When you walk into your local music store, there is likely to be row upon row of gleaming, new electric guitars. Do you want to just stand there and salivate, or figure out which one to buy? Although you have many choices, knowing a few basics will make the decision process much easier than you might think it could be. Let's take a look at some essential guidelines.

Woods & Body Types...

There are many kinds of electric-guitar bodies. These days, most of them are solid-bodies, which are guitars carved out of a solid piece of wood, or sometimes several pieces that are laminated together. A Fender Telecaster, for example, is usually just a single piece of ash or alder wood, with a maple neck that is bolted on to the body. This simple use of hardwoods contributes to the bright sound these guitars are famous for, especially when combined with single-coil pickups. [More on pickups below.] Les Pauls, on the other hand, are more complicated, usually having a mahogany body with a maple top and a mahogany neck that's glued in place. This creates the Paul's distinctively fat and warm sound. Sometimes you also run into bodies made of basswood, a beefy-sounding wood often used for Ibanez and other "super-Strat" guitars (i.e., Strat-style bodies with humbuckers, tremolos, and 22- or 24-fret fingerboards).

There are also semi-hollow bodies, typified by the Gibson ES-335, which is an electric with a block of maple running through the center of the body but then has hollow "wings" above and below it. This creates a more acoustic-like sound than a regular solidbody. A full hollow-body is essentially an acoustic guitar with pickups. Inside its cavity are no solid pieces of wood, but instead a series of braces that keep the top, back, and sides of the box together. Finally, some guitars have sound chambers, which are routed-out cavities inside solid-bodies that create more resonance and a slightly warmer, more acoustic-like tone - though not as much as a good semi-hollow electric...

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See also:
There is a great page that shows the different woods, by Charles S. Tauber, Maker of Guitars & Lutes. It takes a while to load, but the pictures clearly show the wood grain and colors of many woods. Details here.

Plus you can check out Woods Used By Luthiers