Bass Lesson 01 - Bass Guitar Anatomy

To many guitar enthusiasts, guitar anatomy is something we do not think of as important when learning the basics. As far as music theory is concerned, you will not need to know the instrument parts. However, in order to fully understand some of the following lessons and articles, you will need to know the parts of a guitar and where they are located on your guitar in particular.

Starting from the top of the guitar is the headstock. The headstock contains the tuning pegs, the nut, and usually the logo of your guitar. The headstock is made of the same material as the neck since most of the time they are the same piece.

The machine heads, or tuning pegs are contained by the headstock. The tuning pegs are a very important part of your guitar and every guitar has them. The tuning pegs hold the strings at a certain tension and can be turned clockwise or counterclockwise to change the pitch of each individual string. Depending on how your guitar is strung, turning the peg clockwise could make the pitch of the respective string go up or down.

The next item down is the truss rod cover. Often overlooked because of it is not frequently used, the truss rod cover hides the end of the truss rod in your guitar neck.

The truss rod is usually metal or graphite but could be any strong material. Since your strings are wound very tightly they produce a great deal of tension, which is put on the neck. You can think of the guitar as a bow and arrow if that illustration helps. The truss rod is a rod that is inside of your guitar neck in order to take stress off of the neck. Truss rods are used in all steel or high tension instruments, like electric basses. They can be tightened or loosened to raise or lower the distance between your strings and frets.

The nut is what the strings are resting on before they go through the machine heads. The nut helps set the length of the open strings, along with the bridge saddles. It also provides a smooth path for the strings to go into the machine heads so they do not get caught on anything or severely bent. Finally, the nut sets the distance between strings at the lower frets.

The fretboard and frets are used together to change the vibrating length of the string. The frets, which can vary in size, are pushed into the fretboard and are made of metal, specifically steel. Both the fretboard and the frets are glued to the guitar neck.

The neck is connected to the guitar’s body and contains the frets and the fretboard. The neck can be bolted or glued to the guitar’s body, or it can be one piece with the guitar’s body.

The body of the guitar is what holds the electronics, pickups, and bridge. It may be made of various types of solid wood, or it may be hollow or semi-hollow.

The pickups are made of 43-guage wire and magnets. The magnets are wrapped with the wire and “pick up” the frequency of the vibrating strings, converting the frequency into a signal that can be read by amplifiers and other guitar gear.

The bridge of the guitar holds the strings for the tuning pegs. The bridge also sets the intonation of the instrument, the string height, and the distance between strings. Bridges come in many different styles. Bass guitars do not usually have a whammy bar, but it is not unheard of.

The knobs on a guitar control the volume and tone of your guitar. There are many different arrangements of knobs. Some guitars have a volume and tone control for each pickup, whereas some have two tones and one volume. Some basses may even have a 3-band equalizer onboard!

Bass guitars also have an output jack. Like any other electric instrument, the output jack is where you plug your cable into your guitar, while the other end goes into your amplifier.