from canada who makes custom bass guitars with the help of customers hand print on soft media which he sent to customer a box to print his hand . He was designing neck sections curvatures and fingerboards sections curvatures and I think different each lenght of the strings and make a shorter treble strings and longer bass strings and hyperbolic paraboloid of the neck which guitar bridge and guitar nut reverse torsioned approx. 10 degrees each

The most important thing how he related hand print to increase comfort , prevent injuries ? Is there a sets of calculations to do it ?

Mustafa Umut Sarac
Archaeologist

[Samuel Acuna]

This is a fascinating application of biomechanics, but I am imagine that you would get better answers from a guitar/luthier forum. Perhaps an expert on hand biomechanics could weigh in, but I think this is more of an application area suited for a luthier community.

Cheers!

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Luthiers knows something dont want to share knowledge and luthiers doesnt have mindset calls biomechanics snake oil. I asked same question to guild of american luthiers and they published the question at their yearly journal and nobody answered. American and european luthiers are simple guys and they are basically carpenters who wants to own most luxury wood , thats all. Few of them have physics training and they conducted experiments on old instruments and found they cant copy them from wood to wood. I am researching their techniques for 37 years and I think answer could be finite element analysis and topological optimization but there need of another 50 years least to match all harmonics of classic instrument in to laser cut aluminum guitar top only instrument. I think only resolvable question is hereabove.

[Krystyna Gielo-Perczak]

Hello Mustafa,

Thank you for the interesting message and being persistent and curious. You have a very good intuitive thought.

There are proportions which should be maintained between the hand dimensions and instrument. I did some studies related to the dimensions of surgical scalpel and hand dimensions of group of surgeons.
I am strongly convinced that there are proportions of user hand and chosen/certain dimensions of the individually designed instrument when a user perceives a comfort of playing.

Years ago, I published a paper related to the fascinating harmony of human dimensions and work environment. I tried to explain the existing proportions.

Best,
Krystyna Gielo-Perczak, Biomch-L Co-moderator

[Edmund Cramp]

It's nice to see this discussion, so I'm attaching a picture of me playing a guitar 50 years ago (LOL) before I started working in the biomechanics data collection world, I'd only been working on the guitar sound modification back then as a result of working with Dolby's in London, but ever since it's always been very interesting to help people doing studies of players making music. One of the early Vicon data collections I helped with was someone playing a piano - they were recording the movement and the sound!
edmund_guitar.jpg