A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard. On historical instruments and some non-European instruments, pieces of string tied around the neck serve as frets.
Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework. On instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system where one octave is divided into twelve semitones.
"To fret" is often used as a verb, meaning simply "to press down the string behind a fret." Fretting often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement.
Read more about Fret: Explanation, Variations, Semi-fretted Instruments, Fret Intonation, Fret Wear, Fret Buzz
Famous quotes containing the word fret:
“O Master, let me walk with thee
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me thy secret; help me bear
The strain of toil, the fret of care;”
—Washington Gladden (1836–1918)
“Cassius. Must I endure all this?
Brutus. All this? Ay, more! Fret till your proud heart break.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that’s the angels’ pasture; they are happy; they don’t have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)