My G&L Mod: Fretless!
In my blog post, 2015 G&L ASAT CLASSIC I told of my acquisition of a G&L telecaster-style guitar. My motivation for the purchase was to have an inexpensive guitar with which I was comfortable and could leave in my teaching studio so I wouldn’t have to schlep a guitar from home everyday. One that would be no great loss if stolen. Turns out it was higher quality than expected and I wound up gigging with it some.
I took the opportunity of the Covid shutdown in 2020 to “semi-retire” from teaching (which I was planning to do in 2022 anyway) and now only teach in my home studio. So the G&L has been hanging on the wall for a few years. When needed, I have a 1972 Telecaster with which I gig.
Therefore, since the G&L was “extra,” I selected it for a little experiment.
I've recently become interested in being able to access what are commonly called "microtones." Specifically, 24 tones per octave, instead of the 12-tone system that I've studied and used my whole life.
I've been aware of other musics that divide the octave differently from the Western European 12-tone system since I became a fan of Shakti in the mid-seventies. I remember reading an article in Guitar Player Magazine back in the eighties about a guy who built a guitar that had modular fretboards with differing intonation systems that could be popped on and off the guitar neck. One of those fretboards had 15 frets per octave instead of 12. Another had 21. I was fascinated by that.
However, I decided not to pursue any of those other systems because it was taking most of my life to feel like I had achieved at least a modicum of mastery over the 12-tone system. I decided to leave alternatives in the queue for the next life, assuming there is one. If there isn't, it doesn't matter, does it?
Another thing that has steered me away from pursuing alternative subdivisions of the octave is the fact that Western European harmony (the 12-tone system) is unique among the musics of the world in it's vertical development. The characteristic of stacking notes to be played at the same time, i.e. chords, does not occur with the same complexity among other systems, and in most cases is absent altogether.
I love chords!
I am by far more focused on chords than I am scales and modes. That's why my method book is titled Vertical Truth - subtitled, “Chordal Mechanisms for the Guitar.”
My single-note soloing is based on patterns that correspond to chord shapes on the guitar. Every scale, mode or melodic phrase I play has a corresponding chord as the context from which I visualize my lines. Using a different subdivision of the octave messes with my chordal knowledge. The math doesn't work the same.
In Indian music, the melodic and rhythmic complexity is astounding, but harmonically, all that rhythm and melody is placed against a drone, so there are no "chords" per se. Any given song has a single tonality - a drone - around which the melodies and rhythms dance. One of the things that fascinated me about Shakti was the potential for integrating Western Harmony with Indian melodic and rhythmic systems.
It's not my "next life"…so...why now?
Well, that’s a very long story that would take too much time to tell. I will only say that it has to do with my wife’s alternative health practice. She specializes in energy work among other things, and I currently have no plans to perform publicly with whatever we may discover about microtonal frequencies and the effects they have on the human body and psyche.
And so at this late stage in the game - I am 70 and have been a performing guitarist for almost 60 years - I have been sucked into a situation where C# does not equal Db. C# is closer to C than D, and Db is closer to D than C. Furthermore, it appears I am responsible for coming up with a name for the note that’s between C# and Db! 😳
If someone has already codified this I'm all ears.
If you do the math, that’s 24 tones per octave, assuming equal temperament.
Of course, the vibrational frequency between any two tones, no matter how close they may be, can be divided by half - infinitely. For our purposes it boils down to what the human ear can distinguish. My ear is easily capable of hearing 3 microtones (or quarter-tones) between whole-steps with no problem. My wife, who is musically uneducated and inexperienced, can also distinguish between these microtones. It could also be said that, due to her sensitivity obtained through many years of energy work, she can also feel the difference as well. The “vibrational frequency” as it were.
Now these microtones are accessed in western music. For instance, it's a common sound for a blues guy to bend a note up a whole step, and slowly release the bend while continuing to pick the string. The result is he gets 4, 5 or 6 notes where there are technically only 3.
The same situation applies to bottleneck slide players, as well as dobro and pedal steel players. Also, players of fretless string instruments (violin, viola, cello, fretless bass etc.) make microtonal distinctions. I presume slide trombone players are also aware of this issue.
Singers access microtones as well. In the west, I suspect it’s mostly intuitive. However, Indian singers of both the North (Hindustani) and South (Carnatic) Indian traditions are definitely singing microtones, and I assume that it’s all very codified.
The thing is, as far as I know, these microtones are not codified in Western Harmony. The term, "microtones" is a reductive blanket category that disregards the significance of, for example, the potential distinction between C# and Db. In Western Harmony, C# and Db are the same sound; the technical term is "enharmonic."
Enharmonic: same sound, different spelling.
By definition, the names of the notes are based on the Western 12-tone system.
So now, in light of recent developments in my life due to the trajectory of my wife's learning curve concerning energy, frequency and sound, she is in need of my musical expertise. We now have a situation in which “C#” and “Db” are not "enharmonic." They are different sounds.
There are several ways one could access these sounds on a guitar:
1) Use a Slide:
Theoretically, this makes the most sense. The 12-tone system is retained, there are still 12 frets per octave (chords!) and the slide enables access to the microtonal frequencies. I tried, I really did. I just can’t stand the sound of a slide scrapping a string. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I've written elsewhere about the deal-killing issues I have with bottleneck slide playing in general and my bottleneck slide playing in particular. You can read about that in Slip Sliding Away.
Having said that, there are slide players that sound amazing to me, but I haven’t been able to get the sound I want without what I can see would be more time and effort than I’m willing to put in.
Check out this guy expounding on Arabic music, and using a slide to differentiate between what we would call a minor 2nd, and a microtone that’s above a minor 2nd:
(Click the pick to watch the video)
2) Bends:
The level of control required to hit specific microtonal pitches makes this technique impractical, at least for me. I've messed around for decades bending to and through microtonal pitches, but bending the string to a specific microtonal pitch without hearing it first before the bend - a reference point - is a daunting challenge. My conclusion is I don't have enough motivation &/or time left to master such a level of control. I will continue to experiment with microtones via string-bending on gigs, which I have been doing intuitively for years.
3) Fretboard Design:
Build a guitar with a different fretboard design. They do exist:
The guitar on the left appears to have fixed-in-place frets. I can't tell for sure but it looks like 18 tones per octave. The one on the right looks like each string has its own adjustable fret - at every fret. Your guess is as good as mine as to how many frets per octave. Can frets be removed or added? Or are you limited to adjusting the frets that are already there?
Conclusion: I don't want to buy yet another guitar - or two.
4) Fretless Guitar:
That brings us to Option 4: a fretless guitar.
As you can tell by the title of this article, that's what I've opted for. Those also exist. Here’s a fretless classical guitar:
Again…I don’t want to buy another guitar.
So…I took my 2015 G&L ASAT CLASSIC to Fountain City Guitarworks and said,
"Make it fretless!"
Besides it being an “extra” guitar, another reason I chose the G&L is because it has a maple fretboard. This, I reasoned, would be better for fretless playing because it's a denser wood than other types of wood traditionally used for fretboards. I assume it will be more resistant to the abuse.
Anyway, the guys at Fountain City said, "Can do!"
And they did.
It retains the fret marker lines and position inlays because I'm a 12-tone guy and I need the reference points.
Playing complex chords on this thing is impossible but I’m going to start out focusing on melodic ideas; ideas which involve accessing the distinction between C# and Db.
I’ll let you know how that works out for me.
Stay tuned!
How About 5 Lessons?
The 5-Lesson Foundational Series teaches the Circle of Keys as an organizational mechanism by which you ensure that whatever you learn is drilled in every key in all possible positions. It also gives you a method to find any note, anywhere, without memorizing note names on every string. That is a beautiful thing!
Almost every lesson I teach presupposes these 5 lessons.
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