Fretless Instruments: A quick rundown
Fretted vs. Fretless
Frets are strands of nickel silver, or sometimes stainless steel or another metal that are inlaid into the neck of an instrument such as a guitar. They quantize the sound into specific pitches that are used for a certain tuning system.
Typically, that would be the 12-note Western system, although there are instruments with movable frets and microtonal frets as well, that are able to play in other tuning systems. Here is an example of a Turkish microtonal guitar. However, the great majority of fretted instruments are in the standard 12-tone system.
link
Fretless Instruments
The bowed string family does not have frets, neither does the oud, erhu, sarod, or a number of other traditional instruments.
These instruments have a very expressive quality due to their vibrato. Although guitar-family instruments can also produce a bit of vibrato, the only comparable fretted one with true vibrato would be the clavichord.
Another benefit of the lack of frets is the ability for these instruments to play music from any part of the world. The violin did not have to be modified to play Turkish or Chinese music, but as you can see from the link above, the guitar has, and although microtonal guitars are a great invention, having one instrument to play everything on is simpler than several.
Fretted Instruments
Guitars, ukuleles, clavichords, viola de gamba, rubabs, banjos, bass guitars, and other instruments in the guitar family are usually fretted. Frets work in different ways among the instruments, however. Some are almost never fretless, such as ukuleles and guitars. For clavichords, the effects are much more complicated. The viola de gamba was an unusual fretted bowed instrument. Now, there are no instruments commonly used in its family that have frets.
The rubab sometimes has four frets or sometimes none at all, and there are other common instruments which have been modified to be only partially fretted in an attempt to capture the advantages of both systems. In the case of bass guitars and banjos, the versions without frets are associated with a certain sound and style of music, in the case of banjos, it would be "old-time".
Benefits and Drawbacks of No Frets
In my experience, the difficulty of playing a fretless instrument is about twice as hard, so for any level of technique on a normal guitar, a fretless one will be about twice as difficult, I would generalize. This is because of the possibility for errors in pitch. That said, there are still virtuosos of fretless guitar.
Additionally, some instruments have a much less clear layout of where the notes should be compared to fretted ones, taking more listening and practice to get the notes perfect. There are some sound differences as well, with fretted instruments having a clearer tone, and fretless sounding darker. But with the latter being more capable of sliding, vibrato, and expression in a lot of ways, it does give them appealing characteristics. It's always been difficult for me to decide which type I like more; I play the violin, banjo, upright bass, and a little guitar, and they all have nice features. In my opinion, the best you could do is have a quality instrument of both types, or at least have a good fretless one and a tolerable fretted one or vise versa depending on which one is your favorite.
Which type do you prefer?
Frets are strands of nickel silver, or sometimes stainless steel or another metal that are inlaid into the neck of an instrument such as a guitar. They quantize the sound into specific pitches that are used for a certain tuning system.
Typically, that would be the 12-note Western system, although there are instruments with movable frets and microtonal frets as well, that are able to play in other tuning systems. Here is an example of a Turkish microtonal guitar. However, the great majority of fretted instruments are in the standard 12-tone system.
link
Fretless Instruments
The bowed string family does not have frets, neither does the oud, erhu, sarod, or a number of other traditional instruments.
These instruments have a very expressive quality due to their vibrato. Although guitar-family instruments can also produce a bit of vibrato, the only comparable fretted one with true vibrato would be the clavichord.
Another benefit of the lack of frets is the ability for these instruments to play music from any part of the world. The violin did not have to be modified to play Turkish or Chinese music, but as you can see from the link above, the guitar has, and although microtonal guitars are a great invention, having one instrument to play everything on is simpler than several.
Fretted Instruments
Guitars, ukuleles, clavichords, viola de gamba, rubabs, banjos, bass guitars, and other instruments in the guitar family are usually fretted. Frets work in different ways among the instruments, however. Some are almost never fretless, such as ukuleles and guitars. For clavichords, the effects are much more complicated. The viola de gamba was an unusual fretted bowed instrument. Now, there are no instruments commonly used in its family that have frets.
The rubab sometimes has four frets or sometimes none at all, and there are other common instruments which have been modified to be only partially fretted in an attempt to capture the advantages of both systems. In the case of bass guitars and banjos, the versions without frets are associated with a certain sound and style of music, in the case of banjos, it would be "old-time".
Benefits and Drawbacks of No Frets
In my experience, the difficulty of playing a fretless instrument is about twice as hard, so for any level of technique on a normal guitar, a fretless one will be about twice as difficult, I would generalize. This is because of the possibility for errors in pitch. That said, there are still virtuosos of fretless guitar.
Additionally, some instruments have a much less clear layout of where the notes should be compared to fretted ones, taking more listening and practice to get the notes perfect. There are some sound differences as well, with fretted instruments having a clearer tone, and fretless sounding darker. But with the latter being more capable of sliding, vibrato, and expression in a lot of ways, it does give them appealing characteristics. It's always been difficult for me to decide which type I like more; I play the violin, banjo, upright bass, and a little guitar, and they all have nice features. In my opinion, the best you could do is have a quality instrument of both types, or at least have a good fretless one and a tolerable fretted one or vise versa depending on which one is your favorite.
Which type do you prefer?
Comments
Post a Comment