KDF Fret Numbering

The frets of a Kite guitar can of course be numbered 0 through 41. But they can also be numbered in a way that reflects the usual fret markings aka dots. This minimizes the mental effort needed to find high-numbered dots.

On a Kite guitar, every 4th fret is usually marked with either a single dot, a double dot or a triple dot (unless the neck uses offset-fretting). The full 41 frets has 10 marked frets that are single-double-triple-single-double-triple-single-double-triple-single. By a wonderful coincidence, these dots trace out three kite shapes! The three kites are named low, mid and high. The top of the low kite is also the bottom of the mid kite. For numbering purposes, this dot is thought of as the latter, not the former. Likewise the 7th dot is the bottom of the high kite. The 10 dots are named as:

• low-single, low-double, low-triple (the low kite)
• mid-single, mid-double, mid-triple (the mid kite)
• high-single, high-double, high-triple (the high kite)
• top

Mid also refers to mid-2nd, mid-3rd, etc., and low and high also refer to low-C, hi-3 voicing etc. Ambiguity is avoided because when referring to the fretboard, low/mid/high is always immediately followed by either single/double/triple or kite.

For guitar tablature, a compact written form of the dot names is needed. A dot in the low kite is indicated by one, two or three commas (the actual punctuation mark ","). The comma was chosen because of its compact shape, tight kerning, and tail (a period would be too easy to miss). Also, it literally sits low on the line. For similar reasons, a high dot is indicated by one, two or three apostrophes. (Or an apostrophe, a quote mark, and a quote mark plus an apostrophe.) For the mid dot, there is unfortunately no obvious punctuation mark. There are several options. A tilde is easily typed, but not at all compact. A hyphen would tend to be obscured by the lines on the tablature staff. There is also a unicode character Ring Point (U+2E30) which looks like a dot: ⸰

The specific fret is indicated by how far it is from a dot. Zero, one, two or three frets:

fret	dots	written	spoken	alternative name
0		0	open
1		1	one
2		2	two
3		3	three
4	o	,0	low single zero		low single
5		,1	low single one
6		,2	low single two
7		,3	low single three
8	oo	,,0	low double zero		low double
9		,,1	low double one
10		,,2	low double two
11		,,3	low double three
12	ooo	,,,0	low triple zero		low triple
13		,,,1	low triple one
14		,,,2	low triple two
15		,,,3	low triple three
16	o	⸰0	mid single zero	~0	mid single
17		⸰1	mid single one	~1
18		⸰2	mid single two	~2
19		⸰3	mid single three	~3
20	oo	⸰⸰0	mid double zero	~~0	mid double
21		⸰⸰1	mid double one	~~1
22		⸰⸰2	mid double two	~~2
23		⸰⸰3	mid double three	~~3
24	ooo	⸰⸰⸰0	mid triple zero	~~~0	mid triple
25		⸰⸰⸰1	mid triple one	~~~1
26		⸰⸰⸰2	mid triple two	~~~2
27		⸰⸰⸰3	mid triple three	~~~3
28	o	'0	high single zero		high single
29		'1	high single one
30		'2	high single two
31		'3	high single three
32	oo	"0	high double zero		high double
33		"1	high double one
34		"2	high double two
35		"3	high double three
36	ooo	"'0	high triple zero		high triple
37		"'1	high triple one
38		"'2	high triple two
39		"'3	high triple three
40	o	"'4	high triple four		top or top zero
41		"'5	high triple five		top one

The main use of this fret numbering is for tab. But it can also be used for chords, and x8x759 can be written as x ,,0 x ,3 ,1 ,,1.