Importance

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Abstract

An open-string damper for stringed musical instruments, especially those played with a string-tapping technique, utilizes an elongated rectangular metal shift bar mounted in a transverse channel running across the fretboard of the instrument, located between the first fret and the nut. The shift bar, fitted with a pad of damping material on its top side facing the underside of the strings, is mounted in a constrained manner extending to both sides of the fingerboard so that it can be grasped between a thumb and finger and shifted by the user between two stable locations: an engaged location wherein the damping material is urged upwardly against the strings and a disengaged location wherein the damping material is held away from the strings. In one concept, the shift bar is captivated in an inclined plane system that moves the shift bar against the strings in response to user-actuation of the shift bar along the inclined plane which can be configured in either the shift bar or in the transverse channel in the fretboard. In another concept the shift bar is spring loaded and configured with at least one recessed keyhole slot that in the disengaged position holds the shift bar away from the strings by engagement of slot portion of a keyhole opening with the head of a screw driven into the fretboard; to engage the damper the shift bar is moved to allow the screw head to enter the large opening of the keyhole, where the spring loading then presses the shift bar and its damping material upward against the strings. In either concept, the shift bar can be designed to be actuated by movement in a lateral, longitudinal or other direction.

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First Claim