Parts of a guitar: what each part does, plus types and sizes

The labeled guitars on this page come from two Hal Leonard method books, Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Book 1 and Guitar for Kids. Book 1 is the first volume of the series, for acoustic or electric guitar, and Guitar for Kids is its edition for children.

Guitar lessons use the names of the parts of a guitar from the first page on: tune at the head, press behind the fret, strum over the sound hole. Once you know what each part is called and what it does, you can follow a lesson, read a setup guide or talk through a guitar in a shop.

This guide names every part of a guitar on a steel-string acoustic, an electric and a nylon-string classical guitar, with labeled figures from Hal Leonard method books. It explains what each part does to the sound and the feel, then covers the main types of guitars and the sizes they come in, and ends with a printable worksheet to label.

A guitar has three main sections: the head (or headstock), which holds the tuning keys; the neck, which carries the nut, the fretboard and the frets; and the body, which holds the bridge. An acoustic body also has a sound hole, and an electric body has pickups and controls, with the strings stretched from the tuning keys over the nut to the bridge.

Parts of a guitar at a glance

The table lists every part a beginner meets, where it sits and which guitars have it. The sections below show each one on a real guitar.

Parts of an acoustic guitar

The steel-string acoustic is the guitar most people picture first, and the electric and classical guitars share most of its parts. The opening page of the Hal Leonard Guitar Method labels them on a steel-string guitar with the head on the right.

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The head and the tuning keys

The head, also called the headstock or peghead, is the flat piece at the end of the neck. It holds the tuning keys, which go by several names: tuners, tuning pegs, tuning machines or machine heads. Each string winds around the post of one key. Turning the key tightens the string to raise its note or loosens it to lower the note.

On a head with three keys on each side, the keys follow the string numbers. In the photo below, keys 4, 5 and 6 run down the left side and 3, 2 and 1 down the right. The key nearest the nut on each side tunes an outside string, the thick 6th or the thin 1st. Electric guitars often put all six keys in one row instead.

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The neck: nut, fretboard and frets

The nut is the small slotted strip where the head meets the neck, usually bone or plastic. Its slots keep the strings evenly spaced and set how high they sit above the first fret. The nut is also one end of the vibrating length of each string.

The fretboard, or fingerboard, is the strip of wood glued to the front of the neck. Thin metal bars called frets cross it. When you press a string just behind a fret, the fret becomes the new end of the string, so the vibrating part gets shorter and the note goes up. Each fret raises the note by a half step, the smallest step in Western music, and the 12th fret sounds the same note as the open string, one octave higher.

Dots or other inlays on the fretboard, and small dots on the edge of the neck, mark the frets you use most, usually 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12. Lessons often say “fifth fret” or “seventh fret”, and these markers let you find that fret without counting.

Inside the neck of a steel-string or electric guitar runs the truss rod, a steel rod that holds the neck against the pull of the strings. Turning it changes how much the neck bows, which raises or lowers the strings over the middle frets. Adjusting it is a setup job for a guitar technician, or for a player who has learned how; small turns make a big difference.

The body: top, bridge and sound hole

The body of an acoustic guitar is a hollow wooden box: a top, or soundboard, on the front, a back, and the sides that join them. The narrow middle is the waist. The rounded halves above and below it are the upper bout, nearest the neck, and the lower bout, the wider one. These are the words used to describe how to hold a guitar: the waist sits on your leg and the strumming forearm rests on the upper bout.

The strings vibrate the top through the bridge, and the hollow body makes that vibration loud. The sound hole lets the sound out. The decorative ring around it is the rosette. The pick guard, the plastic plate beside the sound hole, protects the top from the scratches a pick leaves.

The bridge is the wooden block glued to the top, which anchors the strings to the body. On a steel-string acoustic, bridge pins push each string’s end into a hole in the bridge. The saddle, a thin strip set into the bridge, is where the strings rest and the other end of their vibrating length. The nut and the saddle together set the action, the height of the strings above the frets. Low action is easier to press; action that is too low makes the strings buzz against the frets.

Most acoustic guitars also have a strap button at the bottom of the body, and some have a second one on the heel, where the neck joins the body.

Parts of an electric guitar

An electric guitar shares the head, the neck, the frets and the bridge with the acoustic. The body is different. Most electric guitars have a solid wooden body with no sound hole, so unplugged they are quiet. The sound comes from the pickups and an amplifier, and the controls on the body shape it. Guitar for Kids labels every one of these parts on an electric guitar, with the six strings named along the neck.

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The pickups are the bars under the strings between the neck and the bridge. A pickup is a set of magnets wrapped in fine wire. A vibrating steel string disturbs the magnetic field, and the wire turns that movement into an electrical signal for the amplifier. A single-coil pickup sounds bright and clear and can pick up a faint hum; a humbucker has two coils wired to cancel that hum and sounds thicker. The pickup near the neck sounds warmer, and the one near the bridge sounds brighter.

The pickup selector switch chooses which pickup, or which pair, you hear. The volume control sets how much signal goes to the amplifier, and the tone controls roll off the treble for a darker sound. The guitar in the figure has one volume and two tone controls; other models have their own layout.

The vibrato bar, which the Hal Leonard method calls a tremolo bar and most players call a whammy bar, is the metal arm attached to the bridge. Pressing it slackens all the strings at once and bends the pitch down; some bridges also let it bend up. Many electric guitars have a fixed bridge with no bar. The input jack, also called the output jack, is the socket where the cable to the amplifier plugs in. Most electrics have two strap buttons, one at the bottom of the body and one on the upper horn.

The method’s own advice covers electric and acoustic-electric players alike: practice with an amplifier some of the time, so you hear what your playing sounds like through it.

Parts of a classical guitar

A classical guitar has the same three sections, built for nylon strings. Nylon pulls on the neck far less than steel, so the guitar is lighter in build, and many classical guitars have no truss rod.

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From the top of the photo down, the differences are:

• A slotted head. The head has two open slots, and the strings wind around rollers that cross them, with the keys on the sides.
• A wider, flatter neck. The strings sit farther apart, which suits fingerpicking.
• A tie-block bridge. There are no bridge pins: each string loops through the bridge and is tied around itself.
• No pick guard. Classical players pluck with the fingers, so the top has nothing to protect.
• The neck joins the body at the 12th fret on most classical guitars, two frets lower than on many steel-string acoustics.

The full-size classical guitar also has a slightly longer string length than most steel-string guitars, usually 650 millimeters (about 25.6 inches) from nut to saddle.

The six strings

The strings are numbered by thickness. The 1st string is the thinnest and highest, closest to the floor as you play, and the 6th is the thickest and lowest. In standard tuning, from the 6th to the 1st, they are E, A, D, G, B and E. The guide to guitar string names covers the numbering, the tuning and ways to remember the order.

Steel strings are used on acoustic and electric guitars, and the lowest three or four strings of a set are wound with wire. Nylon strings, on a classical guitar, are softer on the fingertips and sound mellower. Before you play, tune each string with a guitar tuner, turning the key at the head that the photo above numbers for it.

Types of guitars

Guitar for Kids names three basic types of guitar: electric, acoustic and classical. Most guitars in a shop are one of these three or a variation of one.

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The same book gives a beginner’s view of each. Electric guitars are thinner and usually easier to hold. Acoustic guitars have a clean, bright sound and go anywhere, and classical guitars have nylon strings that are often easier on the fingers. The table adds the variations you will see beside them in a shop.

Acoustic guitars also come in body shapes. The dreadnought is large, loud and strong in the bass. Concert and auditorium bodies are a little smaller with a narrower waist, which many players find more comfortable. Jumbo bodies are the biggest, and parlor guitars are small, with a lighter, sweeter sound.

For a first guitar, choose the type that plays the music you want to play. Someone who wants to strum folk and pop songs is usually happiest on a steel-string acoustic, a rock fan on an electric, and a fingerstyle or classical player on nylon strings. The first lessons are the same on all three. The Hal Leonard Guitar Method is written for any of them. Its first page shows a steel-string, a nylon-string and an electric guitar, and the book then moves on to tuning, playing position, first notes and first chords.

Guitar sizes

Guitars also come in sizes, named as fractions of a full-size guitar. Guitar for Kids shows the three most children start on.

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The fraction is a loose label for the scale length. That is the distance from the nut to the saddle, and it sets how far apart the frets are and how far the fretting hand stretches. Makers differ, so the figures below are typical ranges.

Travel guitars vary the most: some keep a full scale length on a tiny body, others shorten both. For an adult, a full-size guitar is the usual choice, and a parlor or a smaller body helps if a dreadnought feels too bulky to hold. For a child, the age is only a starting point; the guide to guitar for kids gives sizes by age and height and the elbow check to do in the shop.

A printable parts of a guitar worksheet

The quickest way to learn the names is to write them yourself. The worksheet below has two pages: an acoustic and an electric guitar fully labeled, then the same drawings with numbered blank lines and an answer key, for a student or a class.

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Frequently asked questions

What are the parts of a guitar called?

The three main sections are the head, the neck and the body. The head holds the tuning keys; the neck carries the nut, the fretboard and the frets; the body holds the bridge and saddle. An acoustic adds a sound hole and usually a pick guard, and an electric adds pickups, a selector switch, volume and tone controls and an input jack.

What is the long part of a guitar called?

The neck. It runs from the body to the head, and its front is the fretboard, the surface with the metal frets that you press the strings against.

Is a pickup part of a guitar?

Yes, on electric and acoustic-electric guitars. A pickup sits under the strings and turns their vibration into an electrical signal for an amplifier. A plain acoustic or classical guitar has no pickup; its hollow body makes the sound loud on its own.

Is a peg part of a guitar?

Yes. Tuning pegs, also called tuning keys, tuners or machine heads, sit on the head, one for each string, and turning one tunes its string. On a steel-string acoustic, the small bridge pins that hold the strings in the bridge are sometimes called pegs too.

What are the three main types of guitars?

Steel-string acoustic, nylon-string classical and electric. Acoustic-electric, hollow-body, 12-string and resonator guitars are variations of these, and the bass guitar is a related instrument, usually with four strings tuned an octave lower.

From names to playing

The head tunes, the neck and frets set the notes, and the body turns the strings into sound, through a hollow box on an acoustic or pickups and an amplifier on an electric. Once you know the names, tune the six strings and turn to the first lesson.

When you know the names, Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Book 1 takes you from tuning to the first notes and chords.