Do cellos have frets

Answer 1

No. The cello is in the violin family. None of the violin family instruments have frets.

There are bowed instruments with frets, such as the viol, or viola da gamba, but they are not in the violin family. Both the violin family and the viol family are in the larger family of Musical Instruments called the fiddle family.

Answer 2

There are a couple of reasons:

1. The cellist varies the pitch of each note that they play by slight adjustments of the angle of their finger pad. Fine players have the ability to play three different notes on each pitch - rising, normal, falling - to make their playing perfectly in tune with the key that they are in.

On an instrument with frets, this is impossible as each note is locked in to the pitch set by the fret so there are notes that are not in tune in some keys, requiring a good guitarist to retune to play in different keys.

2. One major technique used by string players is sliding up and down the string, connecting two different notes just as a singer glides up and down at times for effect. On a fretted instrument you hear each fretted pitch as you glide across it, on the cello, viola or violin you just hear the pitch change.