A Concise Dictionary of Guitar Terminology (A Satire)

Photo by Felicia Montenegro on Unsplash

I’m a professional editor in my day job (really).

And one thing I’m constantly preaching on my LinkedIn account is the importance of not using jargon in your copy. If your readers don’t understand the words you use, they’ll just leave—which is not great for business.

But I’ve recently realized that when I write on Medium, I often use guitar jargon. I use technical words that you, dear reader, may not know the definitions of.

That means I need to taste a little bit of my own medicine.

So what I decided to do—rather than rewrite every article—is define all of the technical terms I use when talking about guitars in one place. That way, we’ll all be on the same page (figuratively and literally!) moving forward.

So here it is: a concise list of any and every guitar-related term I could think of, defined for you. Be sure to keep this as a reference sheet when reading my articles; I’ll try to add to it when I think of or use new terms.

Dictionary of Guitar Terminology

Axe — slang for an electric guitar, especially if you’re a Boomer (or don’t play at all)

Bassist — see Guitarist, failed