Why don't violins have frets?

To allow the player to hit quarter and half notes. It also allows the instrument to be tuned in non-equal intervals.

Also, you can get fretted violins (supposed to be good for new players).

Marinelife, good answer. i learned something from your answer. john

Cuz frets are for panzies! .... No most instruments like violins (guitars, bass guitars, etc) didn’t originally have frets. They were added later. I used to play in a band with a guy that had a fretless bass… it was neat but kinda complex.

I read this and was trying to figure out if cellos have frets – and they don’t.

It seems that the strummed instruments have the frets, besides the classical guitar. It seems that frets are there because if you’re going to pluck the string to sound the note, you need the fret to give you enough of a pinch to get a clear tone out of the stopped string.

@marinelife Did you mean quarter and half tones?

Guitars and mandolins aren’t bowed instruments.

It would be hard to see the frets if they had them. And the violin is significantly more difficult than a guitar – one reason being no frets.

In your question you hit the nail on the head – Violins etc are bowed instruments, whereas fretted instruments are strummed/plucked. If you had frets on a violin, there would be extreme buzzing as you bowed.

you can get fretless guitars and bass guitars. being bowed, plucked or strummed really isn’t all that important to whether it has frets or not.

I can bow or pluck (pizzicato) my violin, strum pick and pluck my guitar..you could bow a guitar, but the coil wrapped strings would demolish the bow hairs. Jimmy Page bowed his guitar, it just shreds those bow hairs.