Finally realized Telecasters don't work for me

[mispeltyoof]

After years of playing arch tops...I am now seventy....and my hands are causing problems...I tried a Tele....Love it good jazz sound ..very comfortable to sit with and the playabilty is bliss! Going to give me many years more playing. Never dreamt I would ever consider a Tele but just goes to show. Wished I tried one years ago

[jzucker]

as I mentioned, for me the issue is that I do not rest any part of my arm on the edge of the guitar. The edge of the guitar is in the space between my arm and the side of my chest. A small portion of the inside of my right bicep touches the front of the guitar but there is no weight on the top of the guitar to hold it down. So if the instrument does not balance on it's own, it just doesn't work for me.

[Eddie Charles]

Crudely cut?!?!
I think Leo got it just right. The Tele and Strat "crudely" cut shapes have become icons of the modern guitar world.

Now the Flying V is another matter. It is an icon also...in the heavy metal world.

[Encinitastubes]

To me, the charm of a Tele is that it is a slab of wood. The back should dig into your ribs, the top should cut into your arm and it should cause a little pain to produce a good sound.

[Chimera1to1]

The balance issue is just a dealbreaker. I recently bought a Larrivee bakersfield Malibu tele. It was an amazing sounding guitar. EXACTLY what I was looking for tonally. It weighed 7.2lbs so I was very hopeful it would not be neck heavy. Unfortunately, it was extremely uncomfortable for me to play. I'm now wondering if the way I hold the guitar neck at a 45 degree angle makes me more susceptible to these kinds of issues than others because obviously others are able to play teles while standing without issues. If I used a suede strap the guitar was serviceable but the entire time I owned the guitar, I always felt like I was battling it. So, I unloaded it. In the future, I guess I will look into a hard-tail strat instead since they balance much better.

Unfortunately the solution to the problem of the tele's short upper bout is the shape of the Parker Fly and it's not to everyone's taste. Strap a Parker on neck up and the upper bout gets horizontal and starts working with you.

[jzucker]

Unfortunately the solution to the problem of the tele's short upper bout is the shape of the Parker Fly and it's not to everyone's taste. Strap a Parker on neck up and the upper bout gets horizontal and starts working with you.

not true at all. A sadowsky semihollow is shaped approximately like a tele, weighs the same or less than a tele and is perfectly balanced.

And in terms of the tele being a crude slab, the tele is shaped like an archtop. I saw someone asking in another thread about having an archtop made with tummy cuts and forearm bevels though...

[Chimera1to1]

not true at all. A sadowsky semihollow is shaped approximately like a tele, weighs the same or less than a tele and is perfectly balanced.

And in terms of the tele being a crude slab, the tele is shaped like an archtop. I saw someone asking in another thread about having an archtop made with tummy cuts and forearm bevels though...

Nothing wrong with the shape but put a tele and a strat next to each other on a rack and it's clear why the tele doesn't balance as well as the strat. Not sure what relevance the shape/proportions of the Sadowsky have to the balance of a telecaster. ??

[jzucker]

Nothing wrong with the shape but put a tele and a strat next to each other on a rack and it's clear why the tele doesn't balance as well as the strat. Not sure what relevance the shape/proportions of the Sadowsky have to the balance of a telecaster. ??

just showing that it's not the shape that's to blame. Sadowsky and a Tele are similar in shape and weight

[Silentwiz]

There is way too much tempting candy out there of sorts that's a terrible distraction. Whenever I stop asking myself "what guitar would enable me to *play* my best?", I get into trouble. Fortunately, my really pricey mistakes have been several years back, but I still chalk up a few hum-dingers every now and then.

For me, the strat or super strat shape works best. Yes, I shudder about it as well -- it is not my preference! Man, I wish some relic'd out butterscotch whiteguard fit my bill, but it doesn't. In fact, no matter how hard I try to get a tele to work (mostly because something screams "wanker" to me when I grab a strat -- thanks, Jeff Matz) that darn lack of forearm cut wrecks me. I also don't care for the additional weight.

I went through a real pain a few years back to parts together a Warmoth tele with all sorts of contours and cuts and what not, but it's so darn far from the real deal that it's basically a strat with a tele PG and electronics setup. I keep that one and a cheap slab bodied one around so I stop buying teles periodically to remind myself of the silliness. I keep a few other things around the house to also prevent similar bouts of idiocy (there should be a term for this -- preventative pre-purchasing?).