- For the musical (rather than instrumental) scale, see Pythagorean tuning.
When referring to
stringed instruments, the
scale length (often simply called the "scale") is considered to be the maximum vibrating
length of the
strings to produce
sound, and determines the range of tones that string is capable of producing under a given tension. In the classical community, it may be called simply "string length." On instruments in which strings are not "stopped" or divided in length (typically by
frets, the player's
fingers, or other mechanism), such as the
piano, it is the actual length of string between the
nut and the
bridge.