Understanding all the guitar’s parts can be confusing. They sometimes have names you wouldn’t hear anywhere else, so guitar websites can feel like reading a foreign language at first.
If you’re new to the guitar or if you just never learned to tell your tuners from your tone controls, Guitar World has you covered.
Fortunately, all electric guitars have the same fundamental anatomy. There are variations, of course, but all guitars work similarly and have the same basic parts.
With our guide, you’ll learn all the common parts of the guitar and what they do. Easy!
Headstock
Beyond providing a home for the manufacturer’s logo, the headstock is where you’ll find the tuners.
Fender places all six tuners on the same side of the headstock on its Telecaster and Stratocaster models. Other designs (such as Gibson's Les Paul models) have three tuners on each side.
Body
The body is home to most of the hardware and electronics. The most common woods used are ash, alder, mahogany and maple.
On some guitars, such as Telecasters, the strings are threaded through the body, known as a ‘string-through’ body.
The body may be home to a pickguard (sometimes called a ‘scratchplate’), a cosmetic addition usually made of plastic.
Electric guitar bodies have cutaways to allow access to the highest frets.
The Stratocaster and the PRS Custom are double-cutaway bodies, while the Les Paul and Telecaster are single-cuts.
Bridge
Bridges have two main types: fixed bridges, which don’t move, and tremolos (aka vibratos).
Tremolos allow you to lower and (sometimes) raise the pitch of the strings by pressing down or pulling up on the tremolo arm (or whammy bar). The strings travel over bridge saddles, which control the height and intonation (fine tuning) of each string.
Some fixed bridges, like the one on our Les Paul, feature a separate tailpiece, which anchors the strings.
Pickups
The pickups convert string vibrations into electrical signals to send to an amplifier.
The pickup closest to the bridge (the ‘bridge pickup’), has a brighter, sharper sound, while the neck pickup has a warmer, rounder tone.
The most common types of pickups are single coils, seen on the Telecaster and Stratocaster in our video, and humbuckers, seen on the Les Paul and PRS.
Single coils are generally thinner, brighter-sounding, and produce less output than humbuckers. However, they can be susceptible to hum.
Humbuckers don't really produce noise, and this is where their name comes from – they cancel out or 'buck' the hum.
Controls
The controls on most guitars are volume and tone, alongside a pickup selector. Volume and tone may be master controls, affecting every pickup on the guitar, or may control individual pickups.
The volume control affects the output signal of the guitar, while the tone control adjusts the amount of treble frequency sent to the amplifier.
The pickup selector allows the player to select the pickups individually or in combinations.
Output jack
This is the guitar's signal output, sending the sound of the instrument to your amplifier or possibly into some effect pedals if you use them. Electric guitars use 6.35mm (1/4 inch) 'jack' cables.
Neck
Necks are usually either bolt-on (screwed to the body) or set necks (permanently glued to the body). The most common neck woods are maple and mahogany.
The neck usually contains a truss rod. This metal bar runs through the inside of the neck, preventing the wood from warping and allowing the neck’s straightness to be adjusted for playability.
Necks usually have a separate fingerboard (see below) but some vintage designs have necks and fingerboards crafted from a single piece of maple.
Fingerboard
Fingerboards are traditionally made of rosewood, maple or ebony, but more sustainable options like laurel and pau ferro are increasingly common.
The fingerboard hosts the frets, the strips of metal that allow you to play notes accurately.
Also on the fingerboard are inlays, decorative markers that help you find your position. Inlays are usually positioned at the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th frets, with a double inlay for the all-important 12th fret which marks the octave above the open string notes.
Scale length
Scale length is the distance from the bridge to the nut, and also affects how close the frets are together. Common scale lengths are 24.75” (seen here on the Les Paul), 25” (the PRS) and 25.5” (the Stratocaster and Telecaster).
Very generally, shorter scales have a darker, fatter sound whereas longer scales have a brighter, snappier tone. More important is that shorter scales have less string tension, which contributes to the 'feel' when you play.
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