Neck (music) Neck (music) The neck is the part of certain string instruments that projects from the main body and is the base of the fingerboard, where the fingers are placed to stop the strings at different pitches. Guitars, banjos, ukuleles, lutes, the violin family, and the mandolin family are examples of instruments which have necks. Necks are also an integral part of certain woodwind instruments, like for instance the saxophone. The word for neck also sometimes appears in other languages in musical instructions. The terms include "manche" (French), "manico" (Italian), and "Hals" (German). The neck of a guitar includes the guitar's
The Lute Player (Hals) in the collection of the Rijksmuseum has been dated before 1626 based on an engraving, and it has been attributed variously to Hals, his brother Dirk, and Judith Leyster. Two other paintings of lute players by Hals are: Hals was not the only painter to be influenced by Baburen. Hendrik ter Brugghen painted several lute players in the 1620s, and a few of them seem to merge aspects of Baburen and Hals, though his later version seems to follow Hals more closely. This painting has been copied by other artists, most notably by David Bailly in his 1651 self-portrait with