Probably a very silly question, I know, but this only just occurred to me, and rather than trying to research this on my own I’m putting it to the Teeming Millions: just OTTOYH, thinking of the musical artists you’re most familiar with, do the guitarists ever play instruments with those markings on them? I imagine there could be quite a few, and that they’re not just young rock bands where they’re still playing some instruments they got as kids or teenagers.
(I guess I first need to know how stigmatizing it is to do so; is a guitar with those marks considered roughly akin to a [children’s] keyboard with the names of the notes painted on the keys, or even worse – having the keys in different colors?)
To use my favorite musician (and a world-class rock guitarist) as an example, Muse frontman Matt Bellamy does indeed play several guitars with the dot marks on them! [Warning: geeky Muse trivia ensues] Ignoring his pre-Manson guitars, his first five Mansons (the 007/Blackie, the DeLorean, the 7-string E*, the Lazer, and the Bomber) all have the dots, but his later ones don’t. It’s as if he’s graduated to the most difficult, adult instruments now (ha-ha! Matt was very good when he was still in his teens), or simply favors a more minimalistic look. (The all-black “Seattle” Manson, without dots, is truly badass looking.)
*The 7-string E is an exception in two ways, though: it’s got seven strings, so the marks are probably much more necessary; and it wasn’t commissioned by Matt, but by a jazz musician who balked at the final product.
I’m not a guitarist, but I really can’t think of the last time I saw a guitarist play a guitar whose neck didn’t have the typical single dots (and two dots on the 12th fret). I can’t imagine there’s any stigma associated with it. I just looked up videos of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Eric Clapton, and they all had dots on their guitars (at least the videos I saw.)
ETA: I’m also not sure how a 7-string would make fret marking more necessary than a 6-string.
Yes, most guitars have fret markers of some sort, either dots or equivalents such as rectangles or trapezoids, or even birds-shaped markers on PRS guitars. Regardless of whether there are markers on the fingerboard, many guitars also sport fret markers on the side of the neck facing the player.
I own an Epiphone Dot Studio which has no markers on the fretboard, but has fret markers on the side of the neck where I can see them while playing. My five other guitars have fret markers of some sort on the fingerboard. I can’t imagine playing a guitar without some sort of markers, and I strongly doubt any instrument that doesn’t have some form of fret markings would sell well.
No. With no markers at all it would be like playing a keyboard with no black keys, and no octave pattern (whatever that’s called). A competant guitarist mostly won’t be looking at the fretboard but when you jump more than a couple of frets you want some visual clue where you are landing. Being one fret off with a chord change will probably get noticed.
Which is insider-guitarist’s ironic, since the “Dot” in “Dot Studio” is based on the fact that the original 50’s Gibson ES-335 guitars which the Dot is based on have, you guessed it, DOTS on the fingberboard (vs. little block inlays which the 335 switched to in the early 60’s). “Dot Neck” became a shorthand for a 50’s 335 and the Epiphone model based its name on that. It’s the little things, people.
Pretty much all guitars have dots, but for some reason, some “genre’s” of guitars either don’t or it is considered cool if they don’t. Classical and Flamenco never have (except on the side at times), many shredder guitars don’t and some “fingerstyle” steel-string acoustics don’t (fingerstyle - typically a smaller-bodied steel-string designed for finger picking, with a flatter-radiused fingerboard and no pickguard).
I hate playing guitars with either no dots, or some retarded “dragon vs. snake” mother-of-toilet-seat inlays up and down the neck. I see photos of artists with their names in big letters up the neck instead of markers and just assume they either only play cowboy chords below the 5th fret or somehow get used to it. Heck, I prefer dots over blocks and no fingerboard binding - just give me the damn tool to play.
Of the two guitars I’ve been playing lately … one a Telecaster knock-off and one a First Class Delia … neither have ‘dots’ on the fretboard. Both have dots on the top of the neck, like squeegee mentioned. The Delia has stylized carats or wedges or something, and the Tele has nothing.
I was jamming with my band with the Tele and a guy who was sitting in kept getting lost. If he couldn’t ‘ear’ the tune we were playing, he’d look over at me to see what chords I was playing and he was still lost. It didn’t dawn on me until later that with no dots he had little reference to go by.
I’ve seen bands where the bass player played fretless base. Any guitars like that around, or would it be impossible? Why does it work with a bass? /hijack
Fretless guitars are rare but they exist and are generally custom-made. John Frusciante used a fretless Strat on parts of Blood Sugar Sex Magik; Frank Zappa used them a lot in the early 70’s; John Cale used one on Stainless Steel Gamelan; Jimi Hendrix had ordered one made before he died; Andy Summers used one on a few Police recordings.
Firstly a bass guitar’s scale length is a lot longer than a guitar, so the accuracy of the ‘fretting’ is not as fussy. Also Bass players generally play one note at a time, guitarists spend most of the time playing chords. Lining one or two strings up at the right spot is one thing, lining three or four would be very tricky. And I’d expect barre chords would be right out. You could probably make the fingering a bit easier by adopting a different tuning but then you’ve really got a different instrument, more like an Oud
Any thoughts on what advantages/effects that these guitars gave the artists. It seems like, unless you wanted to go straight to a fractional note, you would either use a fretted guitar and bend the note or you would employ a slide.
The only reasons I can think of for wanting to use a fretless guitar are to do some sort of slide effect that you couldn’t get by playing slide guitar or that you wanted to be able to adjust on the fly if your guitar is coming out of tune while you solo.
I was at a party with Corey Harris a few years ago. He had just returned from Mali, where he had learned to play a (3 string?) fret-less “guitar” and he played a few tunes for us. It looked a bit like the oud in your link. He played songs by strumming/plucking the strings while also beating on the body of the instrument to make drum-like sounds. It was awesome.
It’s got a unique sound; fingertips or fingernails yield a different tone than a metal fret. It also doesn’t constrain the player to an particular scale or tuning; useful for “exotic” non-western music, or mimicking the sound of other instruments.
Probably not something you’d want to use exclusively, though.
I have a Takamine classical cutaway. It’s new to me so I’m discovering as I go along. No dots on the fretboard or on the side of the neck. The 12th fret is at the body, so at least there’s that. It’s just something else to figure out and adapt to, as far as I’m concerned.
I think another reason it works better with bass is that fretless bass players can use flat-wound strings (the playing surface of the string is flat) and still get a decent tone. I don’t know what type of string fretless guitars would use but I imagine the tone you’d get from flat-wounds wouldn’t be so great or it would be highly specialized and round-wounds would just chew up the fretboard if you used them too much.
