The Guitar Neck

Not only living animals have a neck. String instruments, like guitars, have one too. The string instruments neck is most comparable to the neck of the giraffe: They have a long and narrow neck, starting from the larger body and ending in the smaller head (or actually headstock, in the case of the musical instruments).

What is the role of this guitar neck?

The guitar neck is the part on which the strings are stretched, and the guitar player determines what notes or accords are played by pressing the strings in various positions on the guitar neck. When pressing a string in a certain point, the length of the free part of the string is changed, and thus a different note is produced from the guitar.

A guitar neck is composed of several parts: The actual neck itself, and the fretboard with the frets. The frets are the metal strips on the neck, dividing the positions for each note. The neck itself, and the fretboard are made of wood. The fretboard will typically be made of a different wood than the rest of the neck. The neck wood strongly influences the tone of the guitar. The main part of the neck should be strong and stable, having low reaction to environmental changes so that it will resist bending and give a consistent pitch of a particular key. Common woods for a guitar neck would be maple, mahogany, and rosewood (though of course other woods may be used too). A fretboard will typically be made of maple, rosewood, ebony or pao ferro.

The guitar capo is a clamp that is put on the guitar neck in order to get a different pitch, or key, out of the strings. The principle of the capo is like the general principle of fretting: By clamping the strings you change the length of the free string. The capo moves the whole set of strings to a different scale. Each fret on the guitar neck corresponds to half a step on the regular octave, so putting the fret for example on the first fret will move all the notes produced from the guitar half a step higher. Why is this needed? Sometimes the chords for a certain song will be awkward and difficult to produce on the regular structure of the guitar. Using the capo will change the pitch of the guitar, making these chords easier to play.

Two other important things to consider about a guitar neck are the way they are attached to the guitar body, and their shape. The guitar neck joint should be strong, since it has to withstand the pressure induced when the strings are installed or changed. The way the neck is joined to the guitar will affect the tone of the guitar. There are three primary ways to attach the guitar neck to the guitar body: (a) Set-in neck, meaning the neck is glued into place. (b) Bolt-on neck, meaning the neck is attached by bolts screwed, and (c) neck through body – a method that is exclusive to solid-body guitar, in which the peace of wood used for the guitar is extended through the entire length of the body, making it the core of the guitar body, and the 2 side parts of the body are glued to it.

The shape of the guitar neck will affect how easily you can move from fret to fret, and is highly individual. The most common shape is a “C” shape, with varying degrees of the “C” curve – from the oval shaped till the other end, the “U” shaped neck. A different category would be the “V” shaped neck, with a comfortable groove down the middle.