acoustic_guitar : Various acoustic guitar types
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There are many different acoustic guitar bodies available today. The most important deciding factor would be the style of music you (or him or her) hope to accomplish, secondary to this would be comfort, and lastly aesthetics. The guitar has to sound right, feel right, and look right - when its in your hands!
Auditorium: One of the largest guitar bodies being made today. As the name implies, the sound emitted should fill an auditorium. Keep in mind, larger bodied guitars lose their projection capability, the sound seems to become lost in the larger cavity of the instrument. Yes, it will have a large sound, and tremendous bass response, but seems to lose in projection. Great for fingerstyle.
Grand Concert: A Grand Concert size is more balanced, designed to minimize overtones on stage, does not have a boomy bass or the usual reverberation found in Dreadnought-sized guitars.The Grand Concert seems to have a more focused sound than an Auditorium size, if you're looking for a bigger sound, and are not concerned as much about projection, the Auditorium size will fill your needs, the Grand Concert is slightly more balanced with more projection due to the slightly smaller body size. Both the Auditorium and the Grand Concert are designed for Fingerpicking first, flatpicking can also be accomplished on both sizes, however, for bluegrass flatpicking, settle for nothing but a Dreadnought. Excellent for fingerstyle, still works for flatpicking outside of bluegrass.
Dreadnought: Originated around 1916, uses the standard X Bracing. This is the size of choice when flatpicking, characterized by a booming bass and tremendous projection, the Dreadnought is the guitar of choice for all Bluegrass guitarists. This size guitar also serves well for backing up fiddlers due to the booming bass end. The Dreadnought is the most popular sized guitar made today (and yesterday). Many popular artists have used the Dreadnought to good effect both in fingerpicking and flatpicking idioms. Just the same, this wouldn't be the ideal choice for the serious fingerpicker. Even so, the Dreadnought would be the most versatile guitar to fill most any medium and style of music played. First choice for flatpicking, works well for fingerstyle too, the most versatile guitar for all mediums and genres.
Orchestra: Little larger than the 00 and 000 models described below, the OM shares many of the same characteristics as the 00 and 000 models. New variations are now available, such as the OM Jumbo which larger than the standard OM but smaller than the Dreadnaught.
Smaller bodied guitars include the OO and OOO styles. These guitars offer tremendous balance from bass to treble. And, they also have amazing projection. They do not have any bottom end to speak of, but, this would be the trade-off for projection and balance. Great for fingerstyle and seems to have a more trebly tonal range, a great guitar to offset other Dreadnought guitars within a jam session.
The final size, which isn't a steel string design, is the Classical sized guitar. This body size is specifically designed for nylon strings and is almost always fingerpicked. On rare occasion, players will flatpick this style of guitar - such as Willie Nelson and Jose Feliciano has aptly done. And, when guitar is played in an Orchestra setting, the nylon is the guitar of choice.
There's also the question of shallow or deep, all Dreadnoughts, and Classicals, have a deep body, more depth adding to the overall cavity of the instrument - this usually contributes to a deeper resonance and more resounding bass shallow guitars, those with less depth on the body, will have more projection and focus while also having a better balance from bass to treble. Shallow body styles are normally found in the Concert size or OOO/OO sizes.
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