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How To Find The Right Guitar For You

The Parts Of The Guitar

Make Your Guitar Easier To Play

Electric Or Acoustic

Expensive Vs Cheap Guitars

Reading Notation For The Guitar

Tablature and Staff Notation

Reading Tablature

How To Read Chord And Scale Diagrams

Electronic Tuners

The Well Tempered Guitar

Note Names On The Neck

Major Scales in 'A'

Pentatonic Scales in 'A'

Open Chords

Notes And Scales

List Of Guitar Techniques

Bending Strings

Muting Strings

How To Count Rhythms

How Read Music By Ear

This page gives a quick overview of the major parts of guitar. We have used an electric for these examples. Acoustic guitars have similar parts.

The Headstock - This photo shows the tuning pegs. The string tree is the metal piece above the 'Fender' decal. This maintains a downward pressure on the E and B strings, which are the longest two strings. The nut is shown on the left side of the photo. The area of string between the nut and the bridge is the area which vibrates and produces sound.

Pickups - The guitar pickups amplify the sound from the strings. When playing, you should pick or strum over the pickups.

The Stratocaster has three pickups.

The pickup nearest the bridge has the brightest, most treble tone. The pickup nearest the neck has the warmest, most bass tone.

This is true of all electric guitars.

Volume and Tone Controls - The volume and tone controls on a Stratocaster-style guitar look like this. There is no tone control for the back pickup (nearest the bridge).

Bridge - The bridge on an electric guitar has screws that adjust the height of the strings off the neck, and another set of screws that adjusts the length of the string.

The precise string length is essential to the correct tuning of the guitar. You should let someone with experience set this.

й 2010 Greg Varhaug
www.HoustonGuitar.Com
info@houstonguitar.com