[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Todd Rose

...I think that fret markers on the FACE of the fretboard are a monstrously bad idea - I mean, if you have to look at all, for crying out loud don't be bending forward and looking at the face of the FB - that's adding injury to insult, literally.

Hi Todd…
This is obviously something important to you...don't think the rest of the steel string guitar community will buy in.

As a teacher I couldn't disagree with some of what you said more. The fretboard is geometrically challenging - unlike a piano which has the same sized keys at the 88th key as the first.

The size of frets halves approximately each octave, and if you toss in a fanned fret arrangement, it changes the shape of the frets as well into irregular form in each direction relevant to the perpendicular fret wire (if there is one).

For players who are seated when they play and their posture places the guitar out near the knee and the body of the guitar leans back into their chest, the fretboard markers are as easily visible as the edge markers...without straining or stretching the neck.

On top of that, when a person learns by reading the hands of another player then the face markers are key to instantly knowing what the player is doing (where they have capoed, which fingers on a particular chord are on which frets etc). All of my students read hands, or they don't keep up.

The best players frequently look at the fretboard...in fact I’ve seen them glance or even stare when hitting the more challenging passages...

As was mentioned above, when playing guitars with different width necks, different fret configuations and/or different scale (short or long) it becomes complicated for a player who doesn't spend several hours a week with a particular instrument in his/her hands to develop the kind of skills you mention.

What I’ve observed when forcing people not to look (as a teacher) is it turns them into less adventurous players - who don't improvise for fear of missing notes...so it is a bit of a double edged sword.

I can play anything the 7-9th frets pretty comfortably without looking or with a quick glance, but above the 12-14th frets it becomes a particular challenge. When playing fretted harmonics - it would be improbable/impossible to develop the two-handed-no-eyes-on accuracy that takes without devoting days to it to find them.

The classical community doesn't support your theory either...they are constantly seen watching their fingers...not so with the classical piano community.

And when I think of retraining myself to learn all four of my main guitars to accommodate your suggested technique on a 12 fret-1 7/8'' fingerboard, a 14 fret-1 3/4'' no cutaway and a 14 fret-1 3/4'' cutaway model, plus my Strat (different fingerboard length & narrower fretboard yet)...it's not high on my agenda of this-would-make-me-a-substantially-better-player list...

Just some random thoughts from a different side of the aisle...not intended to inflame, just to further the considerations and thought processes...