The nut is a small strip of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite, stainless steel, or other medium-hard material, at the joint Here where the headstock meets the fretboard. Its grooves guide the strings onto the fretboard, giving consistent lateral string placement. It is peculiar of the endpoints of the strings' vibrating length. It must be accurately cut, or it can contribute to tuning problems due to string slippage, and/or string buzz.

• Also called the fingerboard, the fretboard is a piece of wood embedded with barrel frets that comprises the crack of the neck

• It is flat on classical guitars and slightly curved crosswise on pressure mine and electric guitars
• The curvature of the fretboard is measured by the fretboard radius, which is the radius of a hypothetical circle of which the fretboard's surface constitutes a segment.