Play An Acoustic Guitar

What is the nut of the guitar?

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The nut of the guitar is the piece of medium hard material found where the headstock and the fretboard meet. The nut has six or twelve grooves that serve as a guide for the strings onto the freboard. These allow for consistency of the string placement. This is very important as it is one of the endpoints of the strings vibrations. The grooves must be carefully cut so that there is no string slippage or string buzzing. The material of the guitar nut can be made out of bone, plastic, brass, corian, graphite or stainless steel.

What is the headstock?

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The headstock of the acoustic guitar is the part or end of the guitar that is the farthest from the body. The body is the area that the soundhole is in. The headstock usually is the part that contains the machine heads or tuning pegs. The machine heads are used to adjust the tension or pitch of the strings. Much of the time, you will see three machine heads on each side. They can come on a strip or they can come individually. Sometimes the machine heads will come as six in a line or four on one side and then two on the other side. There have been guitars made where there is no headstock and the machine heads are located on the body of the guitar or on the bridge.

Rosewood Wood in an Acoustic Guitar

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There are two types of rosewood wood that you will find in an acoustic guitar. They are Brazilian Rosewood and Indian Rosewood. Both woods are known for their high sound velocity and a broad range of overtones. Both woods show a strength and complexity in the bottom end of tones and for the upper registers of sound show strong mids and highs.

When Brazilian rosewood is used for the neck, it adds a sparkle and ring tone to the sound. The Indian rosewood help to fatten up the midrange sound.

Koa Wood in an acoustic guitar

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Since the 1920's, luthiers have been using Koa wood for guitar soundboards. This wood has a low velocity of sound and a lot of density. This produces a solid midrange tone, and seem to work well in playing rhythm guitar or hawaiian-style slide guitar playing. When Koa wood is used for the back and sides, it behaves much the way the mahogany wood does.

Spruce Wood in an Acoustic Guitar

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The standard wood for the top of the guitar is Spruce wood. Two different types you will see are Sitka spruce and Red spruce. A stiff wood, it has a high velocity of sound. The tone is direct and powerful, and retains its clarity when played aggressively. If played with a light touch, the Sitka spruce may produce a light tone. Red Spruce wood produces the highest volume and a rich full tone. The Red Spruce top is the "cadillac" wood for acoustic steel string guitar.

The Guitar Made Out of Mahogany Wood

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I thought that over the next few days that I would discuss the various woods that you might find in you journey to purchase an acoustic guitar. I hope that this will help you have a better understanding of what you are seeing and hearing.

A person that makes a guitar is known as a luthier. For the rest of this post, I will refer to the person making the guitar as a luthier. A major concern for a luthier is the type of wood that he will use. With an acoustic guitar, it is important for the luthier to have an understanding of the speed or velocity of the sound and the sound vibrations. This is important, because that is how you and I will hear a note the music. The materials or the wood in this case help to transmit the vibrations or sound waves.

There are three places on the guitar that are important when choosing the wood. The three places include the neck, the top of the guitar and the back and sides. The types of woods that we will discuss fall under the classification of tonewoods.

Mahogany will be the first type of wood that we will look at. When mahogany is use on the top of the guitar, the speed or velocity of the is relatively low and presents a strong "punchy" sound that you might hear in certain types of country songs, particularly blues. If mahogany is used on the back and sides of the guitar, the speed or velocity is rather high giving it a solid wood sound with an emphasis on the bass and treble sounds.

The "woody" sound is heard when the mahogany is used for the neck or the bridge.

What kind of wood is used to make an acoustic guitar

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The main woods that are found in various acoustic guitars are spruce, cedar, rosewood, mahogany, maple and Koa. Most tops on guitars are made of spruce. Spruce wood offers a balanced tone, which is the most popular choice for steel-string guitars. Some guitars are made of cedar tops. Most of these are classical guitars, and they offer a little brighter sound. The different sounds you hear from the guitars come from the wood on the back and sides. This is what gives each guitar its character. Most guitars use rosewood, mahogany, maple or koa. The rosewood wood gives the guitar a darker more bass-heavy sound. The mahogany gives a brighter crisper tone. Maple woods give a mellow or balanced tone. The koa wood tone is somewhere between the tone of rosewood and mahogany wood. This will give you a little bit of information about the woods that are used to make acoustic guitars.

Play an Acoustic Guitar Introduction

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This blog is all about playing an acoustic guitar. Before you start to play one, you need to either buy one (my recommendation) or rent one. In order to do this, you must know something about the guitar. For our first few posts, we will talk about the acoustic guitar.