Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I need to find a way to improve this research question so that it includes a method of taking numerical measurements:

"How drastic is the change in frequency of vibrating guitar strings when said strings have been constantly exposed to varying temperatures over a period of 6 months?"

Any ideas?

I have been playing guitar for 50 years. In my experience, the frequency of a guitar string over temperature (the dependent variable) is dependent on the thickness of the string, the type of wood and quality of the guitar. It might be useful to measure the frequency of all 6 strings and see how much each of the strings detunes over time and temperature. Numerical measurements can be made on temperature, time, string diameter and frequency. I hope this helps.

I don't have any experience with guitars; however, I have years of exerience with violin, viola, cello, and string bass.

Over time, gut strings will stretch even at constant temperature and humidity. The stretch is considerable with newly strung strings. This is why most professionals keep their old strings to use in an emergency at a performance instead of a having to use a brand new string that won't stay tuned.

Humidity changes will affect wood parts (neck, pegs, sound post, bridge, tailpiece) and indirectly the string distance and tension.

Transporting instruments often causes pegs to slip particularly when the instrument gets really cold. This is usually a situation where the friction between the peg and the neck isn't enough to resist the force of the string tension. Vibrations caused by transport aid in this sudden loss of tension kind of event.

You should consider the amount of time and the number of samples you would need in an experiment. I doubt you want to use a 6 month period as it would be very difficult to reduce the number of uncontrolled variables of that long a period of time.

Under hot lights, fingers sweat, strings get wet, so it isn't always just the temperature that causes tuning issues.

-Craig