Guitar It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on acoustic and electric guitars. The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment. The smaller the fretboard radius, the more noticeably curved the fretboard is. Most modern guitars feature a 12" neck radius, while older guitars from the 1960s and 1970s usually feature a 6-8" neck radius. Pinching a string against a fret on fretboard effectively shortens the vibrating length of the string, producing a higher pitch. Fretboards are most commonly
Guitar chord chord is lowered by an octave. Drop-two chords are used for sevenths chords besides the major-minor seventh with dominant function, which are discussed in the section on intermediate chords, below. Drop-two chords are used particularly in jazz guitar. Drop-two second-inversions are examples of openly voiced chords, which are typical of standard tuning and other popular guitar-tunings. "Alternatively voiced" seventh chords are commonly played with standard tuning. A list of fret-number configurations for some common chords follows: Already in basic guitar-playing, inversion is important for sevenths chords in standard tuning. It is also important for playing major chords. In standard tuning,