Parts of the guitar

Before playing, let's learn the names of the parts of the guitar. You will see these words in every lesson, so it's worth a few minutes.

The main parts

• Headstock — the end of the neck. It holds the tuning pegs (tuners), which you turn to tighten or loosen each string.
• Nut — the small strip (bone, plastic or graphite) where the strings leave the headstock. It marks "fret zero".
• Neck and fretboard — the long part you hold with your fretting hand. The fretboard is the flat surface on top of the neck.
• Frets — the metal bars across the fretboard. Pressing a string just behind a fret shortens it and raises its pitch.
• Position markers (inlays) — the dots on frets 3, 5, 7, 9, 12 (double dot), 15, 17… They help you find your place quickly.
• Body — the big part that rests against you. On an acoustic it is hollow with a sound hole; on an electric it is usually solid.
• Pickups — magnets under the strings of an electric guitar that turn string vibrations into an electric signal for the amplifier.
• Bridge — where the strings are anchored on the body.
• Volume and tone knobs, pickup selector — on electric guitars, they shape the sound before it reaches the amp.

Strings: names and numbers

A standard guitar has six strings. They are numbered from 1 (the thinnest, highest-pitched) to 6 (the thickest, lowest-pitched).

In standard tuning, from the thickest to the thinnest, the strings are tuned to E – A – D – G – B – E. A popular way to remember it: Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie.

Play all six strings

Notice the diagram shows the high E string at the top — that is how guitar tab and most diagrams look: as if you were looking down at the guitar on your lap.

Frets and pitch

Each fret raises the pitch by a half step (also called a semitone) — the smallest distance in Western music. Twelve frets up, the note repeats one octave higher. That's why the 12th fret has a double dot.

Now that you know your way around the instrument, let's learn how to hold it.