Why don't bowed instruments have frets?

Answer 1

Answeri am a guitarist, so me can't spell

the fretrs are only able to play one note without a bend, while fretless makes it easier to change the pitch of the note.

AnswerSome bowed instruments do have frets.

Most of the bowed instruments we are familiar with in our culture are in the violin family. They are very versatile, and the fact that they are fretless adds to their versatility since it allows a musician to play any tone, not just those associated with specific keys. Most fretted instruments can play a full chromatic scale (all the notes, including sharps and flats), but cannot play anything else, but a violin can play anything within its range.

When the violin family started its development, there were other bowed instruments in use. Some of these, including the Byzantine lira, the rebec, and the crwth, did not have frets. Others, such as the lira da braccio family and the viola da gamba family, did. Some might or might not.

There are advantages to having frets on a bowed instrument, and these can be seen in the viola da gamba. Having frets means that it is easier to play two strings or more at a time, and since the viola da gamba has a relatively flat bridge, it is easy to bow two or three strings simultaneously. It might be interesting to see what one might do with such an instrument with such music as blue grass. The same things are even truer of the lira da braccio family, but instruments in that family are pretty much unavailable, but the viole da gamba can be purchased rather easily.

So perhaps the answer is, bowed instruments don't have frets because people are no longer used to seeing bowed instruments with frets.