Jonathan Kemp: Matching the pitch sensitivity of guitar strings

When: Wednesday 11th April, 2018 @ 5:10 PM

Where: Room 4.31/4.33, Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, University of Edinburgh

Seminar Title

Matching the pitch sensitivity of guitar strings

Seminar Speaker

Dr Jonathan Kemp (University of St Andrews)

Seminar Abstract

When sounding a chord and moving the tremolo/vibrato arm on guitar, the strings typically go out of tune in relation to each other. Surprisingly, to a first approximation, the gauge of the string doesn’t have any effect on the pitch sensitivity when the player alters the string length using a tremolo arm or conventional pitch bend. In this talk I will show how varying the ratio of winding and core diameters can be used to match the sensitivity of strings of different nominal pitches.

Speaker Bio

Dr Jonathan Kemp is Head of Music Technology at the University of St Andrews. He received his PhD in theoretical and experimental study of wave propagation in brass musical instruments from the University of Edinburgh in 2002. He holds a teacher’s diploma in electric guitar LLCM(TD) and has teaching experience in the University of Edinburgh, The University of Abertay, Dundee and the Open University. http://www.kempacoustics.com