does style/type of guitar cause you to play differently.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:04 pm

I definitely do, which is why I like having so many guitars. My Jag-stang I play lightly and quickly, it's good for blues and bit of widdlies. My Tele I tend to hit a bit more, my Ibanez I play a bit more, I don't, professionally? Like, I play it well and probably sound like a taught guitarist and not as physical as when I play my others. My arhctop is great fun, feedback galore, so you have to be able to play it really gently with control but sometimes absolutely throttle it too.

I'm pretty physical with all my guitars though. I'm an aggressive player. The fact that I usually come off stage bleeding would suggest that all of the above only holds true in practice or in my bedroom, and that onstage adrenaline or whatever makes me punch the shit out of the fucking thing.

benecol wrote:You're going to think me silly, but I always think that James Iha was the coolest looking Gibson player, and I totally understand the way he always looks like he's really concentrating on what he's doing.

I know exactly what you mean. Page does that a bit sometimes too. Maybe it's because you sort of sit in a Les Paul, rather than behind it.

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:37 pm

When playing guitars with big necks, such as les pauls i think my hand position changes slightly. My thumb moves more to the back of the neck and my fingers sort of dance on top of the fret board. Also my playing is somewhat limited by the limited upper fret access of a les paul. On my prs i can play pretty much anything i want, with it's playability being similar to the musicman that i sold. I don't think my style really changes though. It would take a radical change such as a tele or a danelectro for that.

Rox · Post by **Rox** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 9:46 am

All my guitars make me play different . Sound different , feel different play different and inspire different . Probably why I can't keep the number of gee-tarz below 7.......

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:25 pm

Rox wrote:All my guitars make me play different . Sound different , feel different play different and inspire different . Probably why I can't keep the number of gee-tarz below 7.......

Do you ever want to shrink your collection? Lately i've been wanting to turn my 5 guitars into 2.

Progrockabuse · Post by **Progrockabuse** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 12:13 pm

i could quite happily just have one or two guitars and sack the rest off. i have around 7 and only two are really used.

brainfur · Post by **brainfur** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 2:31 pm

yes when i play bass the strings are big and thick and floppy so I have to use a 2mm pick or my thumb

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 4:01 pm

brainfur wrote:yes when i play bass the strings are big and thick and floppy so I have to use a 2mm pick or my thumb

Yeah, I do try to play my bass the same as my guitar but the strings are just too big, and some of them are missing.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:46 pm

gaybear wrote:absolutely makes a difference to me. I think it mostly has to do with neck types though.

+!

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:42 pm

hmm, I own two guitars, a telecaster/esquire, and a jaguar. due to the neck and trem, i play them a bit differently, and the body shape.

patrickcurran21 · Post by **patrickcurran21** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:46 am

I've got an SG with a P90 in the bridge that I beat when I play... crazy Pete Townshendy type stuff, minus the smashing bit. My other guitar is an old Kay, Truetone branded (26" scale), speed demon that doesn't have much in the way of frets anymore, I usually play that through some kind of nasty 60s fuzz (fuzzrite and orpheum cloney things).

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:32 pm

I strum infront of the neck butt. no matter what guitar. to tje point where a lot of my guitars have the corner of the butt is worn down at an angle. its a result of developing for years on my jagstang before I ripped the switches out

ultratwin · Post by **ultratwin** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:10 pm

robroe wrote:I strum infront of the neck butt. no matter what guitar. to tje point where a lot of my guitars have the corner of the butt is worn down at an angle. its a result of developing for years on my jagstang before I ripped the switches out

My friend Shini from local band Monni has done that to his poor Fender Tele-Sonic for no less than 8 years. I last messed around with it back in 2007 and noted the already "exposed fret roots" in addition to the worn edge of the neck, and last week I asked him if he's still playing it hard like that. He said "yeah".

I just found this video from this past September, which confirms it...I imagine he'll soon be grating his right hand on the frets in a matter of months. Unlike Rob he's got just the Tele-Sonic, and only rarely pulls out his near-mint Gibbo ES-335 (which he's much easier on).

[youtube][/youtube]

ultratwin · Post by **ultratwin** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:35 pm

I pound the heck out of my Teles and Jazzmaster (thanks to heavier gauge strings and TOM bridge) and have the CIJ ST68 Strat set up well enough to stay in tune under hard playing, but along the likes of what Nick said, I have to play lightly to ironically get the best tone out of the heaviest sounding guitar in the lot, the Epiphone 7-string. Pickups are stupid hot and the strings get all flabby and plunky if I dig in, but are nonetheless the "secret sauce" when I need to lay down the deepest, darkest of toanz.

Stylistically, the Strat's lovely neck pickup tone plus pos. 2+4 means it'll be first call for pop/funk tracks, whereas I'll play something else for pretty much all other genres.

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 6:08 pm

I play a lot of different guitars - most of which don't belong to me - on a daily basis when im rehearsing in a group. The only difference in my approach is based upon the string gauge, the lighter the more vibrato and bends I do, apart from that I sound more or less the same regardless. I think it depends upon your approach to the instrument. Thinking of the guitar as just a tool tends to remove any preconceptions about how a certain guitar can make you play 'bluesy' or 'jazzy', its fine to think that however I think that removing any connotations of what styles should be performed on a certain guitar is more practical for my usage.

finboy · Post by **finboy** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:35 pm

i absolutely play them differently, and it varies from everything involving scale length, bridge type, pickups, to even whether or not the guitar has contours. Most people i know think that i am crazy to have as many guitars as i do, but every guitar has a different feel to me, and as such, makes me play in a different way.

prime example - mid 80's epiphone les paul with high gain outputs is REALLY sustainy, and as such i hold notes/chords on it longer because they ring out well and blend into feedback with ease, where as my music master has much less sustain and i play way more thrashy sounding stuff on it.