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Post subject: How has a strat affected your playing style?
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:14 pm
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This may be an obtuse question....but is it?

Oh, sure, strats...adapt, play 'em in any arena...whatever. But this is an honest question.

Has playing a Fender Strat affected your style? Do you find yourself gravitating towards some styles and techniques over others when you're playing one?

I've been playing my HSS nonstop for the past few weeks since buying it and even though it doesn't feel quite like my old strat, I still find myself playing a lot of funky riffs on it and bending the strings as far as I possibly can. (I don't play like this on other electrics.)

Is this normal? Or, do you find yourself doing stuff on your strat that you would do with any guitar?


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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:19 pm
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It's funny you should bring that up. A few weeks ago I was jammin with some old guys and I was playing my Les Paul. One of the other guitar players said "you're a strat player aren't ya man?". He said I played that Les Paul like it was a strat. I thought about it and he was right. So I guess playing a strat has affected my style.

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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:55 pm
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Yep. I play "cleaner" stuff on my Strat. I just love the way the out of phase pickup positions sound with some reverb and analog delay.
I save all of my "stoner riffs" for my Les Paul... 8)


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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 8:45 am
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Funny that you mention stoner riffs, I actual have gravitated more to them , with the strat they seem brighter and has allowed me to play these songs to a wider range of people. The gibson 135 i was playing made them seem too muddy . Mines an sss and the bridge pu makes the distortion more gritty and less of a distortion wash. I've also thrown in a few country licks into my solos with it and it has amused a lot of people. I may have found my niche. It sure has made me a happier with my tone


Last edited by stephenr66 on Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:30 am
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once i got my strat, I found myself working blues into my playing. when I played on my old les paul, i rarely played blues. now i play blues all the time.
interesting. personally, I love how the strat feels compared to a les paul or sg, because of the longer scale, the strings are more resistant to bends. whenever I go back to playing on an sg, I always overbend, because the guitar doesn't fight back at all.

I think the way a guitar affects your playing goes along with the personality of the guitar. it just goes to what the guitar sounds best doing.


Last edited by Ben13 on Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:21 am
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Strats have helped me to look past what I can and can't play, but kind of towards what I need to be able to play. If you know about me, you know that Stevie Ray has influenced me more than any other artist. His tones have gotten me to where I think musically, right now.

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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 10:37 am
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I always play blues or cleaner stuff on my Strat. When I first started playing I got a Strat and played a lot more classic rock back then. So when I pick up my Strat I always want to play blues or classic rock.


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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 12:35 pm
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After 4 decades of playing Strats pretty much exclusively, I simply cannot get used to playing any other model guitar no matter how good the model is or how well it is set up. To me, there's Strats and then there's everything else. Obviously, YMMV.


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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:11 pm
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I've only been at it for about seven years now. All I've ever bought were strats. I just can't see me playing anything else. What do they say? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I fired up my Am std Texas Special today. Man, what a sweetie, still all stock, surf pearl with maple neck, Texas Specials in the neck and mid and a pearly gates humbucker in the bridge position.

Seriously thinking about getting some Callaham saddles for it but...

I especially like the tiger stripes in the wood grain of the neck.


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Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 3:40 pm
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Guitars are a living thing. The wood comes from a living organism and it continues to breath and age long after the chunks to make the guitar have been severed from the tree. You don't have to be anthropomorphic to get this. Any good carpenter knows the difference between live wood and dead wood. So even among similar models there are subtle differences that an experienced player can feel even without pluging in. I've always treated my guitars like living things... till recently the pride and joy of my collect was a black '74 Les Paul Classic. Alas my ex-wife got a hold of my whole collection but I digress. Maybe it's the floating trem or the super solid maple neck on my Am Dlx but that Strat is the liveliest guitar I've ever held. I love the way the guitar just vibrates in my hands. I love the way the strings just "snaps" out a tone against the fretboard. Since I got my Strat it's shifted my style towards the blues again. Full circle back to the roots of my music.

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Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:59 am
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I agree with the above statement about wood being alive. When its dead its checkered and is nothing more than firewood for your woodburing stove. I have 2 other vintage guitars, a `63 Gretsch and a `69 Gibson Les Paul. I can`t play either one of them the way I play my Strat. The Strat allows me to play with more speed for one thing. I don`t know if it`s because of the neck itself, or if it`s just that the guitar is such a pleasure to play. Either way, since I got it I find it hard to put down. Being retired due to an injury, I find myself practicing anywhere from 2 to 6 hours a day. I was never able to do that with my other guitars.


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Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 8:00 am
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JPD wrote:
Being retired due to an injury, I find myself practicing anywhere from 2 to 6 hours a day. I was never able to do that with my other guitars.


Hey! I resemble that statement. I'm disabled also and find myself with a lot of time to devote to music. Prior to getting my Am Dlx I wasn't much into structured practice. I would get bored with exercises and revert to playing the same tired licks I've doing for the last 27 years. It never occourred to me that it was because I was feeling discomfort caused by playing inferior instruments. I have several guitars and at most I can only manage around two hours of hard playing on them... that is except for my Strat. It was perfect from the moment it came out of the box. The person who setup my guitar at the factory did a fantastic job! I can play all day on that Strat effortlessly. There is a huge difference between a $100.00 guitar and a $1,000.00 guitar.

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Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 8:11 am
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It`s amazing how a career ending injury can make you revert to old talents. I put my guitars down for so many years due to jobs and raising a family, and looking back on it now I`m sorry I did. But I always did artwork as a kid so I got back into that also. I`ve had my paintings in a few art shows and have one coming up in March that I`m going into. So between the guitar and artwork, I try to occupy the day. You can go crazy sitting home and being injured, your activities are limited.


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Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:33 pm
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JPD wrote:
It`s amazing how a career ending injury can make you revert to old talents. I put my guitars down for so many years due to jobs and raising a family, and looking back on it now I`m sorry I did. But I always did artwork as a kid so I got back into that also. I`ve had my paintings in a few art shows and have one coming up in March that I`m going into. So between the guitar and artwork, I try to occupy the day. You can go crazy sitting home and being injured, your activities are limited.


I used to be an art major. After my first taste of Hendrix I lost all interest in pen and brush. I was fixated on the guitar through the '80s. I got married in '89 and kids soon followed. I came to the conclusion at that time thats it's impossible to play guiitar around toddlers and young kids. They want to touch it... play with what ever you are playing with. So I lost touch with music because of financial and familial requirements untill my divorce it '97. Alas my ex got a hold of my whole guitar and surfboard collection (and gun collection!).

It's great that you have your music and your art. Kudos on the art show. I wish you all sucess. I may not be painting or drawing anymore but I do a lot of photography, computer graphics and authoring web pages as a paying hobby.

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Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 3:41 pm
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Hey your kids might be just my age, how old are they? I was born in 91.

I think the main thing about playing different riffs for different guitars is simply because they sound better on some guitars than others. I do eveything on my tele, but I find myself doing lots of surk stuff on my othe guitar which is a strat copy which I LOVE. It's funny how that part of our brain just tells our fingers that this guitar is suited for this stuff so we find ourselves wanting to play that stuff. I think that could be one of the reasons that top guitarests have a whole mess of different guitars. Not because they searched for something that would fit their style, that happens after, but because they found themselves playing that one particular song better on that guitar.

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