The type of woods used in the construction of a guitar are one of the three determinants of the tone of the guitar... and is equally as important as pickups. To start with I will explain the question regarding fretboard woods then I will explain the guitar woods as a whole... The most popular fretboard woods are rosewood and maple... ebony IS rosewood... its just a choice cut that is taken from the center of the tree instead of near the outside... making it slightly denser. There are different types of maple as well as different types of rosewood which vary in densities, price, look and so on... but to alleviate confusion I won't get into that... Maple is the more dense than rosewood. Dense woods transfer vibrations through all frequency ranges better than less-dense woods because the fibers of the wood are closer together (obviously) giving maple a brighter tone than rosewood. Rosewood is less dense and therefor transfers less vibrational frequencies due to the more spreadout fiber/molecular structure... this gives it a low frequency range and gives the wood a deeper, warmer tone... Also, you have to look at the neck wood in itself... if the neck is a one piece maple, maple with rosewood fretboard... or mahogany with rosewood fretboard... it makes a difference in tone. As for playability... its an opinion thing. Most blues musicians like the rosewood because its "softer" than maple. Maple... in my opinion plays faster than any type of rosewood... As for the overall tone of a guitar... the same applies. Mahogany, Ash, Basswood, Poplar, and Alder are all popular tone woods for electric guitars... there are others but those are the main ones used by all manufacturers... Mahogany is the most dense which makes it very heavy... this also makes it the warmest souding... and the brightest sounding... this is slightly different than the neck woods. The density of the wood also carries the vibrational frequencies better throughout the wood giving it the best sustain of all woods. Still, some people dont like the sound of mahogany or the extra weight on the shoulder... The other woods I listed are all pretty similar to each other... they're less dense than mahogany but all are very good tone woods. Adler, Ash, and Poplar are known to get the Strat tone... and Basswood is a light wood that is used in a lot of shred guitars to substitute for the heavier mahogany.... thats a simple breakdown of how wood reflects tone... if you want to know more about the science of it all contact me... but I don't feel the need to go into it further.