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Do you use the French Dot or American 9th fret marker

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Comments

  • Al WatskyAl Watsky New JerseyVirtuoso
    Posts: 440
    I like the 10 dot for the GJ guitars its perfectly fine. It takes some getting used to.
    D not C# OK.
    Classical guitar was always my main acoustic guitar, those are 12 fret to the body.
    Other than classical the guitars I've played the most have been either 15 or 17 frets to the body.
    Never was a flat top guy bought my first one in the 90's , so the 14 fret thing is still a mite strange .
    I played plenty of 14 fret archtops though. So ? Straight Jazz so ?
    I like the aura of exoticism the 10th fret evokes in the New World. :|
    D not C# , check, got it. :|
    Its totally made for a few "interesting moments " looking down at the binding markers and feeling that disorientation. :shock:
    Fun times !
    Woo hoo... :shock:
  • AmundLauritzenAmundLauritzen ✭✭✭✭
    Posts: 236
    My new Eimers Antique has the 10th fret marker.

    At first it was very confusing, but now I am getting used to it and actually prefer it. It took a few weeks though.

    I think it makes sense, because all the other markers are on notes that are not sharp or flat(when considering the top and bottom strings, and also in fact the A string), then in the regular style of markers you suddenly get that Db/C# at the 9th fret on the E strings.

    I am largely a pattern player who also sees the guitar in patterns relative to each other intervalically and harmonically, so to me the 10th fret style is more convenient now. Gypsy jazz is, after all, a style where harmonic concepts and lines are organized around chord shapes a lot, which leads one to orient things by the notes on the E and A strings, at least I find myself doing that a lot(not exclusively), so then it makes sense to have the markers be diatonic references.
  • Al Watsky wrote:
    I like the 10 dot for the GJ guitars its perfectly fine. It takes some getting used to.
    D not C# OK.
    Classical guitar was always my main acoustic guitar, those are 12 fret to the body.
    Other than classical the guitars I've played the most have been either 15 or 17 frets to the body.
    Never was a flat top guy bought my first one in the 90's , so the 14 fret thing is still a mite strange .
    I played plenty of 14 fret archtops though. So ? Straight Jazz so ?
    I like the aura of exoticism the 10th fret evokes in the New World. :|
    D not C# , check, got it. :|
    Its totally made for a few "interesting moments " looking down at the binding markers and feeling that disorientation. :shock:
    Fun times !
    Woo hoo... :shock:

    I thought it would take me much longer to get used to it, but it was pretty seamless, especially since D is a more guitaristic key.
  • slowlearnerslowlearner ✭✭
    Posts: 39
    I used to think it was "French Dot" but I'm not so sure anymore. I have a picture of a couple of American Washburn guitars one from 1898 the other 1928 and both feature a fret marker on the tenth fret. Then there is the 1995 J.P. Favino that Michael has for sale that has a ninth fret marker.
    And just to really confuse things there are the Altimira's , the D-hole model seems to favor the ninth fret marker while the oval hole the tenth. Not sure how they arrived at that.
  • Al WatskyAl Watsky New JerseyVirtuoso
    Posts: 440
    I used to think it was "French Dot" but I'm not so sure anymore. I have a picture of a couple of American Washburn guitars one from 1898 the other 1928 and both feature a fret marker on the tenth fret. Then there is the 1995 J.P. Favino that Michael has for sale that has a ninth fret marker.
    And just to really confuse things there are the Altimira's , the D-hole model seems to favor the ninth fret marker while the oval hole the tenth. Not sure how they arrived at that.

    Interesting.
    I played in "horn keys" most of my musical life.
    The rational for the F Dot, being the D being more useful for the campfire folks has credence.
    My French GJ guitars have no side dots. Just fingerboard markers. Tenth fret as usual.
    I don't see the fingerboard markers any way . When I do look at the markers it still gives me a moments pause.
    Now I'm wondering when the socalled "American" location became the norm.
    AFA the 95' marker on the JP, likely thats what the first owner wanted, so he got it.
    I think the disorientation is as much from the scale length as anything else.
    The 26" scale sets the neck in a different place in relation to my torso and shoulders. I think thats the thing that makes an adjustment necessary more than dots and etc.
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