Patent ID: 7795517

Claim:
A method of constructing a fretted stringed musical instrument having a body with a saddle, a neck attached to the body at one of its distal ends and a tuning head attached to the other distal end, the neck having a fingerboard, the tuning head having tuning keys, a string attached to the tuning head by the tuning keys and stretched over the saddle, and frets along the major axis of the fingerboard, said method comprising the steps of: determining a string length corresponding to a note on an open string; determining a target string length for each fret based on a known ratio of the open note string length for a selected scale; calculating a vertical distance from a tangential point of string contact on a saddle of said stringed instrument to a horizontal axis spanning from a tangential point of string contact on said fret to said saddle; determining a fret placement length by calculating the square root of the difference of said target string length squared and said vertical distance squared; and positioning each fret on said fingerboard at said fret placement length.