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. This fret numbering system is called "counting kites".

There are two types of Kite guitar fretboards, even-frets and odd-frets. In the former, all or almost all of the frets are an even number of edosteps from the nut. In the latter, it's an odd number. The even-fret layout is for isomorphic tunings and the odd-frets layout is for open tunings. This fret numbering system is for even-frets fretboards only.

On an even-frets Kite guitar, every 4th fret is marked with either a single dot, a double dot or a triple dot. The 41 frets have 10 marked frets that are single-double-triple-single-double-triple-single-double-triple-single. This makes it easy to label chord grids with dots on the side, not fret numbers. 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 on the 28th fret is the bottom of the high kite, not the top of the mid 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.

When speaking of the single dot, double dot, etc., it can be assumed that the low kite is meant, since it's the most comfortable region to play in.

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