An electronic sensing system is disclosed for sensing fingering on a stringed and fretted musical instrument, such as a guitar, to produce therefrom electronic signals truly representative of the music created by the musical instrument. Sensing includes detection of the musical pitch created by each selected string and fret combination, as well as detection of the vibration state of the selected string and any pitch variations induced by the performer through string bending. The system is microprocessor controlled with each string of the instrument being successively and repeatedly sampled during playing of the instrument, and outputs indicative of the fret-string combination then being fingered, the vibration state, and any string bending are coupled to the microprocessor in digital form, and with the microprocessor then utilizing the then supplied information to provide an output suitable for coupling to a synthesizer to thereby enable performance of the music then being played by the performer utilizing the stringed and fretted musical instrument.