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Basic Music Theory:

Parts of a Guitar : Body, Head, Pick ups, Bridge

Tuesday, 23 December 2008



Parts of a guitar:

(many other illustrations are present in the pfd at the bottom of the page)


The guitar is made up of two main parts: a body and a neck. The large rounded hollow (acoustic) or solid (electric) part of the guitar is its body. The long piece of wood attached to the body is the neck. The junction is the neck joint. There is usually a groove into the body for better access to the higher frets - these guitars are called “cutaway guitars.


The top part of the neck bearing keys (used to tune and hold the strings) is called the “head” or “machine head”. The strings are threaded through attaching points on or behind the bridge and then through holes in the “keys” or “turning pegs”. They and tightened are turned to tune them with each other.


The face of the body for an acoustic guitar has one central round) or two (f-shaped on either side) holes for the sound to come out. The electric guitars have “pickups” (magnets to capture the vibrations of the strings) placed just below the strings. The bridge is an elevated piece of material that touches the strings and creates a point of contact from which the strings vibrate. Referring to the previous chapter, the point of the string touching the bridge is one of its nodes. The bridge also transfers the vibrations from the strings to the resonator body of the acoustic guitars.


The body also has effect controls in electrics guitars and a “pick guard” (to prevent repeated scratches from the guitar pick damaging the body). The strings are picked by a piece of plastic called the guitar pick or plectrum.

Continue......(part 2)

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BasicMusicTheory Tip:

Always tune your guitar before you start playing. Practicing on out-of-tune one makes you sound poorer than you actually are as well as wrecks your ear training....Tune your guitar here now (methods and useful links); that's why the pro guitarists sound so good.....
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