Parent article: Best Acoustic Guitars for Beginners
This is a simple resource we put together for identifying the parts of an acoustic guitar visually.
The diagram focuses on a dreadnought acoustic without a cutaway, which won't be depicted. We also have not used a graphic that shows any electrical or interior components, which we've also left out of the diagram.
Instead, we've focused on all the basics of a garden-variety, non-plugged in acoustic.
If you have any questions about this acoustic guitar parts diagram, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below and we'll do our best to clarify or help out.
Free to use, but please credit with a link to https://www.guitarchalk.com/
If you'd prefer, here's the HTML code for an easy embedding of the image with credit given:
<img src='https://www.guitarchalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Acoustic-Guitar-Parts-Diagram.png'><p>Image courtesy of <a href='https://www.guitarchalk.com/'>Guitar Chalk</a>.</p>
Acoustic Guitar Parts Listing and Definitions
In this section, all the parts listed above are in a dropdown toggle with a quick definition for easy reading.
The body of an acoustic guitar is the entirety of the large piece of wood that the fretboard is attached to. It includes the top, back, and sides of the guitar, all comprising the body as a whole.
The bridge is the wooden piece that is fixed to the top of the guitar's body and holds the strings in place. In most acoustic guitars, the bridge is its own individual piece of wood while saddle and string pegs are separate pieces.
On acoustic guitars, headstocks are the same as they are on electrics, holding the tuning machines and tuning pegs at the very top of the fretboard. Headstocks are typically styled by brand and have the guitar's brand and model name printed on them.
The lower bout is the largest section of the acoustic guitar's body, where it is most wide, right below where the strings are fixed to the body.
A pickguard is placed right underneath the soundhole of an acoustic guitar to prevent damage to the guitar's body from repeated strumming.
On an acoustic guitar, the Rosette is a decorative ring around the soundhole on the guitar's body.
The saddle is a small piece of wood that sits notched in the bridge and sets the height of the acoustic guitar's strings so they aren't just sitting flat on the body.
On acoustic guitars, the sides are made of a separate piece of wood and often a separate type/species of wood entirely. This pieces rests between the back and top of the acoustic guitar's body, holding the two together.
In acoustic guitars, the hole cut in the middle of the body, so that the guitar can resonant and make noise on its own, is called the soundhole.
String pegs are used in an acoustic guitar to notch the strings securely to the bridge and the guitar's top.
The top piece of an acoustic guitar's body is usually separate from the back and sides and often has nicer, more solid tonewood.
Tuning machines are mechanical devices fixed to the headstock of an acoustic guitar that allow you to adjust the tension and the pitch of each string, slowly.
The upper bout is the point of the guitar's body above the waist, near where the fretboard starts. It is usually the second widest part of the guitar, behind the upper bout, yet wider than the guitar's waist.
The waist is the thinnest point of the guitar's body, where the upper bout and lower bout meet.
Other Acoustic Guitar Resources
Here are some other acoustic guitar resources we've published over the years:
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