Guitar Shape

There are many factors take part in producing the sound and tonal quality of a guitar but the most important thing are the guitar materials, guitar size and guitar shape. Guitar comes in different sizes but the most shapes commonly found are dreadnought, grand concert, grand auditorium and jumbo.

Dreadnought Guitars

dreadnought-square shoulder guitar

Dreadnought is the acoustic guitar shape developed by Martin Guitar Co. in 1920’s and most of the modern acoustic guitars today are derived from this model. They are easy to distinguish because of their square shape. The large body produces good volume and projection but some people don’t like the wide waist design because it made the guitars uncomfortable to play. Gibson offers two types of dreadnought guitars, the round-shoulder and square-shoulder designs.

Grand Auditorium Guitars

grand auditorium guitar

Grand auditorium has a dimension of a dreadnought but narrower in waist making it more comfortable to play when rested on the knee. The narrower waist sharpens the definition of each note and gives a better bass and treble balance. This model has been very well accepted by most people.

Grand Concert Guitars

grand concert guitar

Grand concert guitar looks similar to the grand auditorium but smaller in dimension and has a brighter sound due to its shallower depth. This guitar is perfect for small players. The grand concert model gives more ‘intimate’ feeling to the players.

Jumbo Guitars

jumbo guitar

Jumbo guitar has the largest size and the sound chamber delivers extra volume and resonance. This type of guitar is commonly used for bluegrass or country style music.

Besides these common guitar shapes there are other guitars model such as traveler guitar, bowl-back guitar and cutaways guitar. Note that cutaways shape can mix easily with the four shapes above. If you visit Taylor Guitar website you can see that they offer cutaways guitar for all of the four shapes above.

-TJ-
Beginner Guitar Lessons Admin

No related posts.