Fingerboard
Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes.
Frets let the player stop the string consistently in the same place, which enables the musician to play notes with the correct intonation.
Unfretted fingerboards allow a musician more control over subtle changes in pitch than fretted boards, but are generally considered harder to master.
Position markers are sometimes made luminescent (through using paint, or illuminated with light emitting diodes) to make them more visible on stage.
[2] Not having frets carefully and properly aligned with the fingerboard can cause severe intonation issues and constant detuning.
On bowed string instruments, (such as violin, viola, cello, and double bass), the fingerboard is usually made of ebony, rosewood or other hardwood.
This special radiusing is a standard on many of Denny's custom-built guitars and refret work beginning in 1978.
Those of the modern violin family and the double bass are strongly curved, however those of some archaic bowed instruments are flat.
The process of "scalloping" a fingerboard well, if done by hand, is tedious work, usually done by careful filing of wood between the frets, and requires a large investment of time.
Generally, luthiers scallop fingerboards with a special milling machine that has 22 or 24 (according to neck dimensions and number of frets) wood cutting tools.
This equipment saves time and adds precision to the process of scalloping the wood in the neck's radius the same in all fret spaces.
Ibanez JEM series guitars, designed and played by Steve Vai, come standard with the last 4 frets scalloped.
In the 1970s, English guitarist John McLaughlin played with Shakti, along with Indian violinist L. Shankar, using an acoustic guitar with a fully scalloped fretboard.
McLaughlin explained that this feature increased the ease and range of string bends by eliminating friction between the finger and fretboard.
Experimental luthier Yuri Landman made an electric guitar for John Schmersal of Enon called the Twister with a partial scalloped neck for only the thin strings (similar to small playground slides).
The Japanese multi-instrumentalist and experimental musical instrument builder Yuichi Onoue has also made a deeply scalloped electric guitar for Vietnamese microtonal playing techniques.
Most obvious is that the fingertip only contacts the string, not the fingerboard itself, creating less friction for bends and vibratos, which results in more overall control while playing.
Classical guitars do not need truss rods due to the lower tension of nylon strings but should still exhibit some degree of dip.
