In a recent post on Mandolin Cafe, one member made the very casual comment that mandolin strings never touch the fingerboard. Several of us grabbed our mandos and flashlights to see if this was true. Sure enough, we could easily see daylight between our fingers and the fretboard. Try it with your mandolin and report back.
Yup yup! That’s how them frets work 
Do guitar strings touch the board?
According to the post in the Mandolin Cafe thread, they do. It makes sense (I guess) because the frets are futher apart and the strings are lower tension, proportionatley thinner, plus there’s usually only one of them.
I’ve played mandolin for forty years and never knew this. I never even thought about it. I think it’s cool!
BTW, here’s the thread:
It’s not hard to find an old guitar with wearmarks on the neck between frets, particularly in what would be ‘first position’ on a violin. If they’re not from contact with the strings, I can’t think of what they would be.
Actually, the answer is … maybe.
One of the tricks of snappy acoustic guitar playing is to play so that the strings, in fact, don’t (or hardly) touch the fingerboard. You finger just behind the fret, with just enough pressure for a clean note against the fret.
With enough pressure, you can force the guitar string against the fingerboard. And slow yourself down.
When you see a guitar with string gouges in the fingerboard, that’s the sign of either a heavy-handed player who fingers between the frets, and/or lots of string bending, which vectors some of the sideways force downward and scrubs the fingerboard with the strings.
Or sliding. I’ll also point out that I’ve heard some great guitarists who play in a “devil-may-care” manner, grabbing notes here and there, bending and sliding, and just generally whacking the thing around, which I think gives a great jolly carefree sound. I imagine that style is rough on the fingerboard, but I wouldn’t agree with the negative connotations of “heavy-handed.” Although academically-minded teachers might.
Point well taken. My context here isn’t academic but ITM - where, in my experience, generally whacking the thing around is usually not a good sign.
Agreed there. I do like a light touch in Irish music. Or, no guitar at all.
Fingernails: Not all players keep their nails short enough to avoid contact with the freboard. It’s common to find guitars with highly worn 1st position frets, yet no significant wear on the fretboard as the owners typically kept their nails very short.
As MT mentioned, proper technique (fretting close behind the fret) makes a difference as well, but it’s usually the nail that digs into the fretboard regardless, not the strings, otherwise the the hard core blues players would be wearing away their fretboards monthly with all the heavy bending and sliding.they do. The likes of Albert King and SRV would’ve gone through a fret board week 
Loren
Spot on, Loren. Fingernails it is. Notice that the wear patches always occur between, not under, the strings. Cheers,
Rob
Interesting … I wasn’t thinking of fingernails. I’ll have to look more carefully at the wear pattern the next time I see it.
I wouldn’t have thought fingernails either. The wear marks in my guitar and banjo (both of which the strings touch when fingered) have wear that looks like it’s made by the pads of my fingers; a mark on both sides of the string.
My nails are never long enough nor my hand in the position to allow my nails to even touch the wood. I never bejnd strings, at least not enough for any substantialo wear.
different instrument…
But one of the things we tell our beginning dulcimer students is to lightly rest their finger on a string, and pluck the string back and forth continuously. As the pluck, very slowly push their finger down. They will start off with a “plunk, plunk” sound, but eventually get a clear note. That’s all the harder they have to press. And it is almost NEVER as hard as they think they have to press for fretting.
There really is NO reason to be “white knuckle-ing” when fretting.
We also do the same with finger placement behind the fret. Dulcimers tend to be a little more forgiving on that “sweet spot” and can easily have a 1/8 to a 1/4 inch of “play” where your finger needs to be (especially the whole steps).