Frets

Violins don’t have frets. That isn’t to say they never worry, they just don’t have ridges across the fretboard like a guitar. Those ridges help to sustain notes after the strings are plucked or strummed, and they give the the fingers somewhere to go.

Unlike a guitar, violin strings are drawn with a bow, which can create its own sustain, so it doesn’t need frets for that reason. The lack of frets also makes learning the instrument more challenging. Without frets, the string resonates against the finger itself, which means it must be in precisely the right place to play in tune.

Fretless instruments have other advantages though. A skilled player can be more expressive without the constraint of frets. She can slide between notes, for example, or produce a vibrato by rhythmically playing a note slightly higher and lower than its true pitch.

The labels we give ourselves are a lot like frets. They’re clear and they can make life easier. For example, when asked for my nationality on a customs form, I’d say I’m American. It’s the simplest answer and and it’s true, but it’s incomplete. I was born in Canada and moved to the U.S. when I was young. My parents and family are Canadian and I’m a dual-citizen. So my identity is very much a mix of both. The right note lies between the frets.

We can understand the world using either the guitar or the violin as a model. We can choose to see categories and labels and names, or we can look for the more complete picture between them. In the former, the world is defined by its differences, those points at which one label’s limit meets the next. On a violin those limits don’t exist, so you’re forced to do the hard work of listening for the right note. We can learn far more from the latter.

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