[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYING SOME CHROMATIC LICKS]

DAVID SCHWARTZ: So, something like that is an effect that you can't really accomplish on a regular fretted instrument. And also, the great thing is that you can play -- you can start playing, you know, a lot of Eastern music that uses microtonal tone centers and things like that. So, you can play in between pitches, and you might say it does sound very out of tune to our Western ears but to fans of Eastern music or just that culture in general, it makes perfect sense, you know, it's not out of tune at all. So, you really open up, you know, the type of notes that you can play and the type of scales that you can play as well, and it's definitely helpful. I mean this instrument is very, very world music oriented, and you kind of have to adapt it to your playing style. You know, the guitar is what it is and you have to -- I mean it's appropriate for every style but you have to adapt your technique to it and you have to adapt you music to it so that you can use it to its fullest potential.

Another interesting thing you can do on a fretless is some of the special effects that you can achieve. For instance, you can hit like a harmonic [PLAYS A HARMONIC AND A GLISSANDO] or [PLAYS A GLISSANDO], and you can slide it up. You can actually slide harmonics back and forth, [PLAYS HARMONICS AND GLISSANDI] and that's an effect that you see a lot of violinists will use or cellists especially can get that effect to a great degree. The other thing is that if you -- let's say I'll throw in maybe some chorus here [APPLIES CHORUS], and, you know, just focus on the top four strings, you get a very acoustic bass type tone almost.

[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYING ACOUSTIC-BASS-LIKE LINES]

So it's, you know, you kind of almost get like that nice sort of, you know, semi-Jaco-Pastorius-type tone out of it. So, it's very -- you can get some -- you can do some really interesting just sounds out of it, and you know definitely it provides a lot of opportunities rhythmically too just because it's so easy for you to slide around. You know, you can start playing, you know, some sort of run...

[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYING A COUPLE OF RUNS WITH GLISSANDO]

...and just, you know, just kind of do a really abrupt halt and just slide the note forward or back, so it's -- in that respect, it's very much like a pedal steel guitar in a way. You can get some very similar types of pedal-steel-type tones out of it just by, you know, just grabbing a chord like a barre chord [PLAYS A BARRE CHORD WITH GLISSANDO], or you know much as a pedal steel guitarist can, you know, use their knee or the foot pedals to just slightly alter the pitch, you can do somewhat similar things by just slightly moving your fingers [DEMONSTRATES CONCEPT]. So, in that respect you can get some really just, you know, beautiful and out there tones.

And then the other thing that you can do with fretless is let's say you add a distortion to it. [APPLIES DISTORTION] On a fretless guitar, sustain is always going to be a problem, but, you know, if you add some sort of overdrive or distortion, you can really get some interesting out there type of tones.

[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYS A COUPLE OF LEAD LINES WITH DISTORTION]

So, you know, this guitar combined with a good effects processor and especially with a synthesizer built in can really, you know, get you noticed on stage. That's for sure. But I'm still a little scared to play this thing live for the show that I have, but it's definitely something that I have to work on and you have to practice just like you would learning a different instrument.

You know, in regards to actually learning how to play fretless guitar, there aren't that really that -- there isn't that much in the way of instructional material out there because, you know, you can't really read tabs because tabs are useless because there's no frets to look at. So, definitely knowing how to read notes is going to be very helpful and also your training exercises, practice your intervals. You know, start playing just perfect fifths.

[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYING PERFECT FIFTHS]

And then you just start playing likem, you know, practice perfect fourths.

[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYING PERFECT FOURTHS]

You know, do that on every string.

[DAVID SCHWARTZ PLAYING PERFECT FOURTHS]

And just being able to hear those intervals is going to be very helpful, especially when it comes to improvisation and learning how to improvise over a set of chord changes. And you know, but it's not really a one-trick pony. It’s a very versatile guitar, and again you can use it for any sort of style that you feel appropriate to use it on, and it's just overall it's a very refreshing instrument to play, and if you've been playing guitar for a while now and want to try something new, the Godin is a great guitar. There's also some other companies like I think Vigier or Vigier, I don't know how to pronounce it but they produce an electric guitar that has -- it has a mirror finish. It actually has a glass neck on it which adds for very, very interesting tones, and you can also convert your own guitar into a fretless just by -- You can heat up the frets with a soldering iron and just rip them out and just fill them with wood glue or just whatever epoxy material you want. You just sand it down and there you go, it's an instant fretless guitar, but I suggest that if it's something you're interested in, definitely check it out and happy playing.