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Is there a reason for this? What exactly is the reasoning behind it?

Aaron
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Neil Meyer
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  • Longer necks mean more leverage, so more strength needed - trussrod or not. Classical music rarely needs to go past 12th fret. Acoustics can, due to 14th fret - also, a lot have cutaways, allowing even better access to higher frets. – Tim Aug 09 '21 at 13:11
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    Note that some steel strings meet at the 12th fret also. – Todd Wilcox Aug 09 '21 at 14:06
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    Some practical examples about classical music going past 12th fret: https://douglasniedt.com/Tech_Tip_Playing_In_High_Positions.html. Looks like classical guitarists don't need the cutaway any more than violinists. – ojs Aug 09 '21 at 14:30
  • @Tim more strength on the part of the guitarist or of the guitar? – phoog Aug 09 '21 at 15:17
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    @ojs indeed, if the higher frets weren't needed, or weren't seen as being accessible, they wouldn't be there. – phoog Aug 09 '21 at 15:18
  • @phoog - Aw, come on! Both. Kidding! And why do we call the top end the dusty end? I have a parlour guitar, maybe 70 yrs old, where the frets taper off above 12, so they only exist on top three strings up there to fret 18. – Tim Aug 09 '21 at 15:22
  • @Tim why does it require more strength on the part of the guitarist? Does it imply a different overall string length or different string tension? As to the dusty end (news to me), I can only suggest that "dusty" implies infrequent use rather than an utter lack of use. – phoog Aug 09 '21 at 15:26
  • @phoog - more strength of character, as more enhanced performance will be expected by the audience - due to more available frets! I joke! String length and tension are usually addressed by experienced players, so no implications there. It's been called the dusty end for about as long as guitars have been alive! – Tim Aug 09 '21 at 15:45
  • History and style come into play. Take a look at a few dozen semi-ancient fretted instruments and compare their neck length (in general, let alone body-joint location). – Carl Witthoft Aug 09 '21 at 17:44

1 Answers1

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I'm not a luthier, but my understanding is that the 12th-fret join is used to maximize volume and tone. The 14th-fret join is a compromise for playability, and is more acceptable on a steel-string instrument, where there is already plenty of force on the bridge to drive the soundboard, due to the higher tension strings.

With the geometry associated with a 12th-fret join, "the bridge is safely away from your sound hole and well enough into the lower bout of the soundboard to get it well activated and moving effectively. ... The general understanding goes that the further the bridge moves down in to the more central ‘sweet spot’ of the lower bout, the more power and sustain an instrument will have." - quoted from a blog entry ("The question of the ‘sweet spot’ 12th fret join") on the Turnstone Guitar website.

Brian Towers
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Biscuit Taylor
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  • Thanks for the edit, @Brian Towers. I wasn't sure about the protocol for linking to a page on an external website which may or may not go stale in the future. Looking at the Markdown Help now, I don't see any rule against it, so I'll opt for this style link in the future. – Biscuit Taylor Aug 11 '21 at 18:09