Guitar Lesson One

Parts of the guitar

It’s useful for us to have some common language so that when we talk about guitars and guitar playing we can make ourselves understood properly. This video shows and names some of the important parts of your acoustic guitar. You may certainly hear them called by other names but at least you’ll have an idea about what to call them yourself.

Tuning the guitar with a Snark tuner

This takes a little practice, but you’ll get it soon enough. Tuning the guitar strings to the proper pitch is way important! First, look at the strings at the tuners (the mechanical assembly on the headstock at the end of each string. For each string, if you turn the knob one way the string tightens (gets sharper). loosening the string makes the tone “flatter”.

The strings in standard tuning are tuned to E6, A5, D4, G3, B2 and E1. The number after the letter indicates the string too, where 6 is the low E string and 1 is the high E string. The 6 string is much fatter that the 1 string, isn’t it? You might remember that 6 is a much bigger, fatter number than skinny little 1.

Your challenge: identify the parts of your guitar to your own satisfaction. Identify each string by number and by the note it’s tuned to. Tune each string to the proper pitch using a clip-on tuner or a guitar tuner app on your phone.