Why your guitar goes sharp when you play hard: the Kirchoff–Carrier equation

mbmccoy.dev

9 points·_alternator_··4 comments

This started from an offhand comment I made in this thread [1] a few weeks ago. I was interested in making the intuition rigorous, and the result was satisfying and agreed with my experiments. Hope y'all enjoy!

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254896#47298380

I'd just say I'm playing microtonal music[1][2] and not worry about it.

Jokes aside, great read. Always so satisfying when the predictions match experiment.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ssi-9wS1so (for the latest craze in microtonal music)

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiKCORN-6m8 (for a more informative and historical video)

Thanks! Yeah, microtonal stuff is very interesting. I was surprised by the total amount of pitch bending you can feasibly get with a guitar and just changing the dynamics. I think the max was about a half tone, which is definitely a “macrotonal” shift.

this is super cool, i always wondered why my acoustic would go sharp on barre chords when im pressing too hard. never thought there was actual math behind it tho. the tension increase from pressing the string to the fretboard makes total sense when you think about it - basically youre stretching the string a tiny bit. ive gotten better at it over the years just from ear training but nice to know the physics backs it up

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