“I have only been playing the guitar since 1971. I pretty much for the most part have played about every thing that has appeared since the mid 70′s. I know that is nothing compared to the incredible amounts of intelligence most of todays 1nt4rw3b super geniuses have, but there it is.
Playability is not at all an objective measure, only you can determine whether or not a neck and/or fingerboard suits you. Sound? No difference at all in my experience. Play them both, pick the one you like the feel of, they’ll sound pretty much the same as they themselves can.” — RCT

“There won’t be a tremendous amount of difference in feel between the two, but a maple fingerboard will yield a slightly brighter sound.” — R. Whittington

“THERE MOST CERTAINLY IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAPLE, EBONY, AND ROSEWOOD FRETBOARDS, MAPLE YIELDING THE BRIGHTEST SOUND OF THE THREE, THEN ROSEWOOD, THEN EBONY, THEY ALL HAVE A DIFFERENT FEEL TOO, EBONY BEING THE SLICKEST FEELING OF THE THREE, NOTICEABLE WHEN USING VIBRATO WITH YOUR FINGERS, THEN MAPLE, THEN ROSEWOOD, YOU PROBABLY WON’T KNOW WHICH YOU PREFER UNTIL YOU’VE PAID YOUR DUES, AND FALLEN INTO YOUR PARTICULAR STYLE OF PLAYING, THAT WILL DETERMINE WHICH FRETBOARD IS RIGHT FOR YOU, I WOULD RECOMEND YOU GO WITH A ROSEWOOD FRETBOARD, ITS THE MIDDLE GROUND FRETBOARD IN MY OPINION, THEN AS YOU ADVANCE IN YOUR PLAYING TRY A MAPLE FRETBOARD, AND AN EBONY FRETBOARD, ONCE YOU HAVE SOME EXPERIENCE, YOU WILL KNOW WHICH ONE FEELS “RIGHT” FOR YOU, AND YOUR PLAYING STYLE. JUST MY OPINION” — PRS McCarty

As you can see the belief of what is offered by the varying guitar fretboards is debatable.  In my opinion that is a great thing because the idea of music is about feel.  Feeling the music and feeling the instrument.  Why is it Eric Clapton and John Mayer can both play Fender Strats but when you hear them you can totally distinguish which artist is playing without seeing them?  It is all about the feel that each has with their guitar and how each feels the music.  And for the feel … where does it come from?  It comes from the musician.  Carlos Santana once said that his sound is in ‘the fingers’.  Don’t over think the idea of which fretboard to get.  If it becomes too daunting to you think of the musician you most admire and the type of fretboard they use.  Sometimes the closes way to generate their sound is recreate their equipment but if you want to be your own musician … choose what feels and sounds good to you.

A great informational site on this subjects and others like it is www.suhrguitars.com.  Check it out for the woods and tones you get  with various string instruments.

Rosewood Fretboard

Maple Fretboard

Guest Blogger — Ken Tucker