Fretful1 - Posted - 09/29/2024:  13:52:20

Thanks again to all who commented on my sound hole question. Here's another one...

I think I understand why violins/fiddles are fretless. But, why not at least install fret markers? Wouldn't they help novices learn faster? Maybe fret markers would even benefit the journeyman player. Ornate markers could also enhance the instrument's aesthetics. Is there a down side to fret markers?

Fretful1 - Posted - 09/29/2024:  14:04:29

PS: The title of this post should read, "Fret Markers?", NOT "Fretful1 Markers". I hate auto correct!

Brian Wood - Posted - 09/29/2024:  14:18:44

quote:

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Originally posted by Fretful1

PS: The title of this post should read, "Fret Markers?", NOT "Fretful1 Markers". I hate auto correct!

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I believe you can change the title yourself, since you're the author. Re the fret markers, I don't think there world be any advantage. You don't want to find notes visually. You want to feel and listen.

PS You should be able to turn off auto-correct too.

Edited by - Brian Wood on 09/29/2024 14:20:52

DougD - Posted - 09/29/2024:  14:50:25

Fretful1 - You can still edit the title of your post (or its content for that matter. There should be a pencil icon somewhere (just for you) that should do it.
As far as fret markers, they are certainly available (and I even thought this was an ad for one of those devices). Tasteful markers might not even be out of place on a nice instrument either. However, many would say that just encourages bad habits. The violin is a tactile, not visual, instrument. The direct contact between finger and fingerboard enables all kinds of things - microtonal variations, slides in and out of notes, vibrato, and others. Part of learning the instrument is hearing and feeling your finger placement and movement. It may seem hard at first, but the possibilities far outweigh the initial difficulty.
PS - Brian apparently read my mind, and was a better editor.

Edited by - DougD on 09/29/2024 14:53:26

Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 09/29/2024:  15:05:42

When I started playing the fiddle, I cut thin lines of white masking tape and attached them to the fingerboard to help me get comfortable with where the proper notes are. To keep things as straightforward as possible, I decided to only put tape at the spots that would help me establish where the third & fifth are in the D and A scales. To be sure, my eyes would soon start to hurt from all the close-up fingerboard staring but I could also feel the masking tape beneath my fingers. In any case, it didn't take long for my fingers to get used to knowing where they ought to go.

Flat_the_3rd_n7th - Posted - 09/29/2024:  17:11:25

All the above.

You will spend all your time staring at your left hand and ruin your eyes. Even then, you can put your finger right where the tape indicates, and if your finger pressure is too much/little, your pitch will be off.

Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 09/29/2024:  17:46:35

quote:

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Originally posted by Flat_the_3rd_n7th

All the above.



You will spend all your time staring at your left hand and ruin your eyes. Even then, you can put your finger right where the tape indicates, and if your finger pressure is too much/little, your pitch will be off.

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Yeah, but it at least it gets you into the vicinity. Then it's practice, practice, practice....

pete_fiddle - Posted - 09/29/2024:  18:59:32

Frets get in the way. i like to use my ears, and a visual pattern of the fingerboard. i reckon if you want to learn fiddle , forget about frets altogether, as much as you can....Then learn to forget about them some more.

Fretful1 - Posted - 09/29/2024:  21:55:40

Thanks everyone for sharing your vast experience (I only have half-vast experience). My thought was that guitars, banjos, mandolins and even my zither have fret markers and if it works for them, it should work for the violin. Also, I had a very disappointing experience trying to learn the fretless banjo - but that's a story for another time. Anyway, I'll try navigating the violin fretboard without visual cues. Again, thank you all for all your sage advice!

Erockin - Posted - 09/30/2024:  05:37:56

I've learned to try and get the pressure just right. When I record myself, you can hear it. It's like hearing sadness...lol.
I wanted to use markers at first but forced my way through it. Now I just need 20 more years to get the pitch just right.

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 09/30/2024:  10:43:44

I agree with the previous comments that you get the best ability to play in tune by developing your ear. Tapes can be useful when you don’t have the ability to hear yourself or you teacher is too far away to hear if you’re playing in tune (e.g. in a school orchestra), but really as an imperfect solution.

I have a customer who teaches a lot of young players. He decided to have his “teaching violin” customized and had thin rosewood “frets” inlaid in the fingerboard. They are flush with the board and don’t protrude and they look more elegant than tapes or stickers. However, it was really more of an aesthetic choice for a violin that would be occasionally borrowed by students.

Intonation is a complicated subject, and it’s not simply a matter of dropping fingers in the correct spots. The players with the best intonation are always listening with great care and making micro adjustments to pitch.

Jascha Heifetz, considered by most violin players to be the most technically brilliant player of all time famously said that when he played he was constantly making corrections to pitch, and that his skill in intonation came down to his ability to correct imperfections before listeners could perceive them.

Players of the violin throughout the majority of its existence have had to contend with the pitch instability of gut, which is especially reactive to shifts in atmospheric conditions. If you’re playing with strings that don’t stay in tune well, that requires you to develop your ear to the point where you can make up for the discrepancy. If your D string goes a half step flat in the middle of a tune, unless you want to derail a performance by stopping to retune, you either have to play out of tune or adjust your finger placement on the D string to be in tune with the other strings. As an exercise, some players will occasionally mistune strings intentionally to test themselves.

If you ever play with a piano, you may experience the pitch discrepancy that occurs between an equal-tempered instrument and an untempered one like the violin. You can tune the open strings to the piano as a start, but you’ll still need to monitor finger placement to match pitches or intervals.

Fretful1 - Posted - 09/30/2024:  11:20:38

Thanks again to everyone who responded. My violin I.Q. goes up with every post I read!

GeorgeH - Posted - 09/30/2024:  11:33:30

Roman Kim, one of the best contemporary violinists, has frets carved onto the custom finger board on his Guarnerius violin.

Check out the video of his cover of Deep Purple's Highway Star:

youtube.com/watch?v=BysUGeneMvs

Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 09/30/2024:  14:08:03

Rich offers up a fine analysis of the situation. Most of all, I've found that hitting the proper pitch at any particular moment is complicated. Just for starters, do you try to blend in with whatever choices your fellow players are up to, or do you assume the role of scowling schoolmarm and give everybody around you a perpetual frown? For another, sometimes you just have to accept the painful fact that your fellow players might have better ears & fingers than you do.

ChickenMan - Posted - 09/30/2024:  17:23:21

The main difference between your guitar fingerboard and the violin fingerboard (besides size, of course) is that you can actually look and see your finger placement on the guitar. Hold the violin in the general under chin area and look up the fingerboard at your fingers. It will strain your eyes in a very short while. Now just put a few dots of liquid paper (or tape) on the finger board, up near where your hand would be for the 1st position. Does that seem naturally visible for accuracy? It is not; it is ridiculously foreshortened. Marking the fingerboard with tape is for day one and for a few days to two weeks longer. After that, the player will have generally figured it out, especially if they are being taught to use their ears. I think you'd be wasting your time when there are many more details that will require some time and effort to achieve just adequacy. A violin is more complicated than/quite different from guitar and banjo in construction.

Edited by - ChickenMan on 09/30/2024 17:26:13

wrench13 - Posted - 10/01/2024:  12:53:01

The road to Hell is paved with good intonation.

What I do: "correct imperfections before listeners could perceive them".

Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 10/01/2024:  13:46:43

I'm not going to mention names or jam locales, but I've attended much more than a few OT sessions where the intonation was, well, not quite spot on. Adding beer to the situation was both bane and blessing. Intonation got worse, but you didn't mind it as much...

Edited by - Lonesome Fiddler on 10/01/2024 13:50:13

alaskafiddler - Posted - 10/12/2024:  04:55:10

quote:

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Originally posted by Fretful1

Thanks everyone for sharing your vast experience (I only have half-vast experience). My thought was that guitars, banjos, mandolins and even my zither have fret markers and if it works for them, it should work for the violin. Also, I had a very disappointing experience trying to learn the fretless banjo - but that's a story for another time. Anyway, I'll try navigating the violin fretboard without visual cues. Again, thank you all for all your sage advice!

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Guitars, banjos, mandolins have physical frets, raised above the fingerboard serving the function to stop the string at precise pre-calculated distance. The purpose is for other reasons, not really as simply visual aid, looking at fingers/counting, nor about beginners. (though that might be how beginners primarily use them). Frets would avoid having to ever deal with the fine intonation issue (using ears), but they are not easy to get precise. They do make stick on fret boards, skeptical if user will get it set right; as well if would really teach fine intonation.

But this question has me thinking about that this might not be about eyes just for the fine intonation... one related to other fretted instruments?

I started a new discussion fiddlehangout.com/topic/59398

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 10/14/2024:  05:49:26

The viola da gamba is one of the few fretted bowed string instruments. Its frets are made of gut (usually bits of string) and they are tied on. Because the viola gamba is played in different tunings, it is necessary to adjust the positions of the frets for certain pieces. While these frets do focus the intonation, their function is not solely for intonation. By having frets in place, the fret becomes the point at which the string is stopped, not the pad of the finger against the fingerboard; this makes it so that each note rings like an open string. The cello, which eventually supplanted the viola da gamba, was at first viewed as a rather crude and obnoxious instrument, and it was barred from use in many musical settings in favor of the gamba, which was considered a more pure and wholesome instrument, albeit a much quieter one.

All that is to say that frets can indeed have different purposes, however in present times, the use of tapes is intended, not to change the quality of tone, but to simply direct the fingers. Finger tapes are intentionally kept thin enough that the finger is the stopping point for the string. Fret sheets are flat for the same reason. If the tapes are too thick it distorts the pitch. And the use of markers for finger positions that resemble frets is a practice that was developed for the purpose of instructing beginners. This is why even cheap instruments that are intended for students don’t come from the factory with tapes (they’re installed by teachers or shops upon request).