What is the difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar?

Often, before buying a guitar, a future musician asks himself the question, which instrument should he choose, an acoustic or an electric guitar? In order to make the right choice, you need to know the features and differences between them. Each of them, due to the specifics of its structure, is used in different styles of music, and both have different playing techniques. An acoustic guitar differs from an electric guitar in the following ways:

• Hull structure
• Number of frets
• String fastening system
• Sound amplification method
• Game techniques

For a clear example, compare What is the difference between an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar? on the image:

Housing and sound reinforcement system

The first difference that immediately catches your eye is the body of the guitar. Even a person who knows nothing about music and musical instruments will notice that an acoustic guitar has a wide and hollow body, while an electric guitar has a solid and narrow body. This is because sound amplification happens in different ways. The sound of the strings must be amplified, otherwise it will be too weak. In an acoustic guitar, the sound is amplified by the body itself. For this purpose, there is a special hole in the middle of the front deck called “power socket“, the vibration from the strings transfers to the body of the guitar, intensifies and exits through it.

An electric guitar does not need this, since the principle of sound amplification is completely different. On the body of the guitar, where the “socket” is located on the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar has magnetic pickups that capture the vibrations of the metal strings and transmit them to the reproducing equipment. The speaker is not installed inside the guitar, as some might think, although there have been similar experiments, for example, the Soviet “Tourist” guitar, but this is more of a perversion than a full-fledged electric guitar. The guitar is connected by connecting the jack connector and the input to the equipment with a special cord. In this case, you can add all kinds of “gadgets” and guitar processors to the connection path to change the sound of the guitar. The body of an acoustic guitar lacks the switches, levers, and jack input that an electric guitar has.

Hybrid types of acoustic guitar

An acoustic guitar can also be connected to the equipment. In this case, it will be called “semi-acoustic” or “electro-acoustic”. An electro-acoustic guitar is more similar to a regular acoustic guitar, but it has a special piezo pickup that performs the same function as a magnetic pickup in an electric guitar. A semi-acoustic guitar is more similar to an electric guitar and has a narrower body than an acoustic guitar. Instead of a “socket”, it uses f-holes for playing in unplugged mode, and a magnetic pickup is installed for connection. You can also purchase a special pickup and install it on a regular acoustic guitar yourself.

Frets

The next thing you should pay attention to is the number of frets on the guitar’s neck. There are much fewer of them on an acoustic guitar than on an electric guitar. The maximum number of frets on an acoustic is 21, on an electric guitar up to 27 frets. This is due to several factors:

• The neck of an electric guitar has a truss rod that gives it strength. Therefore, the bar can be made longer.
• Because the body of an electric guitar is thinner, it is easier to reach the outer frets. Even if an acoustic guitar has cutouts on the body, it is still difficult to reach them.
• The neck of an electric guitar is often thinner, making it easier to reach the frets on lower strings.

String fastening system

Also, an acoustic guitar differs from an electric guitar in that it has a different string fastening system. An acoustic guitar has a tailpiece that holds the strings. In addition to the tailpiece, an electric guitar often has a bridge, which allows fine adjustment of the height, and in some types, the tension of the strings. Additionally, many bridges have a built-in tremolo arm system, which is used to produce a vibrating sound.

Game techniques

The differences do not end with the structure of the guitar; they also concern the techniques of playing it. For example, vibrato is produced on an electric and acoustic guitar using different methods. If on an electric guitar vibrato is produced mainly by small movements of the finger, then on an acoustic guitar – by the movement of the entire hand. This difference is present because on an acoustic guitar the strings are tighter, which means it is much more difficult to make such small movements. In addition, there are techniques that are completely impossible to perform on an acoustic guitar. It is impossible to play on an acoustic by tapping, because in order to get a sufficiently loud sound when performing, you need to significantly increase the volume, and this is only possible on an electric guitar.