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Old 09-06-2016, 04:48 PM
Pitar Pitar is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2010
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The stroke is parallel to the top. Initial plucking of the string to lift it away from the top sets it in motion to possibly strike the fretboard on it's return path. Not good, nor correct.

Also, the string does not remain in a linear motion. Strings are circular in cross section and therefore follow a circular vibration. A flat string (ribbon) would follow a more linear vibration. In other words, when a string is plucked it will begin following a circular motion around it's normal static state, or center of tension, until it returns to that position (static) once all its finger-induced energy is spent. But, the initial pluck is parallel to the top. The fingernail moves and releases the string and the finger stops against the adjacent string (rest stroke). That describes a rest stroke.

It's virtually impossible to pluck downward, into the guitar top, so I think there's some confusion at work in the mind's eye about plucking strings.

Vibration must have as much of a parallel vibration component as possible to set up initial (largest) frequencies on the saddle. Think of a bowed instrument and how its strings are set in motion. They're displaced parallel to the top skidding back and forth in rapid motion under the rosined bow strings as the bow grabs them, moves them to a certain displacement and their tension snatches them backwards from the bow string's grip. This happens at a high frequency motion, in minute displacements per second, and all of it is parallel to the instrument's top. Even when the bowed instrument is plucked (Pizzicato), the strings are plucked parallel to the top.
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