Meet Ed; My Acoustic Guitar!
Hello everyone! It's been a long while since I last posted something here. I hope we're all doing okay, and staying safe from COVID.
Today, I want you all to meet my good friend, Ed. And yes, he's an acoustic guitar. Lol. The conventional thing to do is to give it a female name, but holding him for the first time, he just felt masculine, so I named him Ed.
Many of us must have had issues learning how to play at some point, or never even had the chance. Well I did when I was in the University. I met my awesome tutor named Lifre. He took me through all the basics, and I'll be showing you some.
Major parts of a guitar
The guitar majorly comprises of 3 parts. The head, the neck and the body. These three parts have other components that are fixed to them and I'll be showing us what they look like and their functions.
The Head
The guitar head is the part that holds the tuning pegs, used in controlling the guitar strings. It is one part of the guitar that needs to be protected and given constant attention. If the tuning pegs are damaged, they would have to be replaced, and you wouldn't want that. For a standard guitar, six tuning pegs are placed on the guitar head. This six pegs hold six strings and that will be illustrated in the next photo.
As illustrated and labeled, the tuning peg on the bottom left holds the E string. That is the first string of the guitar. It is also the thinnest/lightest and easiest to break, so be careful with it! Right on top of it is the second string named the string B. The next is the G string (pun intended, Lol). The fourth is string D, the fifth is the A string and the last is string E. The difference between the first and sixth string is that the first is high while the sixth is low. From the first to the sixth, there is an increasing order in thickness and strength. The strings are fixed to the shafts of the tuning pegs by turning the knobs of the pegs in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions.
The Neck
The neck is the longest part of the guitar. It is where the strings are arranged to coincide with the frets.
You see those short metal-looking bars that cross through the breadth of the neck? They are called the Frets . They are markings that are used to indicate where the next note lies, depending on the Song you're trying to play. The entire surface of the neck is called the Fret Board.
The Body
The body of the guitar is the biggest of the three parts. It is mostly made of soft wood. For an acoustic guitar, it is hollow and that is to enable it give sound. Without the space in the box, the guitar would not be very audible.
The other end of the strings are held down on the body, crossing over a plastic stick-like material called the Bridge.
The bridge allows the strings to keep a clearance from the fret board for better performance.
This post is to introduce us to the basics of the guitar! I'm sure you no know a thing or two about it now. I am currently working on putting out a Vlog to help show how to learn the guitar with ease. Whatever questions you have, let me know in the comments section. Adios folks!