A Closer Look At The Acoustic Guitar

As was mentioned in our article on “the History of the Guitar,” guitars have been around for centuries. The original guitars were Acoustic guitars, which changed in shape over several hundred years. Since you’ve already been given a timeline of the evolution of the guitar, in this article we’ll go into greater depth discussing the Acoustic guitar itself.

History

The Acoustic guitar is essentially a descendent of the Classical guitar, which, in its current form, has been around for over 100 years. The main difference between the Classical and Acoustic guitars are that one is strung with nylon strings, while the other is strung with steel strings. Since the Acoustic guitar is strung with steel strings, it has a louder, brighter sound which is appealing to folk and blues players.

Another difference between the Acoustic and Classical guitars is that the Acoustic guitar has a bigger body size, stronger structure, and a narrower neck than does the Classical guitar. The structure of the Acoustic guitar is stronger so that it can withstand the immense tension placed on it by the heavier steel strings.

Acoustic-Electric guitars haven’t been in existence for nearly the amount of time that their Acoustic counterparts have. These guitars, which have the ability to be both plugged into an amp and played unplugged, have been around for roughly 70 years.

All about the Acoustic guitar

The bodies of cheap Acoustic guitars are typically made from laminated tonewood. More expensive Acoustics are made from higher cuts of solid spruce top wood On an Acoustic guitar, the material which the body is made from really matters, so those looking for a rich sound will want to choose a guitar with a body made from nicer wood such as spruce top wood.

The neck of the Acoustic guitar is usually made from maple, mahogany, or rosewood. However, some guitar necks are comprised of different woods. Yet again, the quality of wood does matter. Generally speaking, Acoustic guitars with necksmade of a high quality maple or mahogany and bodies made with solid spruce top are quality guitars with great tone. These guitars usually cost $250 on up.

The vibration of the strings is amplified by the soundhole of the guitar. This is where all sound that you hear comes from.

If you look inside the soundhole of the Acoustic guitar, you’ll see the construction of the body. There are braces and linings, all essential to keeping the guitar intact and playable. X-bracing, a strong, durable bracing, is typically used on Acoustic guitars because it is heavy and strong enough to withstand the pressure of steel strings.

On the body of the guitar, you’ll find the bridge. This is where one end of the strings goes. The strings are inserted into the little holes and the bridge pegs hold them there.

On the neck of the Acoustic guitar is the fretboard. Most fretboards on the Acoustic guitar are made of rosewood or ebony. More expensive Acoustic guitars have fretboards made of higher quality woods.

The headstock of the Acoustic guitar features six tuning pegs (three on each side of the headstock) and six tuners (three on each side of the headstock). Good Acoustic guitars will have die-cast Grover tuners which usually stay in tune longer than other brands of tuners.

Like their Electric counterparts, Acoustic guitars are tuned in the standard E A D G B E tuning. Most Acoustic guitars have six strings, while some have twelve. If you are curious as to the difference between the two, check out our article on “Twelve string vs. Six string”.

The Acoustic guitar still remains a very popular instrument. It is used in virtually every style of music—rock, pop, country, blues, you name it. Acoustic guitars are wonderful instruments for both beginners and professionals.

History of The Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitar usually involve the following musical instruments

Nylon and gut stringed guitars:
• Renaissance guitar
• Romantic guitar
• Classical guitar

Steel stringed guitars:
• Twelve string guitar
• Steel-string acoustic guitar
• Archtop guitar
• Battente guitar

Acoustic bass guitar
Russian guitar

Other instruments:
• Harp guitar
• Banjo guitar
• Guitar lute

Guitar can be divided into two categories, acoustic and electric

An acoustic guitar is not dependant on any external device for amplification. The shape and resonance itself has the ability to create acoustic amplification. Today there are many acoustic guitars available with built-in electronics and power to enable amplification.

Acoustic electric guitars

Some steel-string acoustic guitars are fitted with pickups as an alternative to using a different microphone. These are called electric acoustic guitars and are regarded as acoustic guitar rather then electric guitars. It should not be confused with hollow body electric guitars, which are more of electric guitars fitted with hollow sound chambers.

Free acoustic guitar lessons

There several free acoustic guitar lessons available online for beginners. The free guitar lessons are designed for guitarists of all playing abilities.

Acoustic guitar magazine

The acoustic guitar magazine is for acoustic guitar players, from beginners to performing as a professional. The magazine usually contains free acoustic and electric guitar lessons, tutorials and videos for both beginner and professional. Some of the great magazine includes Flatpicking guitar magazine and Acoustic guitar.

Vintage acoustic guitars

Veteran musicians know firsthand that vintage acoustic guitars simply sound and feel better than their contemporary counterparts.

Vintage acoustic guitar body shape:

Steel-stringed vintage acoustic guitars come in two general body shapes.

Flattop vintage acoustic guitars - As the name suggests, flattop vintage acoustic guitars feature a flattop body. If you play blues, folk, bluegrass, or rock, flattops, which were pioneered by Martin, will suit you best.

Archtop vintage acoustic guitars - In contrast, archtop vintage acoustic guitars have a curved top and a hollow body. If you’re a jazz or country player, then look for archtops, which were invented by Gibson. (The most sought-after Gibson archtops are the larger models dating from the early 1930s to 1959.)

Acoustic guitar notes

A musical note is a tone. However, a musical-note tone comes from a small collection of tones that are pleasing to the human brain when used together. For example, you might pick a set of tones at the following frequencies:

• 264 Hz
• 297 Hz
• 330 Hz
• 352 Hz

Acoustic guitar reviews

Yamaha LLX-500C Acoustic/Electric Guitar

Price ranges from $2,399 or higher.

The Yamaha LLX-500C is hand built in Yamaha’s Japan factory. Features include a solid spruce top, mahogany neck, and solid rosewood back and sides. The headstock and neck of the guitar are attractive trim in ivoroid binding, and the Yamaha name on the headstock just look great. Unlike many acoustic electric, the Yamaha LLX-500C sides are solid instead of laminated.

Guild F50R Jumbo Acoustic Guitar

Price ranges from $2,499 or higher.

The F50R is based on the original F50 specification from 1960s to 1980s. The Guild F50R features an ebony fretboard and a rosewood bridge. Neck dimensions include a 25.6-inch scale and a slightly narrower-than-normal width of 1.69 inches. The F50R does not lack for fine details - the fret board has eye-catching abalone and mother-of-pearl inlays and two racing stripes that run from nut to sound-hole.

Acoustic Guitar Tabs

Tablature is a form of musical notation, which tells players where to place their fingers on a particular instrument rather than which pitches to play. Tablature is mostly seen for fretted stringed instruments, in which context it is usually called tab for short. It is frequently used for the guitar, bass and lute. But in principle it can be used for any fretted instrument includes banjo and viola da gamba.

Acoustic Guitar Strings

Guitar strings are strung parallel to the neck, whose surface is covered by the fingerboard. By depressing a string against the fingerboard, the effective length of the string can be changed, which in turn changes the frequency at which the string will vibrate when plucked. Guitarists typically use one hand to pluck the strings and the other to depress the strings against the fretboard.

The strings may be plucked using either fingers or a plectrum. The sound of guitar is either mechanically or electronically, forming two category of guitar: acoustic or electric.

Your Acoustic Guitar

The guitar is possibly the world’s most popular instrument in rock, pop or light western music today. The guitar’s fame is largely owed to Elvis Presley, whose iconic images almost always show him singing with a guitar in his hands. So never mind if your voice doesn’t match Elvis – don’t sing, strum a guitar and make good music!

Acquiring and wrapping your fingers around your own, personal guitar to get its ‘feel’ is always a good idea. We recommend you to go in for a used acoustic guitar. Here’s what, why and how …

Unlike, say, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar neither needs nor uses any external devices to enhance its sound volume and quality. Remember, guitars are seldom played solo. They’re played along with other, often noisy, instruments. Naturally, if you’re the guitarist you want to be distinctly heard by and be properly audible to the audience. You might not be blasting away like the trumpeter but, nevertheless, you want the melody of the music you’re making to be picked up straight away.

It is to help you fulfill this perfectly legitimate aspiration that we suggest you begin your music-making with not just an acoustic guitar but specifically a used acoustic guitar. Why? Because thanks to its earlier use by another guitarist, whether professional or amateur, the used acoustic guitar is more likely than not to have already ‘found’ its fully formed voice. With the passage of time a wood-based musical instrument like a guitar (or violin, for that matter) sheds the brittleness of its timber and becomes soft and mellowed with the cleaning up and rubbing with oil that comes with its proper maintenance. In a used acoustic guitar somebody else has already done the rubbing up for you! Besides, you’re likely to spend only half the cost of a brand new instrument – so it’s a bargain all the way!

Fine, so where can you find cheap acoustic guitars? To start with, you’ll have to be certain that the acoustic guitar for sale won’t land you conned into buying an instrument you wouldn’t want. Generally, the used guitar could be one of four kinds: old used, new used, refurbished and needs work.

Your best choice would be in finding an old used acoustic guitar for sale that’s ten years old or even older. A new used one would be fewer than five years old. If you’re lucky, you’ll find factory seconds or refurbished guitars on recent models. You must know what you’re buying: Is the neck twisted or bent? Is the neck joint flush to the body of the guitar? (It ought to be so.) Is it plastic or wood? (Wood is definitely better.) Do you have to change the strings? (If so, you can’t test the sound.)

Online,you’ll find great bargains on acoustic guitars for sale of all categories. Look for sellers who have sold acoustic guitars before and have positive feedbacks. So now you know your what, why and how. Happy strumming!

Beginner Acoustic Guitar - Tips & Lessons For Better Guitar Playing

I am sure you have been searching for acoustic beginner online guitar lessons for quite some time now. Perhaps these sites have not answered some of the most basic questions that a beginner has when starting acoustic guitar. This article was written to address those questions with tips, lessons and basics that I hope will help you on your way.

What is the best beginner acoustic guitar?

This is probably the most common question amongst beginner acoustic guitar players. Do not buy the most expensive guitar, but do not buy the cheapest you can find either. A good range to shop in would be between 100 - 300 dollars.

If you can, find an experienced guitar player to come shopping with you. Ask him or her to pick up and play all the guitars within your price range and then purchase the one that feels and sounds the best. Make certain to examine any guitar you plan on purchasing.

Look down the neck of the guitar to see if it is warped. Check the action on the guitar. The action refers to the height of the strings from the fret board. If the action is too high or too low, it can cause problems with your playing.

Remember that you are just a beginner and this is your first guitar. Do not invest a lot of money into buying a guitar at this stage. If you do, and you find that acoustic guitar playing is not your thing, then you will have a beautiful guitar collecting dust in the corner of your room. If you enjoy playing and you find yourself getting better, then you can begin to explore your options and purchase a higher quality guitar.

Do not let yourself get stressed out when buying your first guitar. Just get a descent one and start practicing.

Some good brands to consider: Epiphone, Takamine, Yamaha and Squier.

Ouch! My fingers hurt. I can't play!

This is a very common complaint amongst the beginner. Every single guitarist has experienced hand and finger pain when just starting out. It is something that you simply cannot avoid. The remedy? Keep playing and build up strength in your hands and fingers and develop those calluses!

Building calluses on your fingertips will allow you to hold down the strings of the guitar without any pain while flattening your fingertips to produce a better sounding note.

You build up calluses and strength from practicing. Practice, practice and more practice. In time the pain will subside, but you have to get through this difficult stage of playing first, so hang in there.

Listen to your body though. If you are in serious pain then by all means give your hands and fingers a rest.

Here is a great exercise to help strengthen your hands and fingers and to build up calluses:

This exercise will also familiarize you with the entire neck of your guitar and give you the agility to play chords and solos. Building the muscles in your hands will improve your stamina for playing and will develop what is called "muscle memory".

The object of this exercise is to play each note going up and down the neck of the guitar.

Start with your pointer finger on the 6th string 1st fret, let your fingers follow up the neck of the guitar, one note at a time, staying on the 6th string until your pinky finger reaches the fourth fret.

Play the 1st fret with your pointer finger

Play the 2nd fret with your middle finger

Play the 3rd fret with your ring finger

Play the 4th fret with your pinky finger

Note: After you have played the first fret do not lift your pointer finger up. Keep each finger on the string as you play them. This is important as it will aid in the strengthening process.

Repeat the same process on the 5th string, then the 4th, and so on.

When you get to the bottom string, slide your entire hand over one fret without lifting your fingers.

So at this point, your pinky finger should be on the 1st string 5th fret, your ring finger on the 4th fret, middle finger on the 3rd fret and your pointer finger on the 2nd fret.

Now play in reverse, starting with your pinky, going back up the guitar to the 6th string, only this time you have to lift up your fingers as you play.

Then simply repeat the process until you reach the last fret of your guitar.

Do not rush this exercise or you will develop poor playing habits. Go nice and slow making sure you are producing a nice tone with each note you play.

More Beginner Guitar Tips

Make sure to stretch your fingers and hands before practicing.

Learn to actually read music and not just tablature.

Hire a guitar teacher if you can afford it. A teacher will be able to catch any mistakes you are making and correct you on the spot. This will help you develop better playing habits. If you cannot afford a guitar teacher, then invest in a good home study course.

Learn how to play chords, scales and techniques and not just your favorite songs. I know you just want to jump right in and learn "Stairway to Heaven", but if you do not put the time in to learn the theory behind those great songs, you will not improve as a guitar player.

Do not pack up your guitar. Leave it out in the open. This will make it more convenient for you to just pick up your guitar and play at any time.

Practice everyday for at least 20 minutes, more if possible. If you find yourself getting bored, or making too many mistakes, then take a break and do something else. 20 minutes of quality practice is better than an hour of sloppy practice.

Listen to other guitarists and not just in your favorite genre of music. You will be surprised at how other styles of music can influence your playing.

Play with other musicians as often as possible. This is a great way to learn and pick up new techniques and advice.

Learn the proper way to string and tune your guitar.

Learn the proper way to take care of and maintain your instrument.

I hope this article has helped. The best tip I can give you is to never give up. Keep playing every day and try not to get discouraged. Good guitar playing is not just about technique, it also comes from your heart. If you truly love playing guitar, and you are dedicated to getting better, then it is only a matter of time. Enjoy and God Bless!

Electric Guitar or Acoustic Guitar?

What type of guitar do you want to own? Do you want an electric guitar, or do you want an acoustic guitar. The choice is obviously up to you. You will have to take a few things into consideration such as what type of sound are you looking for, ease of playing, and price. There are so many out there that you should easily be able to find what you are looking for.

So you want a guitar, and you are finally going to go out and try and find one. If you're on a budget then you might think that your buying options are limited. The truth is that you can probably find a better deal on discontinued models that have barely been used. There are a lot of these items laying around waiting to be sold either because the original owner upgraded, became disinterested, or just changed models.

High quality woods are more expensive and often difficult to find. This has led to the construction of low priced guitars made out of alternate wood varieties such as red cedar or mahogany. Low priced guitars can be found with laminated backs and solid wood tops. You can also find cheap acoustic guitars made out of non-wood materials such as plastic or graphite. Although it's a well accepted fact that the top, back, and sides made of solid wood are key factors in contributing to a guitar's pleasant sound, the use of cheap wood materials in acoustic guitars is becoming an acceptable alternative.

The 12 string acoustic guitar has different ways of altering the price between cheap and expensive. Much of the sound originates from the top and your more expensive guitars will feature a solid wood top to get the rich sound you are hoping for. The remainder of the guitar on more expensive models will also be made of solid wood. These methods contribute largely to the sounds produced by an acoustic guitar. Lower priced ones may use solid tops with laminated backs and sides. Acoustic guitars made for amateur guitarists are usually completely laminated. As high quality wood becomes more difficult to obtain guitars have resorted to use other acceptable materials such a plastic and graphite.

Because of the high price of new electric guitars many amateurs have chosen to buy a pre-owned model. Used electric guitars are sold when an owner decides to upgrade to a new model or has stopped playing. Usually the only thing that needs to be done with a used model is to replace the strings, as all other parts of the guitar should remain in good shape.

When you are planning on buying your guitar, don't compromise on quality. Try to find a good name brand used guitar that appears to be in good shape. In the long run you will be glad you did since the cheaper model will either run up a repair bill, or just end up being thrown away.

Be prepared with a guitar budget. Don't go out and buy a $5,000 used guitar because it's the same type of guitar Jimi Hendrix used. Find a quality used guitar that has a reasonable price. Don't go real low on a good name brand as there is more than likely something wrong with the guitar.

Try to find a guitar that is around 10 years old.. You’ll find some great bargains in this category in classified on websites like eBay. They have a section on vintage guitars that are pretty attractive pricewise. Take a look at the sellers feedback to make sure he is respectable and make a deal

So there you have it, now go out and find that guitar you are looking for, be it an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Practice and enjoy!

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