Dreadnought Guitars

If you’ve ever strummed an open G chord on a small-bodied guitar and felt like something was missing, you already understand why a dreadnought for strumming keeps coming up in every “what guitar should I buy” conversation. A dreadnought is the big-shouldered, wide-waisted acoustic body shape that Martin popularised over a century ago, and in … Read more

Here’s an odd little contradiction that nobody warns you about when you start shopping for a dreadnought for fingerpicking: the guitar shape built to be loud was never really built with your quiet, intricate right-hand patterns in mind. Dreadnoughts were designed in 1916 by C.F. Martin to cut through a room full of banjos and … Read more

A dreadnought acoustic guitar is the big, square-shouldered acoustic body shape that C. F. Martin developed in the early twentieth century to produce more volume and bass than the parlour guitars that came before it — it’s the shape most people picture when they hear the word “guitar” at all, and it remains the default … Read more