Do you refer to it as a "fretboard" or a "fingerboard"?

[aarontunes]

Doing a little research. Here is what I want to know: Do you refer to the part of the neck your fingertips touch as a "fretboard" or a "fingerboard"?

 

[Rick]

violins have fingerboards and no frets. Most guitars have frets, hence fretboards.  Ultimately, I don't think it matters.

 

[Day-mun]

Yeah, I was gonna say that it depends upon whether or not there are frets present. My guitars have fretboards, my basses have fingerboards. Collectively, they have 'boards.  :laughing7:

 

[DocNrock]

I think the above answers are more accurate.  I tend to use the terms interchangeably.

 

[Cagey]

I call it a "fretboard" because it's a board that has frets in it. But, that's just how I roll.

If it was made of fingers or had them in it, I might call it a "fingerboard", although that would be a somewhat disgusting thing. Kinda like Girl Scout cookies. Who makes cookies out of Girl Scouts?

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Both. So didn't vote.

 

[stratamania]

More often fingerboard. Which may or may not have frets.

Although fretboard works too and certainly is just another name.

 

[line6man]

The terms are not interchangeable. Fretboards are for fretted instruments, fingerboards are for fretless instruments.

 

[Day-mun]

"What.
Does.
My.
Bass.
Neck.
Look like?"

"Fretboard!? -Fretboard ain't nothin' I ever played on! -They play flat-wounds on fretboard? -Say fretboard one more *explicative* time! -I dare you! -I double-dog dare You..."

 

[AutoBat]

All fretboards are fingerboards but not all fingerboards are fretboards.

 

[Cagey]

Favorite movie ever. Except "Aliens".

 

[sixstringsamurai]

The terms are not interchangeable. Fretboards are for fretted instruments, fingerboards are for fretless instruments.

This. :icon_thumright:

 

[stratamania]

The terms are not interchangeable. Fretboards are for fretted instruments, fingerboards are for fretless instruments.

This. :icon_thumright:

You certainly cannot call a violins fingerboard a fretboard. So is not interchangeable.

However the term fingerboard is and has been in use for instruments for a long time for instruments such as the guitar which usually has frets and there it is interchangeable.

Which raises another question, in which geographic areas are both in use or not ?

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Fingerboards got more sustain.

 

[Rick]

I started off in the blue grass world playing the banjo and everything was a peg head then 15 years later I played nothing but guitar and they had head stocks now ... For me it was the genre ... I bet there is a geographical component but I haven't traveled enough ... I betcha in the remote piney woods of Appalachia they call them thar' tings pegheads, but I don't know.  I've never gotten out of my car there, always just passing thru.

 

[Day-mun]

Hey, Rick, -I think ya meant to say that on the thread next door...  :laughing7:

 

[Rick]

Stratman brought up a good point on geography, but I got confused.  As long as I don't call a Peg Head, a fretboard, I'm in good shape.

 

[Day-mun]

:toothy12: :toothy12: :toothy12:

 

[MikeW]

Favorite movie ever. Except "Aliens".

"They mostly come at night. Mostly..."

[shivers....]

Best. Sci-Fi. Movie. Ever.

 

[Cagey]

Best. Sci-Fi. Movie. Ever.

No doubt. I own 6 Blue-Ray disks, and that's one of them. The other 5 are the rest of the "Alien" series, and "Pulp Fiction".