I miss the dots

[Pedro Navaja]

Lol! C'mon guys we all know good guitar players don't even look at the neck when they play.

[Paikon]

Originally Posted by Pedro Navaja

Lol! C'mon guys we all know good guitar players don't even look at the neck when they play.

whats a "good guitar player"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNEnzNHTkd8

[hesson11]

This guy is obviously a complete rookie. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCeebWgjrrU

[Bern]

Originally Posted by Paikon

whats a "good guitar player"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNEnzNHTkd8

good one...

Thanks for the link...probably the most challenging guitar piece there is. Try playing that without looking at the fretboard.

[KenW]

Originally Posted by Paikon

whats a "good guitar player"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNEnzNHTkd8

Not him! He had a piece of tape on the fifth. What NERVE!

[Paikon]

its correction fluid

[Herb Hunter]

I watched carefully and I'm quite certain that this guitarist never looks at the fretboard during this performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU2wHIwf_70

Incidentally, it is very annoying that the forum software forces us to paste a link rather than allow the video to appear within the post.

[Paikon]

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

I watched carefully and I'm quite certain that this guitarist never looks at the fretboard during this performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU2wHIwf_70

Incidentally, it is very annoying that the forum software forces us to paste a link rather than allow the video to appear within the post.

musician --- entertainer
two different things!

[mc1]

Originally Posted by Paikon

whats a "good guitar player"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNEnzNHTkd8

wow, that was great. very fine sounding guitar and playing! thanks.

Originally Posted by KenW

Not him! He had a piece of tape on the fifth. What NERVE!

7th and 12th, actually.

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

I watched carefully and I'm quite certain that this guitarist never looks at the fretboard during this performance:

...

that was a little distasteful. i'm sure you didn't intend it that way.


i remember reading a story about a famous guitarist whose name escapes me who was giving a master class and the student had fret markings on the side of the neck. the master remarked something like, "well, if you like the fret markers so much", why don't you put them at every fret?"

[Pitar]

I put them back on. Your hands are the instruments. Don't alter those. The guitar is just a tool. Make it work for you. There's a mystique about music, for some reason, that lies in traditional values only. Fine. In this case if those values mean using muscle memory instead of dots I'll take the dots and enjoy myself.

[the.ronin]

Originally Posted by mc1

the master remarked something like, "well, if you like the fret markers so much", why don't you put them at every fret?"

LOL!!!! I'll have to remember that one.

[Pedro Navaja]

No looking allowed!

[Dark Eyed Junko]

Here's the answer.

Aside from any personal aesthetic choice, there is absolutely no benefit not to have some reference dots. It's tradition for the sake of tradition only, which is pointless.
Maybe classical guitars were originally designed with no fret markers, but that only means that adding a fret marker now is merely an improvement on the original design.

The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of us learned to play on a guitar with dots, and that made our initial progress a little more efficient than if they weren't there. And I'm willing to bet that very few of us even saw a guitar without dots until some years later. At that point, we have a choice either to tough it out and spend energy developing new strategies to be aware of our fretboard positions-- energy that could be devoted to more productive things, or else we just add some dots. Those who insist on tradition for its own sake (and derive some contrived sense of superiority because of it) will choose the former.

And please stop with the silly arguments about violin players and blind people.

[Bern]

Originally Posted by Paikon

its correction fluid

Would that correct mistakes before they're made ?

[the.ronin]

Originally Posted by Dark Eyed Junko

It's tradition for the sake of tradition only, which is pointless.

The inference you are making is that there is no benefit to learning to play without markers other than for the sake of tradition itself. That is very presumptuous.