I realized as I was writing my first post that there was quite a lot of information that I was leaving out of it, but do feel is necessary, before I dive into the realm of numbers and settings. One of my favorite books is called Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. I don't subscribe to a Buddhist worldview at all, but Pirsig makes a fascinating case on the dichotomy between what he calls the classical and the romantic views. Classical means a thing being the literal sum of its parts. Romantic is the pursuit or emotion or mystique behind it.
Let's break this down in terms guitarists will understand:
The Classical:
-An electric guitar is [almost always] made up of two or more pieces of wood attached together to form a "neck" and a "body".
-These pieces of wood also have components attached to convert the energy of a plucked string to an electrical signal to be carried to an amplifier.
-A guitar neck can be bolted on to the body, "set" in (meaning glued to the body), or carved so that it goes through the body.
-Scale length is the distance from the bridge to the nut. The typical scale length for most Fender models is 25.5 inches, while Gibson's is 24.75 inches.
-Tonewoods, pickups, potentiometers, wire, truss rod, scarf joint, strap pegs, pickguard, jack/jack plate, binding, paint, lacquer, fretboard, frets, and so on.
The Romantic:
-Every term meant to generate buzz like "Made in USA", "vintage", "boutique", "custom", etc.
-Les Paul left an indelible mark in modern music with his songwriting craft as well as his genius as an inventor. The Gibson guitar that now bears his namesake is the most easily recognizable next to the Fender Stratocaster and Telecaster.
-Ted McCarty, CEO for Gibson from 1948 to 1966, is considered to have ushered in the company's "golden era", a period of unprecedented workmanship and innovation in the electric guitar world. Instruments from this time are still some of the most sought after in the vintage buyer market.
-A few of the original master builders that made up Jackson's custom shop in the early '80s, still work for Jackson over thirty years later, though the company as a whole is now owned by Fender. As metal has become popular again throughout the 2000s, the wait period for a new custom axe is over a year.
-Bill Haley & His Comets rocking around the clock, Elvis Presley's shaking hips, Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival, Pete Townshend's windmills and nightly gear destruction, George Harrison's gently weeping guitar, Jimmy Page's double-neck stairway to guitar solo heaven, Eddie Van Halen's eruption into shredder glory, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
Alright, you get the idea.
So the Classical has to do with the actual features of an instrument here, and the Romantic is made up of the stories, the impetus behind why we choose this or that guitar, etc. We tend to gravitate toward one of the two spheres as our way of viewing the world, but Pirsig's point is that both are equally valid and important. In order to move forward with the planning phase of building my own custom guitar, I get to (and need to) revisit my own history with the instrument.
The Case For The Double Fat Strat
Feast your eyes on this. Stare at it for a while, because Lord knows how many hours I've spent doing so when I was sixteen:
It's in the photograph of love...
After a stint of listening exclusively to Christian rock (much of it was terrible!) during my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I decided that I needed more guitar distortion than I was getting. It was 2001, and word passed around that Weezer were coming back to reign in a new era of dorky power chord fuzziness. The Green album was the first secular record I bought to break my "fast". [I bought Blue and Pinkerton shortly thereafter and yes, I'm now one of those their-earlier-material-was-better purists.]
No visible tattoos, no piercings, no hats, no grunge beards [extra points if you catch the reference!], just a group of nerds who want to rock. And there's Rivers Cuomo, front and center with a Warmoth double fat Strat covered in stickers, and that lightning bolt strap. That thing floored me, actually; it was the coolest thing I had ever seen then. There was something fresh and punk as #&$% about it. Weren't Strats supposed to have three single coil pickups? Here we have the same familiar style and comfort, but those humbuckers and stickers... Clearly this was meant to be LOUDER.
Of course, I had to follow suit with my Squier:
Note the Weezer sticker behind the bridge. This is as edgy as a teenage Christian rocker guitarist can get. It did not get me any female attention.
That's a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails humbucker in the bridge position. I had originally planned to add a Cool Rails in the neck and a Little '59 in the middle positions, but I caught on to the Gibson thing once I found a hardtail bridge and a set neck to be more agreeable with what I wanted to do. Why spend money outfitting a crummy Squier with new pickups when I could get dual humbuckers in my next guitar, an Epiphone G-400? And so I moved on from there.
But there is still something to be said for the contoured comfort of a Stratocaster. It just... fits. The iconic instrument connects every guitarist with the rock and roll dream. I love that. My main arguments against it mainly have to do with the pickup configuration and the lack of handling capacity for heavier music, but those elements can be fixed. If I want a double fat Strat, so be it.
I didn't even bother talking about my other major Strat hero, Billy Corgan, but that's enough for the Chautauqua today. Warmoth design to begin with the next installment. Enjoy:
No comments:
Post a Comment