Guitar Basics

<> Ah, the beauty of guitars.  A guitar is a wonderful, versatile instrument.  It is capable of playing up to 6 notes at one time allowing the user to play full-bodied chords.  There are two main types of guitars, the acoustic and electric.  Even though these may seem very similar in design, they are very different in the way most of the sound is produced and amplified. Guitars can be considered as the single most important instrument in modern music, but how did they get such a highly regarded title?  Most guitars are inexpensive, portable, and can be learned easily at a beginner level.  Guitars also have a long history being passed from one culture to another.  As allmusic stated: <>         Its route into American musical consciousness took it through Hawaii, where it was           introduced by Portuguese sailors in the nineteenth century and where it gave birth to           an enormous craze for Hawaiian music whose scope in the early twentieth century is           often underestimated today. The guitar was popular among both country and blues           musicians. <> Electric and Acoustic guitars may look very similar but they produce most of their sound in two very different ways.  Acoustic guitars use a resonating chamber to amplify the sound where electric guitars use a series of magnets, electrical circuits and speakers to produce their sound.  Although most of the sound is created in different ways, they still use the same properties of waves to create the initial sound; a string is plucked and it vibrates creating a sound wave.  Acoustic guitars rely mostly on the shape of the body and larger strings to produce a full, rich sound.  On the other hand, electric guitars produce hardly any sound when standing alone; electric guitars have much smaller strings and rely on amplifiers connected to speakers to create and alter most of their sound. Basic amps consist of a transistor and a speaker.  The transistor receives the electronic signal sent from the guitar and sends a stronger signal to the speaker.  The speaker then turns this signal back into sound waves that travel through the air so the listener can hear it. Another difference between guitars is the strings they use.  Electric guitars must use metal strings because the pick-ups rely on magnets to detect the string's vibrations.  Acoustic guitars can use metal, nylon, or a combination of the two since no magnets or electronics are used in producing the sound.

Background Image From:  http://home.gci.net/~alconda/aluminumguitar/aluminumguitar.htm