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. 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 | written | spoken | alternative name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | open | ||
| 1 | 1 | one | ||
| 2 | 2 | two | ||
| 3 | 3 | three | ||
| 4 | ,0 | low single zero | low single | |
| 5 | ,1 | low single one | ||
| 6 | ,2 | low single two | ||
| 7 | ,3 | low single three | ||
| 8 | ,,0 | low double zero | low double | |
| 9 | ,,1 | low double one | ||
| 10 | ,,2 | low double two | ||
| 11 | ,,3 | low double three | ||
| 12 | ,,,0 | low triple zero | low triple | |
| 13 | ,,,1 | low triple one | ||
| 14 | ,,,2 | low triple two | ||
| 15 | ,,,3 | low triple three | ||
| 16 | ⸰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 | ⸰⸰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 | ⸰⸰⸰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 | '0 | high single zero | high single | |
| 29 | '1 | high single one | ||
| 30 | '2 | high single two | ||
| 31 | '3 | high single three | ||
| 32 | "0 | high double zero | high double | |
| 33 | "1 | high double one | ||
| 34 | "2 | high double two | ||
| 35 | "3 | high double three | ||
| 36 | "'0 | high triple zero | high triple | |
| 37 | "'1 | high triple one | ||
| 38 | "'2 | high triple two | ||
| 39 | "'3 | high triple three | ||
| 40 | "'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.