Nutthin' to FRET about...
Stringed instruments have been around for thousands of years. Typically, all have a neck where the musician can press up or down the smooth fingerboard to raise or lower the pitch. The violin family, for example has the smallest to largest, violin, viola, cello, bass that all have 4 strings that are bowed or plucked. Years of practice are required to play and be in-tune with these instruments.Guitars and banjos have a shorter learning curve probably due to metal wires embedded into the fingerboard at spaces that conform to standard musical steps, E, F, F#, G, etc... This makes it easier to be in-tune when playing chords.
A (very) small percentage of guitars are made without frets that allow musicians to emulate the sounds of violins giving the natural ability to slide up or down and easily create vibrato effects. It's a totally different instrument as one who doesn't have the accuracy of holding notes in the right spot with be sharp or flat.
I went through at least 20 videos to select one where the style of play shows off good technique of playing a fretless guitar. Here's a perfect example:
Comments (6)
(I play guitar quite and sing quite well, but my sense of pitch is terrible without a reference note and no matter what I do I can't seem to improve it.
The point I was trying to make was that a fretless guitar would be excellent for a student who was trying to develop their ear to a very high level (as you could get that broad range of sound, rather than notes jumping by semitones only each time. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be easier to just learn the violin if that's the sound that appeals to you.
I'm just speculating as I've never used a fretless guitar.
I am fond of playing guitar too.
The last thing I remember when I was a beginner I used the same as this
No. Slide guitar has a sound of it's own and (depending on the tuning) doesn't lend itself to playing different chords.
Frets control the tuning so each note is correct. Small differences in placement of the fingers between the frets doesn't affect the tuning.
Fretless guitar is much harder as your fingers have to be in the exact location where a fret would be or you will be out of tune.
If it's a throwaway guitar and you've got some woodcraft experience, I say go for it.