Pastor Brad's FREE Metal Guitar Lessions Getting to know your Guitar This is the very first lesson in my recommended track for learning to jam! It's very basic stuff, but if you don't get these basics down... you'll have a much tougher time conquering tougher material. So commit this info to memory and move on! Metal Guitar Lessons Guitar Jams PB's Metal Music Reviews Bio/Press Kit Christianity Links Contact Demo Club In this lesson you will learn the names of all the basic parts of the guitar. Committing these terms to memory will not only make you sound a whole lot more intellegent when talking to other musicians, it will prove invaluable whenever you take a lesson or try to learn from another guitar player... these terms are a huge part of the language of guitarists! Ready? Here we go... THE BODY--this is the biggest part of the guitar. On an electric guitar it's that solid chunk of wood that's painted some nice color... and on an accoustic it's the part that's hollow--and often finished with a nice wood-stain/gloss. THE NECK--this is the second largest part of the guitar. It's the part that sticks out from the body... The Neck FRETS & FRETBOARD--the FRET BOARD is the face of the NECK, it's the part of the NECK the contains the FRETS--the frets are those little raised metal strips that are spaced out under the strings. I'll refer constantly to the frets on the guitar. You might think of the FRET BOARD as being the same as the keys on a piano! In the same way that placing your fingers in various positions on the key board of a piano gives you different notes... placing your fingers in different places along the FREAT BOARD will give you different notes. IMPORTANT: When I, or anyone, speak(s) of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., fret, I'm speaking of the space on the fret board just before the actual fret. For example, the "third fret" is that space on the fret board just before the 3rd metal strip. DOTS--I don't know what the technical name is for them--but every guitar has DOTS on the FRET BOARD. They are typically found in the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th fret spaces... there are typically two dots at the 12th fret. And then the pattern repeats itself on up the neck. Most guitars will also have these dots on the side of the FRET BOARD, i.e. as you hold your guitar, you should be able to look down along the edge of the FRET BOARD and see dots that correspond to the dots on the face of the fret board. THE PURPOSE of the dots is reference. Once you memorize the location of the dots you'll be able to locate notes on the fret board with lightening speed and acuracy... more on this later. BRIDGE--The BRIDGE is a piece of metal hardware, located on the body. It's the part of the guitar where the strings "begin". There are lots of different types of BRIDGES--but for now all you need to know is where the bridge is. HEADSTOCK & TUNING KEYS--The is at that flat part at the end of the NECK... many manufacturers get creative and make their guitars headstocks unique. Just take some time and look at a FENDER... and then look at a GIBSON... and then a PEAVY, etc. and you'll see trademark designs in the headstocks. Anyway, on the headstock you'll find 6 little knobs... those knobs are called TUNING KEYS. STRINGS--Guitars have 6 strings (some have 12... but that's for another lesson!). The graph below shows the name and number of each string: #1 E------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the lightest string. #2 B------------------------------------------------------------------------- #3 G------------------------------------------------------------------------- #4 D------------------------------------------------------------------------- #5 A------------------------------------------------------------------------- #6 E------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the heaviest string. This may be too obvious--but the reason the #1 string is also called the "E" string, is because when the guitar is tuned properly this string, when picked--rings out an "E" note. Thus is the case for each of the other strings. PICK-UPS--There are two basic types of pick-ups on electric guitars--"single coil" & "hum-bucker". The origin of the names is simple enough to understand. In the early days, all pick-ups were single coils and they had this nasty habit of "humming", so some genius developed a pick-up that is essentially two single coils side by side... and called it a hum-bucker, i.e. it "bucked" or eliminated the hum associated with the old single coils. In general, hum-buckers have a "fatter" sound than single coils. Pick-ups are placed in 3 positions in the BODY of the guitar... they are: THE NECK POSITION: I.e., next to the neck... THE BRIDGE POSITION: ...next to the bridge... THE MID POSITION: ...only on guitars like Stratocasters that have 3 pick-ups.... this pick-up will be between the bridge and the neck pick-up. PICK GUARD--this is that nice plastic piece on the body of your guitar, below your strings. Its name also describes it purpose. It's there to keep your picks from scratching the body of your guitar. VOLUME & TONE PODS--these would be those little knobs on your guitar! TOGGLE SWITCH--this switch is used chose witch pick-ups, or combination of pick-ups you want to use... below is a graph that shows why you have these options: UP--when the toggle switch is up... this generally turns all pick-ups off except the NECK POSITION pick-up. This settng gives you a warm tone... nice on "clean (undistorted) stuff". DOWN--when the toggle switch is down...this generally turns al the pick-ups off except the BRIDGE POSITION pick-up. This setting gives you a crisp, bright tone... typically used for lead playing. I keep my toggle switch in this position 98% of the time. MIDDLE--Let's just state the obvious... this setting gives you a tone that is somewhere in the "middle" of UP and DOWN. Play around with the settings... with distortion and without and see what you like! |
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