Patent ID: 7759571

Claim:
A musical instrument comprising: a melody string; a plurality of drone strings, wherein each drone string of said plurality of drone strings has an associated pitch; a melody string transducer associated with said melody string, wherein said melody string transducer generates an electrical melody string signal in response to vibrations of said melody string; a drone string transducer associated with one or more drone strings of said plurality of drone strings, wherein said drone string transducer generates an electrical drone string signal in response to vibrations of said associated one or more drone strings; a plurality of curved frets coupled to a neck of said musical instrument, wherein each fret of said plurality of curved frets is adapted to distinctly change the vibrating length of said melody string in response to user manipulation; and an interface adapted to provide electrical signals generated by said drone string transducer and said melody string transducer to a multi-channel mixer which responsively generates an outgoing audio output signal comprising a mix of received electrical signals.