Anatomy of a guitar

 

 

parts of a guitar – test (your sense of humour)

 

Which parts of a human and guitar are the same? (answers at the end)

Anatomy of the guitar

 

The Head/headstock and Tuning Keys

This part of guitar holds the Tuning Keys, sometimes called the Machine Heads (big thumbs up to all the Deep Purple fans). These hold the guitar strings under tension to produce the correct pitch. There are different types of headstock. Below are images of various headstocks

Nut

The nut is a small raised piece of material that holds the strings off the fretboard. It defines the scale length of the guitar. The scale length being the full length of a vibrating string, between the bridge and the nut. A guitar nut may be made of various materials, the most common being bone, plastic, ivory. You may also get a locking nut which helps keep the instrument in tune, particularly when using a Whammy Bar. These are 3 pieces of metal that hold 2 strings each, that lock using an Allen Key.

Neck/Fretboard

This is the part of the guitar where you place your fingers to produce music through the use of chords and single notes. On the neck, the frets indicate where your fingers should be placed to shorten the string length, raising the pitch of that particular string. Within the neck of modern electric guitars is a truss rod which strengthens the neck and prevents it from distorting and helps keep the strings in tune.  Material used for making the fretboard, again varies. Typically used would be rosewood, maple, ebony. Hardwood material is used to prevent the guitar bursting into flame when Eddie Van Halen or Steve Vai play!! I am not serious here, obviously I would not recommend it but if you do want to set fire to your guitar watch Jimi Hendrix at Monterey.

Position markers

Guitars have marker dots on the fretboard, these are duplicated on the side of the guitar neck. These visual markers tell a player where different frets are on the guitar. Imagine how hard it would be to find, let’s say, fret 11, without a visual guide.

The dots are usually marked at the 3^rd, 5^th, 7^th, 9^th and 12^th fret. The 12^th fret having 2 dots to indicate an octave above the open strings. On a 24 fret guitar, as in the picture above, the second set of markers show the next octave above the 12^th fret. Octaves are where the notes in a scale start to repeat. Look at the symmetry of the markers from the 12^th fret outward. The fret spaces are 3,2,2,2,3. The double markers of the 12^th fret also show where the half way point on the guitar neck is, from the bridge to the nut.

Sometimes guitars have inlays rather then dots, normally made from mother of pearl, abalone, or a similar material. Some guitars, like a Gibson Les Paul Custom also have an inlay on the 1^st fret, they then follow the above pattern.

Another great thing about markers is when playing with another guitarist. You can see where they are playing chords so you may play the same chord but in a different position, or an inversion of the chord being played.

 

 

Body

Electric guitars come with several body configurations, such as:-

Solid Body - Hollow Body - Semi Hollow

Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood. The most common wood used in the manufacture of electric guitar bodies are ash, maple, poplar, alder and basswood. Most are made of two pieces of wood. The body of a solid state guitar has to be routed during manufacture to accept the electronic components that will produce the sound through vibration, pick-ups and amplification.

Acoustic guitars have gone through many changes over the years. From Renaissance and Baroque guitars, to Classical, Flat-top, Archtop and even Dobro or Resonator type guitars.

Acoustic guitars produce sound through the sound hole in the guitar body. As the guitar is hollow, the sound resonates within the body of the guitar. The wood used in acoustic guitar manufacture tends to be spruce or cedar with the sides made from Indian or Brazilian rosewood, or mahogany. Martin guitars, is probably the best known acoustic guitar manufacturers. They first used strengthening within the guitar body and also introduced the ‘dreadnought’ style of acoustic guitar. These larger bodied acoustics gave a ‘larger’ sound. Dobro and Resonator guitar bodies tend to be made of metal or wood. A guitar student would not really start by learning on these instruments, so I will go into these further on another day.

Pick Guard

The Pickguard, sometimes called the Scratchplate, is normally made for a thin sheet of shaped plastic. It’s main purpose is to prevent damage to the finished surface of the guitar. On the guitars pictured above all have a pickguard fitted except the Ibanez (2^nd from left).

Pickups/Selector switch

Pickups are used to choose the tone of the guitar for a particular song. The pickup chosen are selected by using the switch which will provide a combination of tones through the pickups. The neck pickup provides a warm tone whilst the bridge pickup gives a brighter tone. The Selector switch, sometimes called a toggle switch, on differing guitars maybe a 3 way or a 5 way switch. The picture below shows the combination of the selector switch for the pickups on a 5 way switch guitar. You may also be able to set the selector switch in a mid position between two selections this gives on out of phase sound.

Controls

The control knobs on a guitar control the volume and tone coming from the pickups. only above picture you can see two tone control knobs under master volume this is a Stratocaster with the middle control knob controlling the neck pickup the lower control knob controlling the middle pickup the bridge pickup has no tone control.

Vibrato Bar

The Vibrato bar, also called the whammy bar, is part of a mechanical system which temporarily changes the pitch of the strings to create a vibrato effect. It may be also used in shred guitar playing to produce a pitch bend often called a dive-bombing effect. Vibrato systems for guitars were developed in the 1920s although but it became more popularly used from the 50s onwards when guitarist like Chet Atkins and the Ventures, the Shadows and Dick Dale used them, through the 60s and 70s guitarist like Jimi Hendrix Ritchie Blackmore David Gilmour and more up-to-date Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have used them.

Bridge

The bridge is a part of the guitar on the body that supports the strings. On acoustic guitar the bridge will usually sit in the saddle which is stuck to the body of the guitar and has a recess to accept the bridge.

Output Jack

A guitar lead is placed in the output chart to allow the output signal to travel from the guitar to the amplifier therefore allowing amplified sound through the speaker.

Strings

These come in a variety of sizes and also varying materials eg. nylon or nickel plated steel. Nylon is used on acoustic guitars although steel guitar strings may also be used. Electric guitars would not respond to nylon strings, however, there are some electric acoustic models today that employ nylon strings eg. Godin Multiac Encore Nylon Electric.

Below is a table of typical guitar string gauges. The thickness of the string tends to indicate the tone. Last year I watched a Youtube video where Rick Beato did a review that may dispel this theory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGXj_NQONYM  - have a listen, you decide!

And now the moment you have all been waiting for….

Answers – head, neck, finger, body, nuts and hole.

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