stratocaster player ii

it is well understood that every man should own an electric guitar. More so these days with the wide range of available options and prices.

enter strat player ii

Therefore, despite a firm commitment to not buy shit this year, I pulled the trigger on this strat:

In the early 1950s, Leo Fender and team invented (or discovered?) the equivalent of pi in the world of electric guitars: the Stratocaster.

With the ability to draw, measure, and build perfect circles, what else is there to do? Paint it in different colors, make it larger or smaller, use alternative materials?

Anyway, that is why it had to be a strat. I went for the Player II series, which sits towards the lower end of the totem pole, but it's a lot more than what I deserve at the moment. And this time there was no paradox of choice, no agonizing over the various series and colors and versions of a strat... you know why?

Because it won't be the last guitar I buy :)

bad habits

In my late teens, I inherited a Spanish guitar from my father. I already played some piano, but then, with the portability and cool factor of the guitar, the impetus to display rather than play was up high. My energy went into learning the Latin American songbook of rock, folk, and nueva trova. I needed to move as fast as I could and, in the process, ditch anything that appeared a nuisance.

"Do you say I should practice with a metronome? Stay on beat? The hell with that. I'm a soloist steppenwolf that relies on his internal sense of rhythm."

"Music theory? Waste of time!"

Well, here we are, twenty five years later. The internal sense of rhythm wasn't as hot as I thought it was. It's quite pathetic actually. And all the songs that I had committed to memory have vanished without any hope for recall, as the knowledge and the intuition for harmony and the function of notes in a given key were never developed.

unlearning bad habits

But let bygones be bygones, Agamemnon. This is not a loss, rather an opportunity to unlearn the bad, and start from scratch.

Along with the strat, I've purchased this little metronome, and I will dial it down until it goes painfully slow and I won't care if it takes two years to play the happy birthday song on beat.

As Scott Galloway says: life is so rich.

electric vs. acoustic guitar

I already had a guitar in my hands: a gorgeous and quite playable Epiphone Hummingbird in aged cherry sunburst gloss that I bought in 2011.

However, it cannot be played at night without waking up my kids (which ignites a very unpleasant chain reaction). I had to go for the strat and a good pair of headphones.

What I did not know was how much more player-friendly the electric guitar is. As an example, the hit ratio of clean barre chords is multiples of that of the Hummingbird, it's easy on the fingers and, when connected to the headphone amp, it can make a simple B minor chord sound like Gilmour.

In conclusion: this is fun.