Dots on the fretboard

[Lavallee]

haoli25 wrote:

I also blame all 'bonus notes', 'bad notes, and 'muted notes' on those dots. "That would have been perfect if that damn dot had not got in my way!" :laugh:




Bill

Ooooh that's a good excuse. Dots *are* pretty distracting.... I'm stealing that.

[TGMatt]

quincy451 wrote:

So I put GlowDots on it. I don't use the glow in the dark aspects of them. But they work for markers. I just put them on the fretboard. I figured the ones on the side would look funky and fall off or something. These are just small stickers so your not doing much. Much simpler than actually putting in new inlays.

That's funny. We would put tiny strips of colored electrical tape across the fingerboards of our violins when we were learning in order to remind us where to put our fingers, but that's because we didn't have frets.

I tried internet searching a bit, and I still can't find a satisfactory answer to the dot question. I just don't know what's up with the 3rd, 5th and 7th. Why there? Why not 2nd, 4th, and 6th? Tradition? Funky theory thing?

*is clueless...* :pinch:

[quincy451]

Yes the fretless instrument. How brutal. As for why the 3rd, 5th, 7th etc. I figure because when you move a E bar chord up the fretboard you hit the next full note chord on those frets. Don't know if that is right, but that was my assumption in 1976 when I first saw this pattern.

[pigpenz]

Chasplaya wrote:

pigpenz wrote:

I had always wondered why classical guitars never had fret markers

Not an answer but my opinion:

It is maybe because Classical Players use the complete neck to find the notes that suit their playing and to achieve the tone they want as opposed to subliminal guidance by the dots, in other words to promote individual feel for the tune they play.

I have a patient who plays violin and fiddle and some guitar, he says on the violin there are no frets, so i assume a guitar could also have no frets.

[johnrfeeney]

imagine if every other fret was black and white - a psychedelic piano guitar fretboard

something zappa or dr. demento would play

[johnrfeeney]

one other thing - just figured out that guitarist are natural worriers - the general anxiety types

they like to have multiple frets to toss around

makes the drudgery less routine