On Mon, 17 May 2004 18:26:31 GMT, John C. Polasek
<jpolasek@cfl.rr.com> wrote:

>Frets impose intelligent discipline.

Only for amateurs and the otherwise unskilled.

A good choir or string quartet will produce perfectly in-tune chords
in any key.  No useable fretted instrument can do this.  We suffer the
out-of-tune fretted instruments both because they allow unskilled
musicians to play more easily and because they allow skilled musicians
to do things that they could not do without the frets.

As an amateur musician, I appreciate frets.  As a listener, though, I
appreciate their lack even more.  My favorite musical instrument is
the string quartet.  Nevermind that it comes in eight separate pieces
and takes four people to play it: it is _one_ instrument.

Jim Deutch (Jimbo the Cat)
-- 
Sic foncionnatit, nil copulatum