Ebony

A very dense, fine-grained, near-black hardwood from several tropical species, used for fingerboards and other parts where hardness matters.

Its grain is tight enough to polish to a glassy surface and hard enough that fingernails and strings leave almost no mark, so it wears far more slowly than rosewood on a heavily played instrument. Tonally it is usually heard as bright and articulate with a hard edge to the attack, and it adds mass at the neck. Its cost and the difficulty of obtaining clean black boards make it scarce, so substitutes and dyed alternatives are common on budget instruments.

Example: a classical or archtop guitar with an ebony fingerboard keeps its bright, even response through decades of daily playing.

Ebony

See also