The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to guitars: A

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

is a

plucked string instrument Plucked string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by plucking the string (music), strings. Plucking is a way of pulling and releasing the string in such a way as to give it an impulse that causes the string to ...

, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Most guitar necks have metal frets attached (the exception is fretless bass guitars). Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with either nylon or steel strings. Some modern 2010-era guitars are made of

polycarbonate Polycarbonates (PC) are a group of thermoplastic polymers containing carbonate ester, carbonate groups in their chemical structures. Polycarbonates used in engineering are strong, toughness, tough materials, and some grades are optically transp ...

materials. Guitars are made and repaired by

luthier A luthier ( ; ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments. Etymology The word ' is originally French and comes from ''luth'', the French word for "lute". The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be ...

s. There are two primary families of guitars: acoustic and electric. An acoustic guitar has a wooden top and a hollow body. An electric guitar may be a solid-body or hollow body instrument, which is made louder by using a pickup and plugging it into a guitar amplifier and speaker. Another type of guitar is the low-pitched

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

Instrument classification

A guitar can be described as all of the following: *

Musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

Chordophone In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

Rhythm section A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band. The rhythm ...

instrument

Types and varieties of guitars

Standard guitar variations

Acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

* Acoustic-electric guitar *

Archtop guitar An archtop guitar is a hollow acoustic guitar, acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar, semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with jazz guitar, jazz, blues, and rockabilly players. Typic ...

Classical guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...

Electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

* Flamenco guitar * Flat top guitar * Fretless guitar * Hybrid guitar * Parlor guitar * Resonator guitar * Selmer guitar (Maccaferri) * Semi-acoustic guitar * Silent guitar * Steel-string acoustic guitar * Tailed bridge guitar

Pitch-based variations

* Alto guitar * Baritone guitar *Bass guitars ** Contrabass guitar **

Acoustic bass guitar The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than, a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar ...

Bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

* Niibori guitars * Octave guitar * Requinto * Soprano guitar * Tenor guitar * Terz guitar

Steel guitars

* Lap steel guitar (aka Hawaiian guitar) * Pedal steel guitar

Courses

* Single course * Double course (e.g., 12-string guitar) * Triple course (e.g. Tiple Colombiano) * Four or more strings per course (e.g. Guitarron Chileno)

Extra strings

* Seven-string guitar – Russian guitar and electric guitar * Eight-string guitar * Nine-string guitar * Ten-string guitar * 11-string guitar * Twelve-string guitar * 13-string guitar * Extended-range bass – Covers bass guitars with 5 or more strings

Fewer strings

* Three-string guitar * Four-string guitar * Five-string guitar

Misc

* Harp guitar * Gittler guitar * Lyre-guitar * Nano guitar * Portuguese guitar * Prepared guitar * Vintage guitar

Models

6-strings

Acoustic guitar models

* CF Martin & Company Dreadnought * Gibson J-45 * Ovation Roundback

Semi-acoustic models

* Gibson ES-335 * Rickenbacker 360 (Both 12-string and 6-string models) * Gretsch White Falcon

Solid body electric models

Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double- cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corpora ...

* Fender Telecaster * Gibson Les Paul * Gibson SG * Gibson Flying V * Superstrat * Steinberger * PRS * Red SpecialBrian May

Bass guitars

s are also called "electric basses". * Fender Jazz Bass * Fender Precision Bass * Violin Bass * Alembic Bass

Parts

* Body: The solid body of an electric and the hollow sound box of an acoustic *

Bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

* Fingerboard (fretboard) *

Fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical inst ...

s * Wiring and electronics (including volume and tone controls) * Headstock (peghead, head) *

Inlay Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with the ...

* Machine heads (tuners) *

Neck The neck is the part of the body in many vertebrates that connects the head to the torso. It supports the weight of the head and protects the nerves that transmit sensory and motor information between the brain and the rest of the body. Addition ...

* Neck joint: see Set-in neck, Bolt-on neck and Neck-thru * Nut * Pickguard * Pickup (Electric – Single coil (including P-90), Humbucker) (Acoustic –

Piezoelectric Piezoelectricity (, ) is the electric charge that accumulates in certain solid materials—such as crystals, certain ceramics, and biological matter such as bone, DNA, and various proteins—in response to applied stress (mechanics), mechanical s ...

) * Sound board (Acoustic) * Strings * Truss rod

Guitar accessories

Miscellaneous

* Capo * Guitar pick * Fingerpick * Neck-thru-body * Slide * Vibrato systems for guitar ("Tremolo arm") * Electronic tuner * Patch cord (Electric, some acoustics)

Guitar amplifiers

Guitar amplifier A guitar amplifier (or amp) is an electronic amplifier, electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a Pickup (music technology), pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce so ...

* Distortion (guitar) * Power attenuator (guitar) * Preamplifier *Stack: A guitar amplification setup consisting of one or more speaker cabinets and a "head" (

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

), rather than a self-contained unit.

Guitar effects

Effects unit An effects unit, effects processor, or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion (music), distortion/overdrive, ...

(also known as "Stomp Box") * Compression (electric guitar) *

Chorus effect Chorus is an audio effect that occurs when individual sounds with approximately the same time, and very similar pitches, converge. While similar sounds coming from multiple sources can occur naturally, as in the case of a choir or string orch ...

Delay (audio effect) Delay is an audio signal processing technique that records an input signal to a storage medium and then plays it back after a period of time. When the delayed playback is electronic mixer, mixed with the live audio, it creates an echo-like effec ...

* Fuzz (electric guitar) * Flange (electric guitar) * Phaser (electric guitar) *Reverb (

Reverberation In acoustics, reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb) is a persistence of sound after it is produced. It is often created when a sound is reflection (physics), reflected on surfaces, causing multiple reflections that build up and then de ...

) *Sustain ** Infinite guitar * Ebow *Overdrive/distortion terms ** Brown sound ** Crunch ** Gain ** Distortion (guitar) **

Overdrive (music) Distortion and overdrive are forms of audio signal processing used to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments, usually by increasing their gain, producing a "fuzzy", "growling", or "gritty" tone. Distortion is most commonly ...

*Clean/Dirty * Wah-wah pedal

Guitar software

* Guitar Pro * G7 (guitar software) * Power Tab * RiffWorks Guitar recording and online collaboration software. Free version. * TuxGuitar Guitar free software. *Games **'' Guitar Freaks'' An arcade game featuring playing guitars **''

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead guitar, lead, bass guitar, bass, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Players match ...

'' Like ''Guitar Freaks'', except for home use **'' Frets on Fire'' A

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

''Guitar Hero'' clone licensed under GNU GPL. **'' Rockband'' A multi-platform game for PlayStation 2, 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii which includes a guitar element similar to that of Guitar Hero/Freaks along with a Karaoke-like vocal element and a drum element.

Guitar use

Guitar music

* Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra * Classical guitar music * Instrumental guitar * Tablature notation ("Tab")

Guitar tunings

See Guitar tunings and List of guitar tunings. * Standard tuning *

Alternate tunings Guitar tunings are the assignment of pitch (music), pitches to the open string (music), open strings of guitars, including classical guitars, acoustic guitars, and electric guitars. Musical tuning, Tunings are described by the particular pitch ...

** Drop tunings ** Open tuning ** New standard tuning **

Regular tuning Among guitar tunings#Alternative, alternative guitar tunings, guitar-tunings, regular tunings have equal interval (music), musical intervals between the paired note (music), notes of their successive open string (music), open strings. ...

***

Major thirds tuning Among guitar tunings#Alternative, alternative tunings for guitar, a major-thirds tuning is a regular tunings, regular tuning in which each interval (music), interval between successive open string (music), open strings is a major third ("M3" in m ...

*** All fourths tuning *** All fifths tuning ** Repetitive tuning *** English guitar *** Russian guitar

Guitar playing styles

The difference between guitar playing styles and guitar techniques (below) is that a style is a collection of techniques * 3rd bridge * Classical guitar techniques * Downstrokes picking * Extended technique *

Flamenco Flamenco () is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the Gitanos, gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Region of Murcia, ...

Guitar solo A guitar solo is a melody, melodic passage, instrumental section (music), section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, classical, electric guitar, electric, or acoustic guitar. In 20th and ...

* Guitar showmanship *

Jazz guitar Jazz guitar may refer to either a type of electric guitar or a guitar playing style in jazz, using Guitar amplifier, electric amplification to increase the volume of acoustic guitars. In the early 1930s, jazz musicians sought to amplify their ...

Lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

* Prepared guitar *

Rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

* Shred guitar * Slack-key guitar * Slide guitar

Guitar technique

''Main :Guitar performance techniques''

Fretting hand technique

* Dampening * Hammer-on * Pull-off * Guitar chord ** Barre chord * String skipping

Bridge (Right) hand techniques

See also the following from List of musical terminology: sul porticello (plucking/ strumming near the bridge), sul tasto (plucking/ strumming above the fingerboard) *

Tapping Tapping is a playing technique that can be used on any stringed instrument, but which is most commonly used on guitar. The technique involves a string being fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion. This is in contrast to stand ...

* Palm mute (known as ''pizzicato'' in Classical guitar terminology)

=Strumming

= * Rasgueado * Strum

=Flat picking (single picking, plectrum picking)

= * Guitar picking ** Alternate picking ** Sweep picking ** Economy picking ** Gypsy picking ** Hybrid picking ** Crosspicking ** Downpicking ** Flatpicking * Pick slide * Pick tapping

=Finger picking (multiple picking)

= * Apoyando: rest stroke * Chicken picking * Fingerstyle guitar & fingerpicking (including Travis picking) * Pattern picking * Picados * Tirando: free stroke

=Percussive techniques

= * Golpe: finger tapping (flamenco) * Tambour: string striking * Slapping: A variety of techniques

Head (Left) hand techniques

* Double stop * Finger vibrato (includes string bending, and bending behind the nut) * Left-hand muting * Slide guitar ** Lap slide guitar

=Legato techniques

= * Hammer-on * Legato technique (includes rolls and trills) * Pull-off *

=Harmonic techniques

= Guitar harmonic * Artificial harmonic * Pinch harmonic * Tap harmonic

Extended techniques

* Prepared guitar

History of guitars

* History of the classical guitar

Guitar makers

Guitar manufacturers * Luthier (Guitar maker) * Bailey, John * B.C. Rich Guitars * Bourgeois Guitars * Caparison Guitars * Carvin A&I * Collings Guitars *

Cort Guitars Cort Guitars (Cor-Tek Corporation) is a South Korean guitar manufacturing company located in Seoul. The company is one of the largest guitar makers in the world, and produces instruments for many other companies. It also has factories in Indonesi ...

Dean Guitars Dean Guitars, commonly referred to simply as Dean, is an American importer and maker of stringed instruments and musical products with its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida. Its products include solid-body electric guitars, bass gu ...

* Eastwood Guitars * Epiphone Guitars * ESP Guitars * Fender Musical Instruments Corporation * Fernandes Guitars *

Flipper's Guitar Flipper's Guitar (フリッパーズ・ギター) was a Tokyo-based rock band led by (and later a duo of) Keigo Oyamada and Kenji Ozawa. The band was influenced by the chirpy sound of British 80s pop and post-punk groups like Haircut 100, E ...

Gibson Guitar Corporation Gibson, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation and Gibson Brands Inc.) is an American manufacturer of Guitar manufacturing, guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashvi ...

* Godin guitars * Gretsch * Heritage Guitars * Hagstrom * Ibanez * Jackson Guitars * James Tyler Guitars * John Bailey * Kramer Guitars *

Kilometer The kilometre ( SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the preferred mea ...

* Linda Manzer * Maton Guitars * Martin Guitars * MusicMan * Ovation Guitar Company * Peavey Guitars * Pensa Custom Guitars *

PRS Guitars Paul Reed Smith Guitars, also known as PRS Guitars or simply PRS, is an American guitar and amplifier manufacturer founded in 1985 in Annapolis, Maryland by Paul Reed Smith. After dropping out of college, Smith began making guitars by hand and ...

* Rickenbacker Guitars * Schecter Guitar Research * Takamine Guitars * Taylor Guitars * Valley Arts Guitar *

Warwick (bass guitar) Warwick is a German bass guitar manufacturing company. Warwick basses were originally a premium brand offering a small range of models built from high quality and exotic tonewoods. The company also produces Bass amplifier, valve and FET amplifier ...

* Washburn guitars * Yamaha * Zon guitars

Guitar magazines

* '' Acoustic'' * ''

Acoustic Guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

'' * ''

Classical Guitar The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string (music), string instrument with strings made of catgut, gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the ...

'' * '' Fretboard Journal'' * '' Guitar Aficianado'' * ''

Guitar Player ''Guitar Player'' was an American magazine for guitarists, founded in 1967 in San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francis ...

'' * '' Guitar World'' * ''

Guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

'' * '' Premier Guitar'' * '' Soundboard'' * '' Total Guitar'' * '' Vintage Guitar'' * '' Young Guitar Magazine''

Guitar music

* List of compositions for guitar

Guitar festivals

* Crossroads Guitar Festival * Darwin International Guitar Festival * Output festival

Guitar community

* Golden Guitar Attraction in Australia

Significant guitarists

* List of guitarists * List of jazz guitarists * List of classical guitarists

Guitar methodologies

* Guitar Craft

References

External links

Instruments In Depth: The Guitar
An online feature from Bloomingdale School of Music (October, 2007)
Guitar physicsInternational Guitar Research Archive
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

featuring many historic guitars from the Museum's collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Guitars Outlines of culture and arts Outlines Music-related lists