Geni Swing Guitars

Active Humbucker

When you start to learn to play guitar, you will want to learn on an instrument that suits your needs both physically and also musically. You may well be familiar with different brands of electric guitar and what they look like through music videos, games and pictures of your favourite guitar heroes, but what is all that stuff for? Here is a brief guide to the basics of the electric guitar. Let's start at the top, shall we?

Headstock:

At the top of the neck is the head, or headstock. The metallic knobs that line one side (or both sides, depending on the brand of guitar) of the headstock are called machine heads. These are for tightening and loosening the strings while tuning the guitar. The headstock will carry the logo of the guitar's brand on it too.

Neck:

The neck is where you will be creating notes and chords with one hand while the other strums. The neck of an electric guitar typically runs to either 22 or 24 frets. Frets are the spaces between the lines that are set at intervals along the length of the neck, and some have dots on them. The 12th fret will have 2 dots side by side on it. The use of the dots will quickly become apparent while you learn to play guitar.

Body:

The main body of the guitar differs depending on whichever brand of guitar you chose. The differences are generally cosmetic, the shape of the body and so on. There are some elements that are essential on every instrument though. There are various types of electric guitar body, such as solid bodies which are made from one piece of solid wood (which is hollowed in some points to allow for the electronics) and semi hollow bodies which are lighter to hold.

Pickups:

Typically, an electric guitar will have three pickups. Those are the strips beneath the strings on the body of the guitar, and many will have a row of six metallic dots along them. These pick up the vibrations of the strings and translate them into sound via the jack plug socket, which you will connect to an amplifier. Typically there are two kinds of pickups on an electric guitar- single coil (a single pickup strip) and what is called a Humbucker (the pickups with two strips on them). The number of pickups can vary depending on model, but there are generally three.

Controls:

A normal electric guitar will have three controls on the front of it, beneath the pickups. These are generally two dials and one toggle switch. The two dials are for volume and tone control, and the toggle switch is for switching between active pickups. For example, for a clean, hard sound, set it to the bottom setting. This setting has the humbucker (the double pickup) as the active pickup. Change the toggle to the middle, and all of the pickups are active. Set it to the top, and the neck pickup is the one with the most activity, giving a smooth, rich sound that is great for bluesy solos.

Tremelo:

Many types of guitar come with a tremelo arm fitted. This is the length of metal protruding from the bridge of the guitar, which is the metal piece next to the humbucker pickups. The tremelo arm is used for changing the pitch of notes up and down while playing. Something to be careful of when using a tremelo arm while you learn to play guitar is the fact that using it too much can make your strings slip out of tune. With practice you can limit this occurrence.

These are the basic elements of the electric guitar. Familiarizing yourself with these elements will help you learn to play guitar easier and quicker, as well as helping you develop a greater understanding of the instrument itself.

Andrew is a music journalist with over twenty years' experience in playing guitar. You too can easily learn to play guitar and find out all you need to know about electric guitars in order to be the next guitar hero!

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