[MUSIC]
And now let's talk about the parts of the electric guitar.
I'm going to start with the basics.
These of course are the strings.
And the strings, we actually tune them with these, which are called tuners.
In this case, I have locking tuners, which actually allow me to cut off
the string completely and minimize the amount of
tuning irregularities, I just think they're a little more accurate.
So in this case, we have locking tuners.
Moving down the strings we actually come to the area, this is called the nut.
In this case, I have a graphite nut.
As we move down the neck these metal things,
they're called frets and they allow you to extensively shorten
the length of the string and placing your finger down in certain positions.
The shortening of the strings changes the pitch.
And that way you can actually combine and create melodies and
chords and create difference pitches and play them together or separately.
[SOUND] A lot of times frets have markers on them and
typically, you'll find them on the 3rd, 5th,
the 7th, the 9th, and the 12th fret.
As you can see, this guitar goes way up to something like 22 frets,
whereas most acoustic guitars will stop around 12, and
then it becomes a little more physically difficult to get higher.
Moving along, we're going to get down to this area here called the bridge.
And these are called saddles.
Now, these are sometimes adjusted to fine tune the instrument.
This is something you should probably get done when you first buy the instrument.
It's a process called intonation
which just basically fine tunes the tuning on your instrument.
In this case, on this guitar, we have something called a whammy bar or
more traditionally known as a tremolo.
And that allows you to [SOUND] add a little bit of tremolo to you chord or
whatever melody you might be playing.
[SOUND] Tremolo bar.
Here we have the input, which is where you plug your guitar cable or chord.
Moving along, here we have these little things, which we call pickups.
Now here we have what's called a pickup selector switch.
In this case, there are five different positions.
And each of these five different positions allows you to select a different
configuration of these, what we call pick-ups.
The result is that it's a different sound.
It goes from sort of darker, or a little fatter, when we're in this position,
to brighter, sort of a little twangier, in that position.
This first, position one, selects this pick-up,
position two selects both of these pick-ups,
position three just selects the middle one, position four selects these two, and
then the last pickup selector position selects this pickup.
So essentially this pickup selector allows you the range and tones
from dark and fat to bright and twangy.
Now we're going to talk a little bit about pickups.
In this case, the pickups that are on this guitar which is a Stratocaster
style guitar are called single coil.
Without getting into too many details the two options that you usually have
are either single coil as we have here, or if they look a little squarer,
sometimes you might have what is called a Humbucker.
Now the difference sonically is that humbuckers might sound a little louder,
a little fatter.
Single coil as we have here are sort of very thin,
with less output, a little twangier, a little brighter.
It's just a question of personal preference,
both are really great sounding pick-ups.
In addition, we have tone controls, and
again, you might find different configurations of tone controls and
volume controls, based on the instrument that you have.
In this case, I have two volume controls and one tone control.
Usually, there's a volume and two tone controls.
In my case, I had some custom work done.
Usually, just a volume and tone and tone would be the standard setting.
Now, if we take a look right here, we'll see a little hole at the top of the neck.
This is called the truss rod adjustment area.
Now, I would advise you when you first get your guitar to make sure that it's set up
correctly.
Usually the place at which you purchase your guitar will have a technician and
they'll set the action on your guitar.
Now by the action, I mean the height of the strings.
What the truss rod adjustment does is it controls the bow and
in effect, the height of the strings above the fret board.
That makes it physically easier to play.
A guitar with lower action will have low strings.
A guitar with higher action, well you'd have to press a little bit harder.
So the truss rod adjustment is used in combination with the saddle fine tuning
when you first get your guitar and your technician sets it up.
So I would recommend, if you can, a professional setup.
Now, usually on many of the Strat style guitars,
we call this style of guitar, it's a Fender Stratocaster.
Affectionately called a Strat.
You'll find what's called a pick guard.
Now the pick guard covers the wood, and again, protects it,
because sometimes when you're playing, often you hit, so
you'll find some pick guards that are pretty worn.
In the cases where there's no pick guard,
you'll find the wood quite worn from playing.
And that's it for the parts of the guitar.