Featured, Workshop »

Gah! Broken strings. Who needs ’em?
I remember learning to play guitar as a poor teenager and seeking out music stores who sold single strings as I couldn’t afford to replace a whole set.  I remember winding extra turns unto my tuners and, when a string broke, carefully tying its ball-end onto the slack in the string so I could avoid having to buy even another single string.
While all of that may have been character-forming, it wasn’t much fun.  If only I’d known then about a relatively simple method of reducing the …

Featured, News »

Fender have announced details of the 2010 American Special series of instruments.  Fender claim these are built ‘by the people, for the people’ and that they are ‘guitars for the times’.
US-built, the series, so far, includes the American Special Telecaster, Stratocaster and Stratocaster HSS.  They are touted as highly-affordable guitars within the reach of an entire spectrum of players that share many features with the Highway One and American Standard instruments.
All American Specials have alder bodies finished in urethane and buffed to a gloss.  All share a 9.5″-radius, maple neck …

Featured, Music »

Pistol Slapper Blues, an old Blind Boy Fuller track, as performed by Rory Gallagher.
I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about Rory – on the one hand, many (not all) of his studio albums don’t really get me too excited but, anything live by him is always brilliant.
Case in point: Live! In Europe.  Released in 1972, it was recorded on his European tour and has a nice mix of Rory rocking out with the band – on his trusty, battered Stratocaster – and some solo songs with just him playing acoustic, …

How To, Workshop »

You’re a millionaire playboy guitarist with a vintage Fender or you’re just someone with one of many current or past Fender originals and reissues.
Whatever the case, you’re finding that those big blues bends that you love doing are buzzing or, worse still, choking-out completely and dying. Your guitar plays fine and buzz-free the rest of the time but as soon as you go for a nice, soulful, bent note, it buzzes or chokes.
Annoying.
Possibly more annoying is when I tell you that there’s a good chance it’s just a limitation …

News »

Fender News have a short interview with former Deep Purple and Rainbow rocker – now medieval troubadour – Ritchie Blackmore.  The man in tights answers questions about his current Renaissance renaissance as well as discussing some Purple/Rainbow stuff.
Blackmore also talks briefly about the inspiration for the scalloped fingerboard on his signature Stratocaster:
“I had a classical guitar way back when I was 19 or 20. It had a pitted fingerboard, worn out from excessive use so the wood in between the frets was almost concave. It felt right. Then when I …

The Month In Guitar »

A couple of notable anniversaries for October.
The Big Two of guitar makers both have something worth celebrating this month:

Although officially announced in April (and included on the cover of Fender’s April price list), full-scale production of the Fender Stratocaster really only began in October 1954.  Initial production – from April until October – was really quite slow, consisting mainly of marketing models.  These were used to demonstrate the radically new instrument to dealers and players (and at that summer’s NAMM).  Only after the dealers had gotten sufficiently used to …