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Once I got past the initial adjustment period, I much prefer the 10th fret dot as well! It just makes more sense logically.
I will guess that most guitars have the dot at the ninth fret due to the harmonics at that fret.
I think those early Franco-Sicilian luthiers screwed up with their adopting the mandolin 10th fret dot. Mandolins are tuned in fifths, guitars are tuned in fourths (except for that damn 2nd string!).
I have owned Gypsy guitars with a 10th fret marker and found it to be a bother. My current Gypsy guitars have 9th fret dots (The original owner of my Shelley Park ordered it that way and the original owner of my Dupont had it changed).
However, I bet you we're all much better at knowing positions on the neck than we think. Try playing blindfolded. My guess is while there will be some mistakes, you'll be surprised at how good you are at knowing the neck intuitively.
indeed.... sometimes due to illness or whatever I must abandon the marital bed to decamp in the spare bedroom down in the basement, where awaits my beautiful blonde Parisian mistress “Lucia”... aka “Castellucia”...
And when insomnia strikes (as it so often does during this #$&* pandemic...) instead of turning on the lamp and getting out my iPad to check out all the latest developments here at the Forum...
... in total darkness I quietly take her in my arms.. shhh... no pick! Our lovemaking must be conducted in near silence so as not to awaken my wife who is sleeping in the room directly above us...
... and our mutual delight consists of her whispering back to me any crazy little love phrase which may pop into my head as I fondle her ...
...often I don’t even know what key we are in! but somehow my fingers just “know” where to go... if only I could do the same thing in real life!
But I find this kind of secret wankery a very relaxing way to fall into the arms of Morpheus... especially when combined with a few puffs on a Louis Armstrong cigarette...
This is an insomnia remedy which I highly recommend it to all my fellow wankers here at Djangbooks.com... ;-)
Will
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Will, that was kind of steamy for this forum. Have you ever considered writing romance novels?
It is only natural that any of us 'fellow wankers' would agree that our fingers know where to go but I fail to see how that has ever helped my guitar playing, probably the opposite in fact.
BUT.....when I am not self-abusing and trying some serious fretology I find the location of the dot at the 9th or 10th does neither help nor hinder. Am I not looking at what I am doing close enough?
our fingers know where to go but I fail to see how that has ever helped my guitar playing, probably the opposite in fact.
Well to tell the truth, Chris, I got this idea from the Django movie... the Django character is giving a sort of music lesson to a bunch of amateur gypsy guitarists, and he tells them never to look at their fingers...
So I just figured if I were a really, really good player, I wouldn’t be looking at my fingers either... players of non-fretted instruments don’t... Tcha Limburger doesn’t... my friend the late Jeff Healey didn’t... Stevie Wonder doesn’t...
... and much to my own surprise, I have found out that I CAN actually play without looking at my fingers
Furthermore, it is my feeling (and of course, maybe I’m wrong because this is pretty subjective) that when I look at my fingers I somehow wind up staying in the same old ruts...
but.... in my steamy midnight wankery sessions, when I can’t see my fingers even if I tried, I am forced to rely my ears more and my eyes less... and it feels good!
Just one problem: I’m way too much of a chickenshit to try this in the harsh light of day... :-(
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
When I first started playing GJ (around 2006], the 10th fret marker was problematic after decades of playing guitars with the marker at 9. A few years later I bought a Dupont and asked Michael Horowitz about moving the marker to the 9th fret. He advised against it on a Dupont, saying it would reduce the resale value (obviously, you can move it back, but one would be able to see that a change had been made). I made the adjustment to the 10th fret marker and came to prefer it. I can’t imagine why I would want to know where C# is.
As to the rationale for 9, another opinion besides the natural harmonics idea is that it is simply visually symmetrical with the common 3rd fret marker.
"It's a great feeling to be dealing with material which is better than yourself, that you know you can never live up to."
-- Orson Welles
I don't know about you guys, but I love the 9th fret marker for when I'm playing in the key of G#. Then that 9th fret marker really helps me target the b7 in in the D#7 chord. Every time, I'm like, damn I'm glad that is there! 😜