Official Luthiers Forum!

...on a non-cutaway? I don't get it. They will never be touched without the cutaway and as I was admiring Andy's 000 12 fretter I could see 6 frets that will never get a finger on them.

Larry

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Thank You and Best To All

Er, sure they do. A cutaway only makes it moderately easier to play up there, the fact the body's not clear of the neck is the major 'complication', not the lack or presence of cutaway. I don't play 'up there' all that much anyway, but I do use frets 14+ on my non-cutaway acoustic from time to time...

I recently had a customer (quite an accomplished jazz player) fill the slots
above the 15th after he pulled the frets. They never get used on his gypsy
guitar, and do nothing for him but serve as something for the strings to
rattle against. Still, for most players I think the occasional brief use they
get makes them worth having.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

You know after posting this I now realize it's me who never goes above 14 or 15 (12 or 13 on my 12 fretter) and never really have. Perhaps it's a custom order for myself. I always wonder about the 'norm's' and how they get started.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard the story of a mother who always cut the 2 ends off the roast beef before cooking it. Her husband asked her why and she said her mother always did it that way. Her husband then asked her mother why she did it that way and she said HER mother always did it that way. He then asked the great grandmother why she did it and it turns out her pan was too small for a full sized roast.

I guess I just wonder how much of guitar building can be traced to simply the way it's always been done. But this forum opens so many ideas for bracing and a million other things I just wonder sometimes. Hmmmmm...

larry




[QUOTE=David Collins] I recently had a customer (quite an accomplished jazz player) fill the slots
above the 15th after he pulled the frets. They never get used on his gypsy
guitar, and do nothing for him but serve as something for the strings to
rattle against. Still, for most players I think the occasional brief use they
get makes them worth having.[/QUOTE]

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Thank You and Best To All

Talk to a few classical players and you will soon see that we all play above the 12th fret. I have quite a bit of music which calls for all kinds of notes above the 12th. Now, I don't always play them great, but they're there.

Cheers!

John

Dang, just goes to show there's nothing new under the sun. My million dollar idea in luthiery, that I have yet to execute, is the Cowboy Guitar... Dreadnaught with four frets, and then a big fancy cowboy scene inlaid on the rest of the fretboard. (because 4 frets is all you need to play cowboy chords...)

Nobody steal my idea now. Patent pending.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Man, this forum is a great source of enlightenment! Thanks Michael.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Michael, you almost had me convinced until I got to the "Fuschia Haze" part. Is it April 1st already?    

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Scott Thompson
Port Townsend,WA

"In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room"
-Billy Bragg

because Van Halen may buy your acoustics....

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Dangit, I gotta stop glossing over posts.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

you may want to play slide up there of cource you don't really neg the frets to do that. ot take Michaels I dea a step futher end the fretborard athe the 15th fret. Just think of all that rappidly becoming scarce ebony we could save

I had an idea once, which I may or may not ever follow through on, to build a semi-fretless guitar. Fretted up to, say, the 7th or 9th fret, and fretless above that. It would allow chordal playing over a good bit of the neck, and melodic playing with a fretless sound up high. A good friend of mine who's a GREAT player (Walter Strauss - some of you may know of him) was excited about the idea, so maybe I'll build him one sometime. Part of my reason for bringing this up is just as a reminder that you don't need frets to play notes. Actually, a good player would likely get better intonation on the notes way up the fingerboard without the frets. Frets are pretty much necessary for accurate noting of chords, but most people, even if they play on the high frets, are mostly just playing single notes up there, anyway. I would think there might be a lot of players who would go for the idea of playing fretless above the 14th fret or so if it was suggested to them. Even the difference in tone could be a welcome addition to the tonal palette of the instrument. Todd Rose38766.8910416667

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

A lot of this has to do with posture. A classical guitarist doesn't have that much trouble getting to the frets up to the end of the finger board. With the guitar held in that position, you could fret all the way to the bridge if they were there. Us SS-ers shoot ourselves in the foot with posture - we're one step removed from the guitar-at-the-knees power chord crowd.

JK

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

"Everything past the 7th fret is spare change"

One of my jazz playing customers brought in a guitar he'd had for a few years for a little preventive maintainance before going into the studio. It had the same amount of wear on every fret under every string, all the way up. It was a cutaway, but for this guy I'd bet it would not have made a bit of difference; he'd have still used all the notes.

I've worked on plenty of guitars that had lots of wear on the first three frets, and lots of tarnish above that.

From the builder's perspective, if you make one with only three frets then the guy who's going to use them all won't want it, and you've lost a potential customer. The folks who don't use them generally don't care if they're there, so long as they don't get in the way.

If I ever build myself a backpacker it will probably have seven frets clear of the body, and 12 total.

Todd, that was done a few hundred years ago.

I do the occasional refret (tied gut frets) on viola da gambas, which is a
six stringed instrument, tuned in fourths and a third (between the 4th/
3rd strings), seven frets from the nut and fretless beyond that. Of course
they're played upright with a bow, but it's still strikingly similar to a seven
fret guitar in many ways.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

On my lutes the maximum number of frets used is 12, on the Heiber style that's 9 gut tied frets on the neck and three wooden frets on the top under the treble strings. On my favourite 10-course Venere there are only the 9 gut frets on the neck. I've posted some playing of the 10-course Venere on the forum here and believe me 9 frets is all I can handle!

I think the great majority of people never get past first position!

Colin

10-course playingColin S38767.2228819444

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

[QUOTE=David Collins] Todd, that was done a few hundred years ago.

[/QUOTE]

Cool. Thanks, David. Yeah, I generally assume that any idea I have has been done, or at least thought of, before.

Anyway, I just think it's good to remember that just because there may not be frets above a given place on the fingerboard doesn't mean you can't play up there.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

And then there's the Mexican Vihuela ... traditionally four tied frets, but nowadays often made with metal frets. Here's an example:

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D..

[QUOTE=highdrawlicks]   And I also have five sets of old growth Brazilian for sale for $10 each.

[/QUOTE] Sounds great.... why else would they make the neck so long if they weren't going to add something? I'll take two of those sets of brazilian. I'd buy all five if I had the money. (spent to much on that trip to portegal....)

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Dennis, thanks for the photo of the vihuela. I don't recall ever seeing one of those up close. I'd love to get my hands on one.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/