Beginner Guitar Lesson 1 – Parts of a Guitar
Understanding the parts of a guitar isn’t so much about being a better guitar player as it is about being able to recognize particular key terms when they come up in later lessons or in conversations with other guitar players.
The key parts to remember about the guitar are:
Tuning Pegs & Keys: These are on the head stock of the guitar (See video above). Your strings are wrapped around these and they are used to adjust the tension on the strings. A tighter string will play a higher pitched sound.
Nut: This is the small white piece (looks like bone) where the neck meets the head stock of your guitar. The nut holds the strings off the surface of the fret board. Because the strings are not touching down on the fret board is the reason they can create those beautiful sounds. If the strings were touching the fret board what would occur is the strings wouldn’t vibrate because the fret board would stop this from happening.
Bridge & Neck: The neck, is known as the long piece that connects to the body of your guitar. The fret board is the top part of the neck. The number of frets on most guitars can vary. The one I’m playing in the video has 20 frets on it. Notice the small dots on your guitar, these are markers that let you know which fret you’re playing on and make it easy to identify a particular from while looking down at your guitar. Markers are normally at frets 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12.
Sound Hole: All acoustic and semi hallow guitars have a sound hole, how ever few electric guitars do. The sound hole is what generates the noise from the vibration of the strings on your guitar. When the strings vibrate over the wood on your guitar the vibrations travel around inside the body of the guitar and exit via the sound hole. If the hole wasn’t there the sound would be reduced quite a bit from an acoustic guitar.
Instead of a sound hole most electric guitars have pickups. These electric devices pick up the vibrations of the strings over top of them and translate that into a signal that travels from the electric guitar out the patch chord and into an amplifier.
Bridge: The bride is where the strings connect on the body of the guitar. It also serves to raise the strings up off the body of the guitar, similar to how the nut raises the strings off the neck.
Understanding the parts of a guitar is important, so take today to familiarize yourself with them. Once you’re up to speed and know all the names go ahead and move onto Lesson 2 on guitar hand position. This will introduce you to the good technique and form you want to use as you learn guitar.
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