Parts of the Guitar Neck

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is James Manuele and I am a teacher and guitarist at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, and I'm here to discuss the parts of the guitar neck. Like most guitars, most all the parts are the same. For a classical guitar I'd like to point out some parts on this particular guitar. Let's start with the headstock. Of course the top portion of the guitar that holds the keys is called the "headstock". The keys on a classical guitar have rollers and they are inserted in the sides of the headstock and they fit very tightly with the diameter of the holes that are drilled in the headstock. The outer portion here, like these tuning knobs, are the knobs that you tune the strings with. The front portion of the headstock is the face, or the veneer, where they put on wood here, and right here, this white plastic or bone holds the strings in place that each string individually is going to it's tuners that it needs to tune the string with. It also keeps the string in space in proper width. The top portion of the neck here, you see, this black piece of wood is ebony, some guitars will use rosewood as well. On top of the fingerboard you have the frets. The frets are designed and placed just properly for good intonation and frequency for the guitar for the overtones. Well, as we continue on from the fretboard, of course, is the neck itself. The neck itself is always joined, of course, to the body of the instrument in many different ways. On a classical this is a very Spanish, what they call a Spanish heel, very typical for a classical guitar to be joined from the body to the neck. As the neck goes up there is a seam here, so the neck here is actually glued to the headstock, this is not one piece of wood. So we have the neck assembled with the slipperfoot, or with the Spanish heel they call it, joined to the body of the instrument. And on the facing of the guitar the headstock, of course, the veneer facing which holds the keys, the nut which holds the strings in place and the spacing of the strings, and on top of the neck is the fingerboard with the frets in place for good intonation of the guitar. So basically the principals are all the same with on guitar you might buy, they may vary a little bit on the assembly. And there you have the parts of the neck."