Since musicians started playing guitar, it has under a series of transformations. Today there are different types of guitars available in the market for a guitar player to purchase. Each of these different types of guitars has its specific sound.
Electric Guitar
George Beauchamp and Adolph Rikenbekerom, in 1931, created the first electric guitar. Since then, it has taken the music instrument industry like a storm. Play rock, blues, jazz, or pop music using an electric guitar. Most guitarists will remember the first time they plugged in and played an electric guitar, which gives a breath-taking experience. This guitar has to be plugged into an electric amplifier for any noticeable sound to be heard as the sound is produced by the amplifier and not the guitar itself. Most of the electric guitars have a solid body, no sound holes, and use steel-strings. The strings used in the electric guitar are markedly thinner than the acoustic guitar, as the amplifier produces the sound. These guitars can be heavy, so wearing a shoulder strap is recommended. The size, number, and shape of the pickups may differ for each electric guitar, but they all fulfill the same result of being used for heavy metal, blues, rock, and jazz music.
Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic guitars produce the sound themselves. You don’t need an amplifier or any other device to play this type of guitar. Acoustic guitars are also called Dreadnaught guitar, folk guitar, flat-top guitar, or steel-string guitar (because of the kind of strings being used). The sound that this type of guitar produces is bright, brassy, deep, and forceful, which gives sheer pleasure to everyone’s ear. The guitar’s body is made of wood, and the sound is produced from the strings’ vibration while the hollow wooden body acts as an echo chamber. These guitars are available in two variants, one is the steel-string, and the other is classical. The steel-strings guitars produce a metallic sound that is a constituent of several trendy music styles, while the classical guitars have a wide neck and utilize nylon strings. But know that steel-string guitar will be louder than the classical guitar whether steel-string or classical, playing acoustic guitars will strengthen your fingers as you press down on the strings to make chord shapes. So, it is one of the best guitars to start your guitar learning process. Music style acoustic guitar supports are folk, country, ragtime, blues, and pop.
Bass Guitars
Bass guitars have wide-scale-length and thick strings, which produces a variety of notes that match the guitar’s lowest four strings. Both acoustic bass and electric bass guitars are available in the market. The difference in a bass guitar is that the majority has four strings compared to acoustic and electric guitars with six strings.
7 and 8 String Guitars
Seven and eight-string guitars have one and two strings more than the usual six. The seven-string guitar is used to extend the bass range, and it can also be used to extend the treble range of the six-string guitar. Some types of seven-string guitars are specific to cultures, such as guitarists from Russia and Brazil. Eight-string guitars are less common than six and seven-string guitars, but they are used by a few classical, jazz, and metal guitarists. However, eight strings guitars are typical for lap steel and pedal steel guitars. The eight-string guitar allows a broader range, or non-standard tunings, or both.
12 String Guitar
12 string guitar is a variation of the usual six-string guitar type. It has the normal six strings and another set of thinner strings. They are arranged in 6 courses in a set of 2 strings which are placed very close to one another. So, the strings form a pair and are played similar to a six-string guitar. The main effect of the 12 string is that it is louder than the six-string guitar.
I am Rex Bell, and my personal favorite is an acoustic guitar, which I always recommend to both my beginner and advanced guitar learning students.
If you would like to know more guitars and how to play them, visit my website guitarconfidence.com. You can also sign up for my free online trial class.
