How can people play accurately on violin, cello and such instruments without frets?

Question

I play the guitar so i know how a string instrument works, but i can't imagine playing on a fretless guitar, it simply wouldn't work right?

Answer 1

In the beginning most people use "practice tapes" which are put like frets and then eventually they take them off as they know the note sound.

Answer 2

As others have said, its a matter of practice to develop the muscle memory in your fretting hand so that your fingers "know" where to go, and then your ear tells you whether you're right or not and if you're slightly off you make a tiny adjustment in your finger position to bring the note into tune.

Its easier on fiddle than it would be on fretless guitar since you're usually only playing one or at most 2 notes at a time on fiddle.  Whereas playing chords on a fretless guitar would be a real challenge to get all the fingers down in exactly the right places for the chord to be in tune with itself.  And playing closed position chords up the neck on a fretless guitar .....forget it.    You'd have to develop a whole different playing style on a fretless guitar, that doesn't rely on chords or rhythm strumming.

Answer 3

You have to develop your ear to a very high degree, and work with a private teacher.  See:

(10) What is the best way to achieve good intonation in string playing?

http://beststudentviolins.com/PedagogyTe...

Answer 4

Ear training with tuning forks, AND muscle memory eventually allows you to feel where the fret would be. Sucker...

Answer 5

by sound.... you know where to place your fingers based ont he sounds and basically memorization. it gives these instruments a wider range of tones and notes...guitars are stuck with just those solid notes between frets... well pretty much anyways...

i guess you could try and immagine playing a guitar, you could get the basic notes down, but guitar is black and white, the violine has alot of "grey" areas...