Acoustic Custom Guitar, Handmade

See below for a convenient glossary of terms or begin now, viewing this collection of custom handmade guitars. Brought to you by Luthier’s Collection of San Diego, CA, every acoustic custom guitar is handmade. Each instrument is one of a kind.

Following is a basic glossary of terms related to guitars. We hope you find something of value here. Of course, you didn’t come to Luthier’s Collection to learn more about handmade guitars and guitar playing. You want to see actual guitars, beautiful musical instruments built by gifted luthiers, one at a time. Whether you are window shopping or serious about finding a custom built acoustic guitar, welcome. Let us know how we can be of assistance.

• Bridge – opposite to the nut, the bridge holds the strings in place and transmits vibrations to the soundboard and can be made a wide range of materials and fashioned in various shapes
• Dreadnought – large acoustic guitars producing a strong bass and great volume, originally made by C.F. Martin & Co.
• Fingerboard – Piece of wood which makes up the platform for playing custom handmade guitars and other stringed musical instruments; can be fretted or fretless
• Fret – a ridge across the neck or fingerboard; pressing a string against the fret produces a certain pitch
• Headstock – Location of the mechanisms used to wind the strings, located on the end opposite the guitar body
• Interval – The difference between one tone and another; on guitars this is normally a 4th, or the distance of four tones
• Polyphonic – able to play more than one note at the same time; a 6-string acoustic custom guitar, handmade, is capable of six-note polyphony as each string can play one note
• Scale length – on guitars, scale length equals the part of the string that vibrates and determines, for the most part, the range of pitch
• Tablature – the graphic representation used to write music for fretted instruments