THE EQUIPMENT
• A handcrafted birchwood game board that represents the neck of a guitar and the first 12 frets.• 84 music chips, 78 of which match the 78 notes on the game board.
• 2 Fretters reference sheets to help you match the music chips to the spaces on the board as you play.
• A chord chart and scale located on the underside of the box top.
• A pair of dice.
GLOSSARY OF A FEW TERMS• picked: a space on the game board is "picked" when a letter-side-up music chip ends a move by landing on a space of its matching notation. The music chip is turned notation side up.
• mute: a letter-side-up music chip is "muted" when another music chip of matching music notation ends a move by landing on it. The muted chip is removed from the board.
• open strings: the term "open string" refers to the sound the string makes when no fingers are placed on the guitar neck. The string is played "open". The open string notes are represented by the blue section of the game board.
• frets: a guitar neck has about 20 frets. The 20th fret is right next to the large sound hole, the 1st fret is at the other end next to the tuning knobs. Just in back of each fret is where your fingers are placed when the fingers of your other hand strum or pluck the strings.
In between the natural notes F and G is the F sharp note (F#). This note can also be referred to as G flat (Gb). There are several other sharp and flat notes on the game board. They are not included on the reference sheets but at a glance are easily located.
GAME SETUP
Before the start of the game the two players decide how many frets of the game they will play. The example to the right is the setup for a 2-fret game (see "Playing Less Frets"). Music chips of the first two frets and open string section (blue section) are placed on the spaces of their matching notation. Those chips are then removed from the board and divided by color for the two players to begin playing. (The game begins with no music chips on the board.)WINNING
To win the game, you must be the first player
to have all the notes of a string PICKED.
The player PURPLE has won a 4-fret game (see "Playing Less Frets") by PICKING all the notes of the B string. PLAYING
• One player takes RED and the other PURPLE music chips. RED starts first and rolls the dice.
• Beginning on the 12th fret side (right side) of the board, player RED chooses a music chip from his/her collection and moves it, letter-side-up, the number of spaces indicated by the dice. The spaces on which to move are on the silver lines in between the brown fret lines.
Player RED has started the game by rolling a seven and moved a D music chip seven spaces. • A music chip begins its move on any space of the 12th fret. The chip moves in any direction horizontally or vertically.
• You may not cross over the same space twice or land on a space you already crossed over during the same move. You may land on or cross over spaces that you landed on or crossed over in previous moves.
• Select any music chip you like from your collection to move during a turn.• You may move across other chips that are letter-side-up, but must move around chips that are notation-side-up — PICKED notes.
• A player may move a music chip off the board and play it again at a later time. The chip must exit from the 12th fret side of the board — the side that you started from.
The side of the music chip showing the music notation is right side up when the cut-out flat portion of the label is at the bottom.
PICKING AN OPEN STRING
• The blue section of the board represents the OPEN STRINGS of the guitar. A player will PICK an OPEN STRING when landing on it at the end of a move with a music chip of its matching music notation. The chip is then turned notation side up.° Your music chip must be the same note as your open string note — your “B” chip must land in the blue section of the “B” string to PICK it. An “E” chip cannot pick a “B” string.
Player PURPLE has PICKED the open B string. The B chip is turned notation side up. PICKING NOTES
• Once you have PICKED an OPEN STRING, you can now pick the other notes on that string.
• You do not have to pick the other notes in any particular order.• If a letter-side-up chip occupies a space that has matching music notation, it can be picked — chip turned notation side up — in place of the player's roll of the dice.
• Another player may pick a note that is occupied by a letter-side-up chip. The letter-side-up chip is removed from the board and can be played again later.• If a picked note of an open string (blue section) is forced to move off its space by an undercover octave chip (see “Undercover Octave Chips”), the player cannot pick any of the other notes on that string until the open string is picked again by the player.
MUTING NOTES
• A player can mute (remove) a letter-side-up music chip by landing on it with a letter-side-up chip of the same music notation. The muted chip is removed from the board and can be played again later.
These E chips are of the same music notation (same octave). • If the two chips do not have identical music notation, the landing chip is removed from the board and can be played again later. Only chips of the same letter note can attempt to mute one another.
These E chips DO NOT have the same music notation (different octave). • Players may mute their own music chips from the board for strategic reasons.
• A player does not have to reveal the music notation of a chip to the opponent unless it lands on another chip or is landed on by another chip.
UNDERCOVER OCTAVE CHIPS
Octave comes from the Greek word for “eight”. An octave is the distance between two notes with the same name, eight notes apart in a scale. The distance from one C to the next C – either direction – is an octave. The same rule applies to all the other notes.• Both players have six UNDERCOVER OCTAVE CHIPS: three 8va chips and three 8va bassa chips. These are the only music chips in Fretters that can force chips on picked notes to move off their spaces.
• When an 8va chip lands on a (notation side up) picked note, the picked chip must move to a space one octave HIGHER and is turned letter-side-up.
• When an 8va bassa chip lands on a picked note, the picked chip must move to a space one octave LOWER and is turned letter-side-up.
• Some notes have more than one octave. The player who used the octave chip decides which space the opponent’s music chip will move to.
An undercover 8va octave chip has forced a PICKED A note to move up one octave to the 2nd string, 10th fret. Another option was moving it to the 1st string, 5th fret. • If there is no space on the board to move one octave, the chip is removed from the board and can be played again.
• When a PICKED CHIP is forced to move one octave and lands on a letter-side-up chip of the same music notation, the letter-side-up chip is muted — removed from the board. If the letter-side-up chip is NOT of the same music notation, the landing chip is muted and removed from the board.
• When a letter-side-up octave chip lands on another chip, the octave chip is turned octave-symbol-side-up — EXPOSED — and continues to play until it is removed from the board.
• If a music chip lands on a letter-side-up octave chip, the landing chip is removed from the board and the octave chip is turned octave-symbol-side-up — EXPOSED.
• Once an octave chip is exposed, the opponent can CAPTURE it by landing on it with any chip. The octave chip is out of play for the duration of the game.
• An undercover octave chip can only land on music chips that are PICKED (notation side up chips) and other EXPOSED OCTAVE CHIPS.
• Players may land a music chip on their own exposed octave chip to remove it from the board and can play it again later. Also, an octave chip may be used to force a player’s own picked chip to move one octave up or down the board.• Only one each of the octave chips are used by each player when playing frets one, two, three, or four (see Playing Less Frets); two each are used when playing frets five, six, seven, or eight; and all three each are used when playing frets nine, ten, eleven, or twelve.
PLAYING LESS FRETS
• Playing all 12 frets of Fretters can be a long, involved, calculating experience! And sometimes impossible to finish the game. It is recommended that you play a lesser number of frets. A good game is five or six frets.• The minimum number of frets that can be played is one – the open strings (blue section) and the adjacent first fret.
• The space on which you start is always on any space of the 12th fret, regardless of how many frets of the board are being played.
OTHER FUN GAMES
To play Fretters Keepers, play Fretters as described above but rather than returning muted chips to the players to be played again, they are kept by the opponents for the duration of the game.No Dice
To play No Dice, the players alternate one move at a time – similar to checkers.Domino Fretters
To play Domino Fretters, the music chips are separated by color and placed in separate paper bags or bowls.• Player RED randomly slects a chip and places it on a matching space.
• Player RED then selects another chip and, if possible, places it on a matching space adjacent to the first chip — above, below, or to either side.• Player RED continues this process until he/she is either unable to or chooses not to place a music chip on the board (the player may withhold chips and place them on the board during a later turn).
• The turn is then passed to player PURPLE. The process alternates between players.
• At any time during a player's turn he/she may place as many of the drawn chips as possible next to the other chips on the board.
• Chips may be placed on the board adjacent to chips of either color, and chips of both colors may occupy a same space.
• The first player to place a music chip on every space of the board wins.
• For a quicker game play less number of frets.
• Undercover octave chips are not used when playing Domino Fretters.
Tic-Tac-Chords
Version 1:
• Each player gathers his/her chips that match the notes of the first 6 frets and the open strings (blue section) of the board.
• Two undercover octave chips are selected before the start of the game.• Both players take turns placing a music chip on its matching note on the board.
• Chips of both colors may occupy the open string spaces (blue section), but only one color at a time may occupy the fret notes (spaces).
• Undercover octave chips can only be used once and can only remove picked chips of their same matching letter note. (Sharp and flat notes are immune.)• Removed music chips are kept for the duration of the game.
• The first player to place chips on all the notes that complete a chord wins.
Player PURPLE has won by placing music chips on the spaces of the E minor chord.
Version 2:
• Similar to version 1 except the music chips of both colors may occupy the same spaces of the board.• When a chord is completed, the player who completed the chord collects all the chips from that chord which cannot be played again.
• The game continues until the players run out of chips. The player who collects the most chips wins.
HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS:
1. Playing Fretters is easier and more enjoyable once you have memorized the location of every note on the game board. You can achieve this by placing the chips to the open strings, notation-side-up, next to the board and quickly place them, letter-side-up, on the matching spaces of the board. Remove them from the board and do it again. Repeat this about a zillion times.
After a while, incorporate the chips to the notes on the first fret. Do this another one zillion times.
Slowly and incrementally add a few more chips until you know the placement of all 78 music chips on the board about as well as you know the spelling of your first name. This might seem difficult, but really it's a piece of cake.
2. If you are used to playing a certain number of frets, for example 1 - 5, then, when you are through playing, store the music chips to those spaces separately from the other chips. The next time you play, your setup will be quick and easy.3. For more information about Fretters, and a lot of other neat stuff about music and musicians, visit the Fretters website at www.Fretters.com.
4. Have fun!
Fretters
P.O. Box 24553
San Jose, CA 95154
USA
