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Topic: Fretboard ? Fingerboard ? |
Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 15 Aug 2009 9:44 am |
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These two terms seem to be used interchangeably on our instrument, but neither is accurate.
Most steel guitars don't have frets as other instruments do. They're usually painted on. Those that have real frets are not used as frets.
Fingerboard is closer, but we don't touch the board with our fingers.
The terminology has been used for far too long now to ever be changed. Nevertheless, I've been thinking of what term would more accurately describe its purpose.
Scalemarker ?
Note ruler ?
Sounding Length Gauge ?
Position Scale ?
Pulling ourselves away from our training. If we had never seen a steel guitar before, and had only been labelling up dashboards of aircraft, or meters on machines, what would we call it ?
It's main function, like a ruler, is a scale.
Scalemeter ?
Scalometer ? |
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Jerry Overstreet
From:
Louisville Ky
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Posted 15 Aug 2009 11:15 am
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I guess I don't follow your logic. Fretboard seems like a perfect description. Painted on, silk screened, gouged out or hammered in they're still fret markers. A roadmap to navigate the neck. Why try to inject further confusion and mystery into the steel guitar world?
Maybe just put a blank one on there, or none, and learn how to play in perfect tune without any diagrams ala the violin family.
Maybe we could rename the neck while we're at it, since it's technically not a neck on many steels. Call it the slab or the elevation or protrusion....?
Come to think of it, except for some lap steels, they really don't resemble a guitar all that much as many people stare in consternation on their first sighting.
How about Waldo Otto's description as the electric table?
Last edited by Jerry Overstreet on 15 Aug 2009 12:59 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Bill Ford
From:
Graniteville SC Aiken
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Posted 15 Aug 2009 11:16 am
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Scale/scaleboard....ie, strings 4,5,6 at the fifth line, no pedals "A" chord.
I think we ought to leave it like it is, I"m confuser enough already.
Bill
_________________
Bill Ford S12 CLR, S12 Lamar keyless, Misc amps&toys Sharp Covers
Steeling for Jesus now!!! |
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Glen Derksen
From:
Alberta, Canada
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Posted 15 Aug 2009 11:29 am
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| Personally, I prefer the term fretboard, because even though the frets aren't really true wire frets, they are fret markers. What I don't like is when people call them a keyboard, because they don't have keys like a piano. |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 15 Aug 2009 1:39 pm
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| Jerry Overstreet wrote: |
| ...Come to think of it, except for some lap steels, they really don't resemble a guitar all that much as many people stare in consternation on their first sighting... |
Technically speaking, from the musicologists' perspective, the steel guitar is a member of the zither family, since the strings pass over the entire body and are anchored at each end. I say zither rather than psaltery, because a psaltery has unstopped strings, whereas a zither's strings are stopped, in this case with a tone bar.
On the other hand, one of the requirements of a zither is that the strings pass over the soundbox, but most steel guitars don't have a soundbox.
The only reason we call a steel guitar a guitar is because of its origins as a regular guitar played with a bar. But all the things that make a guitar differ from other string instruments, such as the cittern, banjo, etc., have long disappeared in the electric steel guitar. The same argument goes for the electric guitar, of course, which is no longer any more a guitar than it is a cittern, since the only thing defining a cittern, as opposed to a guitar, is its lack of an upper bout... but many electric guitars have no upper bout...  |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 15 Aug 2009 3:01 pm
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| I don't see a problem with naming things after what they evolved from. It evolved from a guitar, not a zither. The fretboard evolved from a guitar fretboard, and it still has fret markers that we call frets. And the neck is what the fretboard sits on, and what connects to the body. Maybe we shouldn't try to overthink this. |
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Bryan Daste
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 16 Aug 2009 3:34 am
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Yeah, wouldn't you say something like, "Play open at the 8th fret, then slide to the 3rd fret with pedals down.."?
They're still referred to as frets even though there's no physical piece of fretwire there. Still makes sense to me. |
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John Billings
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 16 Aug 2009 6:37 am
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| Uh,,, you're holding the fret in your left hand. You move the "fret" when required. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 16 Aug 2009 9:48 am
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| No, that's a bar, that you move around over the fret markers. Violinists fret with their fingers. What is the fret, their finger, or the spot on the neck where they make contact? A true fret is something anchored to the neck of the instrument. Technically a steel guitar is fretless. But we still have the fret markers as guides. This is an instrument evolved out of the fretted guitar tradition. Its pioneers in both playing and manufacturing adapted the terminology of that tradition early on, and it is extremely unlikely at this late date that anyone will change that, no matter how technically correct the new suggestions might be. But it's still evolving, so who knows? |
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Tony Glassman
From:
The Great Northwest
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Posted 16 Aug 2009 11:24 am
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| fauxret board |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 16 Aug 2009 11:25 am
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Which is better ? Fretboard or Fingerboard ?
We have a similar problem with machine head/tuning head/tuners. Does the term "machine head" refer to just the tuners, or the whole assembly of the peghead, with the slots or support ?
I bring these things up because I've been studying luthiery and musical instrument history most of my life, and I communicate a lot about instrument construction. I have to be careful that what I write is universally comprehensible, which it isn't always. 
Dave, you're right about the reference to violinists "fretting" with their fingers, although the violin/viola/violoncello/bass very rarely have frets. I think that, in the case of those instruments, the terminology comes from the instruments from which they were derived, the viols, which had tied frets like a lute.
There is a lot of misnaming that has gone on over the years in the musical field. A good example is the word "dulcimer", which has been applied to fretted zithers and even xylophones, whereas the original dulcimer is the instrument we now refer to as the "hammered dulcimer", which is, in fact a hammered psaltery, as is the piano.... |
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