Outline of guitars

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

A guitar is a plucked string instrument, 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 materials. Guitars are made and repaired by luthiers. 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.

Instrument classification

A guitar can be described as all of the following:

Musical instrument
- Chordophone
- Rhythm section instrument

Types and varieties of guitars

Standard guitar variations

Pitch-based variations

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

Misc

Models

6-strings

Acoustic guitar models

Semi-acoustic models

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

Solid body electric models

Bass guitars

Bass guitars are also called "electric basses".

Parts

An Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar

Body: The solid body of an electric and the hollow sound box of an acoustic
Bridge
Fingerboard (fretboard)
Frets
Wiring and electronics (including volume and tone controls)
Headstock (peghead, head)
Inlay
Machine heads (tuners)
Neck
Neck joint: see Set-in neck, Bolt-on neck and Neck-thru
Nut
Pickguard
Pickup (Electric – Single coil (including P-90), Humbucker) (Acoustic – Piezoelectric)
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

Distortion (guitar)
Power attenuator (guitar)
Preamplifier
Stack: A guitar amplification setup consisting of one or more speaker cabinets and a "head" (amplifier), rather than a self-contained unit.

Guitar effects

Effects unit (also known as "Stomp Box")

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 Like Guitar Freaks, except for home use
- Frets on Fire A cross-platform 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.

Guitar playing styles

The difference between guitar playing styles and guitar techniques (below) is that a style is a collection of techniques

Guitar technique

Main Category: Category:Guitar performance techniques

Fretting hand technique

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)