Tonewood

From GuitarWiki

Tonewood-The term tonewood refers to the types of wood used in the construction of a wooden instrument. Generally speaking, an acoustic guitar will be built using a variety of different tonewoods to make up various components of the instrument. Tonewood selection is often considered to be a large factor in the tone of the finished instrument.

As stated above, different parts of the guitar (or other wooden instrument) can be made using two or more separate tonewoods. For instance, the back and sides of a guitar are usually built with one wood, while the tops of the guitar are made from another tonewood.

Back and sides are most commonly built using either Rosewood, or Mahogany. Rosewoods and Mahoganies from different regions can provide different tonal qualities. More exotic guitars can have backs and sides built from rarer woods such as Koa and Walnut.

The wood used for topwoods (also known as the soundboard) is usually some variety of Spruce such as Sitka Spruce, Englemann Spruce or Adirondack Spruce. But like backs and sides, more exotic woods including Cedar, Redwood and Koa can be used as well.