The Sound of The Acoustic Guitar

It is generally agreed the principle of all acoustic guitars producing sound is the same, when you strike a string on a guitar you apply energy to make it vibrate.

When the string vibrates it is not enough to create sound that can be heard clearly, it can be thought of as being like a tuning fork which vibrates when struck but the sound is inaudible until it comes into contact with a mass of lower density which can then transmit vibrations in the air and becomes audible .

This is why acoustic guitars have hollow bodies that have carefully designed soundboxes . The energy of strings vibrating is transferred to the sound box via the bridge and saddle over which they pass, the sound box vibrates in sympathy with the strings to create an audible sound.

The projection and volume of the sound waves can be heard up to a reasonable distance, a simple way of showing this is to play both an acoustic and electric guitar un pluged and see the difference in volume, showing the sound box is producing the volume whereas the electric is only a mounting block for pickup’s , bridge and controls.

In conclusion the sound from the acoustic is generated via the sound box and the electric sound is produced with amplifer and speakers, Happy Playing ..