The Parts Of The Guitar
If you don’t want to look like a total dufus in front of your friends you may as well get to know the parts of the guitar, So here goes:
THE HEAD Is at the top of the neck, just like yours, except the guitar’s head contains the MACHINE HEADS for tuning the instrument.
The guitar strings are stretched between the head and the BRIDGE and are kept tight by the machine heads. The strings go from the machine heads to the nut which serves as a guide for the strings. The nut is a small strip of hard plastic, bone or metal which keeps the strings in place on the fret board.
The FRET BOARD is flat at the top and curved at the back. When a string is held by the fingers against a FRET the string’s vibrating length is made shorter to make a higher sound.
The Frets are strips of metal set along the fret board to divide into the necessary lengths to create musical notes.
In an acoustic guitar, like the one in the picture, the sound is made by the body. In an electric guitar the sound of the strings is picked up by a one, two or three microphones known as pickups which carry the sound to the guitar’s amplifier.
The BRIDGE anchors the guitar strings and, in an acoustic guitar, transfers the sound to the body of the guitar.
