Telecasters All The Rave

Playing guitar is a beautiful thing, and if you’re anything like me then the only thing better than playing any old guitar, is playing an American Fender Telecaster. Its just a whole new level of pleasure.

So what makes an American Fender Tele different from any other old piece of wood with 6 strings?

A lot of things.

To start with Tele’s have superbly thin necks, which, for someone coming over from a Les Paul type guitar is like a breath of fresh air, followed by a storm of a whole lot more fresh air. Much much more comfortable to play, and it makes chord transitions far smoother because you can more your fingers more quickly up, down, and around the neck.

Secondly, the Tele has a far flatter neck compared to Les Paul, which actually makes it a little more awkward to hold down a chord, but once you adapt to this, I have found that the sound is far more pure from chords held on a flat neck as opposed to chords held on a rounded neck. Naturally playing solo’s on a flat neck is also far quicker as you can have your action set much lower.

Third is weight. Weight weight weight. A Les Paul around your neck might as well be a bucket full of bricks, you’d like to thrash it around while you play but if you do there’s always the chance it’ll smack into you and seriously hurt! Tele’s are light, not too light, but a really nice weight, and easily light enough to allow you to ‘thrash’ more comfortably, if you know what I mean.

And finally, Fender electrical components are just far superior. With my Les Paul I used to experience (very minor) crackling when changing pickups and sometimes when turning the volume up and down, and this was AFTER being serviced! Tele’s have none of that, its all smooth, and wired correctly, and there’s not so much as a hum from the internal electrical components to put you off.

In conclusion, the American Fender Telecaster is possibly the greatest guitar of all time.

Hang That Guitar Up!

Anyone who plays guitar almost without exception loves their guitar to bits, it doesn’t matter how expensive it is, or how ‘good’ it is.. it just becomes an extension of your body and a way to express yourself musically.. and to show off to women, obviously.

Every guitar player’s greatest fear (or at least one of them) is that their guitar should be accidentally damaged, whether that be by someone else playing it, or simply from it not being secured properly and falling over.

Now I’m not trying to sell you insurance, I’m not saying ‘if your guitar breaks I will offer you suitable compensation in a court of law, no win no fee’ or anything even remotely like that! You see, I recently discovered a marvellous little guitar holder gadget called the ‘String Swing’ which, granted, is a slightly ambiguous name given that it’s a guitar holder, which, generally speaking, one would prefer to neither swing, nor be made of string. Thankfully though the String Swing does neither, in fact, it does quite the opposite.

You secure the string swing to the wall and it holds your guitar by the headstock, cushioned against its soft bars, which are fully adjustable and guaranteed not to scratch your neck in any way shape or form. It also rotates to accommodate any configuration of tuning pegs, naturally if you are a Les Paul player you will need it to be straight, but if you are a Tele or Strat player then you need the support to be at a pretty much 45 degree angle. This little guitar hanger device accommodates everyone, and very stylishly too.