Savart Journal

January 2007

The history of the Savart Journal probably begins in January 2007, when, on the advice of Mark French at Purdue, luthier and former professor of mechanical engineering Samo Sali sent a paper entitled "Modeling and Optimizing of the First Guitar Mode" for consideration to American Lutherie, the journal of the Guild of American Luthiers. Although written well in advance of this submission, the paper had remained unpublished for lack of an appropriate research journal. Although research in technical aspects of stringed musical instruments may involve any number of fields, stringed musical instruments do not represent a large enough segment of the research in any one of them to generally attract research journal interest. Dr. Sali's paper fell through the technical research publishing cracks. Unfortunately American Lutherie is not a research journal and also could not publish this paper. This was not the first time a research paper submitted to American Lutherie had to be turned down, and more such submissions would follow over the next few years. In each case the editors could provide little help in directing the authors to suitable research journals, because no journal specifically for research in science and technology of stringed musical instrument existed. But the number of good research papers did make it clear that such a journal was truly needed.

June 2011

The journal begins publication, featuring three initial articles, including the aforementioned paper by Samo Sali.

July 2012

The Research Notes section is added to the journal, providing non-refereed publication of letters, notes and other short and/or informal works.