Parts of an Electric Guitar

By Jon Chappell from Rock Guitar For Dummies

All guitars share certain characteristics that make them behave like guitars and not violins or
tubas. Understanding the anatomy of an electric guitar is important for understanding how to
make music with it and how to take care of it.
Guitars come in two basic flavors: acoustic and electric. From a hardware standpoint, electric
guitars have more components and doohickeys than do acoustic guitars. Guitar makers
generally agree, however, that making an acoustic guitar is harder than making an electric
guitar. Thats why, pound for pound, acoustic guitars cost just as much or more than their electric
counterparts. Both types follow the same basic approach to such principles as neck construction
and string tension, and so they have very similar constructions, despite a sometimes radical
difference in tone production.
Here's an overview of the electric guitar's various parts and what they do:

Bar: A metal rod attached to the bridge that varies the string tension by tilting the bridge
back and forth. Also called the tremolo bar, whammy bar, vibrato bar, and wang bar.
Body: The box that provides an anchor for the neck and bridge and creates the playing
surface for the right hand. On an electric, it consists of the housing for the bridge assembly
and electronics (pickups as well as tone and volume controls).
Bridge: The metal plate that anchors the strings to the body.
End pin: A metal post where the rear end of the strap connects.
Fingerboard: A flat, plank-like piece of wood that sits atop the neck, where you place your
left-hand fingers to produce notes and chords. The fingerboard is also known as
the fretboardbecause the frets are embedded in it.
Frets: Thin metal wires or bars running perpendicular to the strings that shorten the effective
vibrating length of a string, enabling it to produce different pitches.
Headstock: The section that holds the tuning machines (hardware assembly) and provides a
place for the manufacturer to display its logo.
Neck: The long, club-like wooden piece that connects the headstock to the body.
Nut: A grooved sliver of stiff nylon or other synthetic substance that stops the strings from
vibrating beyond the neck. The strings pass through grooves on their way to the tuners in the
headstock. The nut is one of the two points at which the vibrating area of the string ends.
(The other is the bridge.)
Output jack: The insertion point for the cord that connects the guitar to an amplifier or other
electronic device.
Pickup selector: A switch that determines which pickups are currently active.
Pickups: Bar-like magnets that create the electrical current, which the amplifier converts into
musical sound.
Strap pin: Metal post where the front, or top, end of the strap connects.
Strings: Although not strictly part of the actual guitar (you attach and remove them at will on
top of the guitar), strings are an integral part of the whole system, and a guitars entire
design and structure revolves around making the strings ring out with a joyful noise.
Top: The face of the guitar. On an electric, the top is merely a cosmetic or decorative cap
that overlays the rest of the body material.
Tuning machines: Geared mechanisms that raise and lower the tension of the strings,
drawing them to different pitches. The strings wrap tightly around posts that sticks out
through the top, or face, of the headstock. The posts pass through to the back of the
headstock, where gears connect them to tuning keys (also known as tuners, tuning pegs,
and tuning gears).
Volume and tone controls: Knobs that vary the loudness of the guitars sound and its bass
and treble frequencies.








Head and tuning pegs
Most electric guitars have 6 tuning pegs located on the same side of the headstock
(some however have 3 on each side of the head). Turn the pegs to tune the guitar.
Turning the pegs either tighten or loosen the strings resulting in a higher or lower
pitched tone.

The Nut
The nut is designed to lead the strings from the fret board to the tuning pegs
through the slots in the nut. It is usually made of plastic, brass, bone or graphite.

Many guitarists prefer a nut made of bone as they claim it produces the best sound.
In any case, if you use the vibrato arm a lot or play your guitar in a rough way, a
nut made out of a low friction material would be preferred as it wouldn't cause your
strings to "snap at the nut" so frequently.

Guitar neck and Fret board
The guitar neck itself is most commonly made out of rosewood or maple or
variations of those types of wood. Necks can also be made out of ebony or
mahogany.
Some players choose their guitar necks carefully as it is a factor in the overall
sound of the guitar.
The neck is either bolted to the guitar body or made as one part with the guitar
body.

The fret board on this guitar type consists of fret wires place into the guitar's
neck. Between these wires are the frets where you place your fingers. A standard
electric guitar usually has 21-24 frets. Each fret represents one semitone so a fret
board with 24 frets is spanning 2 octaves (24 semitones).

The Pickups and the Pickup Selector Switch
You can think of the pick ups as microphones on your electric guitar. Most electric
guitars have 2-3 pickups and their placement is important. Located close to the
neck the pickup will produce a soft rounded sound, while located close to the bridge
it will produce a sharper, more pointy sound.

When speaking of electric guitars and pickups we are usually talking about
magnetic pickups, as they use magnets to convert the vibration of the string into
an electric signal, and these can be divided into 2 main types:The Humbucker
(Double-coil) and the single coil pickup. Double-coil pickups are basically single
coil pickups mounted side by side and the sound they pick up is "integrated"
through to the output.

Experimenting with pickup placement on the guitar can produce some interesting
variations in the sound.

The pickup selector switch toggles between the pickups (or combination of
pickups) the guitar uses to pick up the sound.

The picture above displays single coil pickups.

The bridge and the vibrato arm
The bridge can be divided into 2 main types: Tremolo and non-tremolo (hard
tail) bridges. The tremolo bridge has an extension arm (a.k.a. vibrato arm) which
the player can push (and in some cases pull) to decrease or increase the string
tension causing a tremolo or vibrato effect in the sound.

The Body and pick-guard
The guitar body is commonly made of maple, mahogany or ash wood and comes
in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. The choice of wood here will also be a
contributing factor to the overall sound of the guitar.

The white part of the guitar body in the picture above is the pick guard. It is there
to protect the wood finish of the guitar body from being struck or scraped by the
pick when picking the strings.

Volume and tone controls
The volume control adjusts the volume (big surprise!! ;-)) on the signal picked up
by the pickups.
The tone controls adjusts the treble on the sound. There are usually 2 or more tone
controls each referring to the pickup selected with the pickup selector switch.

Output Jack
A cable with a 1/4" male jack plug in both ends is used to plug the guitar into an
amplifier or a mixing unit.