The guitar is a versatile instrument, which means you can learn four chords and end up playing a few thousand songs. In this blog, you’ll be learning from Tony Das – celebrated guitarist and famous musician who has performed with well-known bands for two decades, and also worked with leading Bollywood music directors on film scores and movie songs. He is a music teacher with the Demoz School of Music.

To begin with, we’ll explore the parts of a guitar. This is important as there shouldn’t be any confusion in later posts when we reference a certain part of the guitar while outlining a particular action to be performed.

Parts of a Guitar

The major part of an acoustic guitar is the body which is made up of wood. On top of this you have the soundboard which plays the largest role in the tone of a guitar, apart from its strings. The hole in the centre is aptly referred to as the sound hole. The sound goes in from the strings, reverberates inside the body, gets amplified and is then projected back out.

Around the sound hole you’ll find an ornamental piece called the rosette which is optional and not present in all guitars. Attached to the rosette is a pick guard made of nylon or plastic. It prevents the wood of the guitar body from getting scratched by the plectrum when you’re strumming the guitar, especially on the downstrokes.

Next, we have the bridge which fastens to the body and lets you anchor the strings. The assembly consists of a saddle made of plastic or metallic alloys. This allows the strings to pass over it in a clean manner towards the head stock end of the guitar. The bridge pins hold the strings down and go over the ball (cylindrical) end of the string.

The neck of the guitar has the fretboard/fingerboard and the fret wires. The space between the fret wires is referred to as the fret. Frets allow us to change the pitch by holding down the string at a particular position and shortening its length.

The strings pass through small grooves in the plastic piece referred to as the nut, near the head stock, and finally into the six tuning posts. By turning the tuning post and increasing the tension in the string, we can increase the frequency of vibration and change the pitch of the string.

The final part of the guitar is the strings. This is where the tone originates and where we will have to do the maximum manipulation while playing a guitar. That completes your introduction to learning guitar. Understanding these parts is an essential step in learning to play the guitar.

Keep your guitar beside you, read through this post again and learn its various parts and their function. The next blog post covers tuning the guitar which is again a fundamental knowledge or skill to possess. If your guitar is out of tune, then none of the notes, scales or chords will make sense to you as the sounds may be jarring instead of melodic or pleasing. Continue reading and begin your journey to go from beginner to playing your favourite songs.