Lesson #1: Parts of a guitar

Guitar beginners need to learn to identify the parts of a guitar and understand how to use them. If your guitar needs repair, you will need to describe the parts to a technician, and if you're a do-it-yourself type of person you'll need a thorough understanding of guitar anatomy so you can do your own setup work and repair.
Besides, how can you brag to your friends about the cool features on your guitar if you don't know what they're called?

So let's start from the headstock down. Or skip down to the video showing parts of a guitar.

The head stock is where the guitar is tuned. Tuning is done by turning the six tuning pegs or tuners. There is one peg for each string. [Tuning the guitar will be covered in a separate page.] The entire mechanism of the six tuning pegs, including the screws and fixtures, are the tuning machines.

To the right of the pegs is the white nut of the guitar, a plastic white bar with six slits in it that the strings pass through. The nut holds the strings in place and keeps them slightly raised off the fingerboard.

The next part of the guitar is the neck, the long part of the guitar connecting the headstock to the guitar body. The surface of the neck where the guitar is played is the fingerboard, which is divided into frets. The frets consist of thin metal strips that mark off the notes that are played on the fingerboard by one-half step each. The photo below shows the first, second, third and fourth frets.

Of all the parts of a guitar, the guitar body is the largest. This is where the tone and volume are generated. The flat part of the guitar which contains the sound hole is the top. Guitar tops are "flat-top" or "archtop." The guitar to the right is a flat-top. An arch-top guitar has a contour in the top
and produces a different tone quality than a flat-top.

The sound hole is the hole in the guitar body that produces the sound. Moving further down toward the tail end of the guitar you'll see the bridge, where the strings are anchored. The bridge controls the height of the strings on the guitar and aligns them much in the same way as the nut does. You'll learn more about the bridge in the section on Tuning Your Guitar. Finally, you have the tailpiece at the end of the guitar, which anchors the bridge if it is a removable one. A fixed bridge will just be glued to the guitar top. The tailpiece will also have a small knob where you can attach one end of your guitar strap.

The distance between the strings at the twelfth fret and the fingerboard is called the action and this is critical to the guitarist. The action should be a comfortable distance, enabling speed and ease of playing. If the strings are too high from the fingerboard, they will be really hard to play, and they won't sound quite right either. In many guitars the bridge is adjustable just so that you can adjust and lower the action.