Some people say they don't believe in tab, and some people don't even believe in frets. There hasn't been too much talk about the fretless in this magazine, so I hope to put that to rights. As I reported in an earlier issue, my son-in-law made me one and he guaranteed it would sound a lot better than it looked, and it does, because it looks like you couldn't play it at all. And darned if he didn’t go into production with it, with standardized parts, so that every one he makes is just as bad as the original. Basically it looks like this:
There are definite advantages to the fretless, especially the "Basic Bad." For one thing, you never again have to worry about too much sustain. And with the high action on the "Bad," you're never going to have a buzzing string either. Also it's a foregone conclusion you aren't ever going to have to have it re-fretted; and the fingerboard, being identical with the neck, will not start to show any noticable wear for about a century. Also, if you drop it, or somebody steps on it, well hey, it'll probably sound even better. And nobody in his right mind will steal it either.
Now normally the playing range on a fretless is from the nut up to maybe the place where the seventh fret would be. But on this banjo, with its 3/8" nut, it's from about where the second fret would be up to the seventh. In other words you avoid the first fret position like the plague. For that reason I strongly recommend Dead Man's tuning, dADAD. Some fretless chords in this tuning are as follows:
Since the dADAD tuning is pretty low (wimping out by tuning up to eBEBE makes it impossible to play with anybody) it's advisable to slap heavy strings on her for the low AD. Don't worry about stress; a quarter-ton truck couldn't bend that neck.
My son-on-law says he was contacted by a guy named Greg who offered to market this unique folk instrument as the "Deering Badtime." But basic values don't have too many defenders today so we're planning to stick it out non-commercially. And we don't use that term lightly. Right now, we're frankly just offering them to people for nothing at our local art-in-the-park bash, but even when the reviews start coming out, we don't plan to ask more for them than we can expect to get.