guitar (thing)

A guitar can be divided into three main parts:

The hollow body

The neck, which holds the frets

The head, which contains the tuning pegs

The most important piece of the body is the soundboard. This is the wooden piece mounted on the front if the guitar's body, and its job is to make the guitar's sound loud enough for us to hear. In the soundboard is a large hole called the sound hole. The hole is normally round and centered, but F-shaped pairs of holes, as in a violin, are sometimes seen. Attached to the soundboard is a piece called the bridge which acts as the anchor for one end of the six strings. The bridge has a thin, hard piece embedded in it called the saddle, which is the piece that the strings rest against.

What Does a guitar look like?

Alot of guitars vary in appearance, however your common acoustic and electrical guitar look as follows:

   
                          _____                            _-_
                         q o o p                         +|\G/|+
          The head  --   q o!o p                         +|\ /|+   -- The head
                         d o!o b                         +|\ /|+
                          \!!!/                           `|H|'
                          |===|                            |H|
                          |!!!|                            |H|
                          |!!!|                            |H|   -- The neck
           The neck  --   |!!!|                            |H|
                          |!!!|                            |H|
                          |!!!|                            |H|
                         _|!!!|__                          |H|
                       .+=|!!!|--.`.                 _-_   |H|   _-_
                     .'   |!!!|   `.\               /   \  |H|  /   \
                    /     !===!     \\              |    \_|H|_/    |
                    |    /|!!!|\    ||              \      |H|      /
                     \   \!!!!!/   //                \     |H|     /
The body --           )   `==='   ((                  |            |
                    .'    !!!!!    `..               /     ===      \   -- The body
                   /      !!!!!      \\             /      ===  !    \
                  |       !!!!!       ||           |            |  o  |
                  |       !!!!!       ||           |       ---  /   o |
                  |       !!!!!       ||           \       ___ /   o  /
                   \     =======     //             \     |   |     l/
                    `.    ooooo    .;'               `-____\_/_____-"
                      `-._______.-'

Playing the Guitar

The guitar is played by plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum. When the strings are plucked, they vibrate. The vibrations travel through the saddle, to the bridge and then to the sound board.

Frets are metal pieces cut into the fingerboard at specific distances. By pressing a string down onto a fret, you change the length of the string and therefore the pitch produced when it vibrates. The strings are tuned E A D G B e (E = second E below middle C; e = E above middle C). The player's left-hand fingers stop the strings at the appropriate frets to produce the desired pitches; the right-hand fingers pluck the strings. Some metal-strung guitars are plucked with a small flat plectrum, or pick.