Nov 16

Basic Parts of an Electric Guitar: A Closer Look

Here are some basic parts of an electric guitar that I know.

Well, I don’t really know whether they’re basic or advanced or whatever, but they’re parts of the electric guitar.So, let’s just say “Here are the parts of an electric guitar.”

Fine with you?

Fine with me.

Okay, so we start from top to bottom.

Headstock

First is the headstock. It is that piece of wood attached to the top of the fretboard. It holds the tuning pegs.

Tuning Pegs

The tuning pegs are what keep your guitar in good sound, in good tune. The tuning pegs are those six(or seven for others) pegs align through the headstock.

Truss Rod

The truss rod is a rod made of metal that runs along the inside of the neck. This is only visible on some instruments, so I’d rather not talk about this very much.

Nut

The nut. I call this the 0th(zeroeth?) fret or simply fret 0, because it goes before the 1st fret, but that’s just for me. I don’t know if the same is true for others. The nut is that small strip of plastic, corian, graphite, bone, stainless steel, or other semi-hard material. It is found between the headstock and the neck. As I see, and I bet you too, it is there to align the strings properly.

Neck

The long part of the instrument, which I used to call the arm, is actually called the neck. (I still think it’s closer to an arm than to a neck, except to a giraffe’s neck of course.) On the neck is the fretboard, which is composed of frets and fret markers.

Frets

The frets are those metal ridges along the guitar where you press the strings on to produce different notes. (Don’t press your fingers exactly above the frets, though, We’ll tackle this later on.)

Fretmarkers / Inlays

The fretmarkers or inlays can be found on the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 21st fret. These are mostly filled circles-big dots, but come in different designs on different guitars, especially the custom-mades.(Am I right with the plural?) Why are they there? Fret Markers indicate which fret is where on the fretboard. They can make it easier for a guitar player to know where to go. The neckjoint is that point at which the neck meets the body of the guitar. In electric guitars, the neck is mostly bolted and glued to the body. I don’t have the image because the neckjoint is found at the back of the guitar. I assume you know already what the purpose of this is.

Body

Okay, so we go to the body. This is what makes your electric guitar as heavy as it is. The body is the part of the guitar which holds the pickups, the bridge, strap holders, strings, the volume/tone controls, the pickup switch, and the tremolo inputs. It is made of some type of wood, and comes in different colors.

Pickups

Pickup. I hope I make it this time. The magnetic fluctuations in the area around it is picked up by the pickup. Ahh, I’m still having difficulty explaining this, so please bear with me. It is located above the body, under the strings, pretty easy to find, eh?

Pickup Selector Switch

The pickup selector switch, located near the pickup and the volume/tone controls. Toggling this switch can produce different types of sound. Try to experiment, and choose what sound you like.

Control Knobs

The volume/tone controls / control knobs, as the name implies, control the volume, and the tone. For home use, minimal volume is recommended, unless there are no other people in the neighborhood except yourself. Again, experiment with the tone control to get what your ears desire.

Bridge

The bridge is the part where the strings lay at the body end of the guitar. I don’t know much about the bridge, but basically that’s it.

Tremolo Arm

There are electric guitars that have a tremolo arm, which is sometimes called a whammy arm or a vibrato bar, or simply trem. This is a lever that is attached to the bridge and it is able to tighten or slacken temporarily the strings. In that way, the pitch of the strings is changed.

Output Jack