Building the Ergonomic Guitar

Guitarist Roger Placer recounts his introduction to ergo guitars and the lead up to his upcoming ergo acoustic guitar – custom built by luthier Chris Forshage.

Over in the forums, guitarist Roger Placer started a topic to ask “what’s most important in ergonomic guitar design”? Several folks have chimed in with their concerns which include factors like weight, picking arm support, string tension, etc. What do you think?

Santiago Arteaga on his journey through ergo bass guitar design.

On the benefits of headless tuning bridges for ergonomic guitars.

R.M. Mottola, former engineer turned non-profit luthier, wrote an interesting article on the value of making guitars that address one of the bigger health risks among guitar players – tendonitis. While Mottola focuses on bass guitar design, his thoughts are just as applicable to building electric guitars – Tendinitis Among Bass Guitar Players: An Instrument […]

Any guitar player suffering from musculoskeletal ailments such as back pain or Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) or a guitarist trying to practice prevention should consider the weight of his or her guitar. Whether it’s a production guitar or a custom guitar, a guitar maker or luthier can effectively build a light weight guitar using a […]

According to the National Pain Foundation’s Mayo Clinic Glossary, ergonomics is “the science of designing the job to fit the worker, rather than physically forcing the worker’s body to fit the job.” From the perspective of ergonomics, there are clear opportunities to improve guitar design in order to accommodate the way our bodies work. However, […]

In Important Elements For An Ergonomic Guitar, I list weight as one of several important design considerations in an ergonomic guitar. Weight reduction can be accomplished in a number of ways including such methods as the use of lightweight woods (or other materials) or chambering the guitar. Here is another possible approach as seen in […]

In order to draw upon more ideas, I began to look for ergonomic guitars and found a number of interesting examples. These range from slight departures from the norm to completely different approaches. Here is the Andreas Shark – a good example of a relatively conventional looking guitar that incorporates ergonomic elements. The most obvious […]

While waiting to start my Klein based electric guitar build, I started to think about the possibility of an “original design” down the road. While far from exhaustive, my study of the Klein guitar template and my reading about ergonomics has led me to consider the following as critical elements in an ergonomic design: 1. […]