Guitar Parts Explained

Sometimes it might be confusing with the strange names of different parts of a guitar. Find out the purpose and location of mysterious nuts, bridges and bouts.

Body

The largest part of the guitar, holds the pickups (and their controls), the bridge and the neck. Besides making it possible to rest your guitar nicely on your lap, resonates with the string thus altering the sound of the strings to make it a sound of an instrument.

Bout

The openings that make the curved shape of a guitar body. When played while sitting, the guitar rests on the lower bout while your body rests against the upper bout.

Bridge

The "right side" end of the guitar; strings start from here before ending to tuners.

Fret

Pieces of wire attached to the fretboard. When a string is pressed towards the fretboard a fret touches it first dividing it sharply to produce a wanted tone.

Fretboard

Also known as fingerboard. Piece of wood on top of the neck, with frets attached to it.

Neck

Holds the fretboard, connects the body and the (peg)head.

Nut

There between peghead and the fretboard. Holds the string high enough so that they won't buzz against the frets and keeps them evenly spaced before feeding to tuners.

Peghead

Also machine head or just head. The "left-side" end of a guitar, holds the tuners to attach strings to. And usually the manufacturers logo.

Pickguard

Found on some guitar models, a plastic (usually) plate that covers some part of the body, around the pickups and a bit more. Usually if the guitar has one, the pickups are attached to the pickguard which is then attached to the body, like for example in Stratocasters.

Pickup

Converts the vibrations of the string to electric current to be sent and to an amplifier to be converted to sound. Sometimes mistakengly called as microphones.

Saddle

Tremolobar

Also whammy bar or vibrato bar. A bar attached to the bridge, for rapidly tightening or loosing the string for effects like vibrato and dive bombs.

Truss Rod

A long piece of metal inside the guitar neck to strengthen it and for counter force of the string pull. Though not visible, trust me it's there.

Tuners

Holds the strings on the peghead and provides the possibility to tune the guitar by loosening or tightening the strings.