Ending Shoulder Strap Pain

[Woody Sound]

Been trying this method now for a few weeks. Wonderful. Perfect natural position standing or sitting, very light and easy on the shoulder, no neck dive. Lightly spreads the pressure evenly all across your back, does not pull on the shoulder at all.

[DawgBone]

In July of '18 I had 33 gigs in 31 days and my shoulder was rubbed raw from the strap during very sweaty shows and it was getting so painful I had no choice but to switch shoulders in order to make it through more gigs so I did that and now I always put the strap on my right shoulder.

[wintermoon]

I used to use that old style strap method back when I didn't want to drill a hole for a button on my old ES-350.I used a regular modern leather strap but added a leather shoelace to tie it to the headstock.


Side topic, I've never seen that pic of Wes and Johnny Griffin before which is interesting because most of us know the live @ Tsubos recordings and there's video of them w the big band in Europe that year. It looks like Wes and his touring quartet included the Little Giant on some quintet dates, very cool.
ps I saw bassist Arthur Harper many times years ago @ Ortliebs as part of Shirley Scott and Bootsie Barnes regular bands.

[Danny W.]

1967:





Danny W.

[Woody Sound]

I used to use that old style strap method back when I didn't want to drill a hole for a button on my old ES-350.I used a regular modern leather strap but added a leather shoelace to tie it to the headstock.

This is what I bought:

Amazon.com

[lawson-stone]

I don't like the strap on the headstock, I worry about stressing the neck. But I do get straps with very wide should pad sections and deep padding to spread the weight.

[Ukena]

Lots and lots of back-and-forth over at the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum about stress from straps vs. the stress from strings tuned to pitch, with most luthiers who weighed in discounting any stress from a strap affecting the neck joint. But that doesn't keep people from worrying, which I can understand.

Before a certain time, say, the '70's, everyone connected the strap to the neck.

Doc in 1964:



Like wintermoon, I didn't want to drill a hole in my Martin OM-45 Prototype, so I attached a strap to the neck completely out of the way of my left hand, similar to how Doc did it here (except that I had nice wide bridle leather over my shoulder):

[jads57]

Freind of mine used to do that with his Gibson Johnny Smith. Ended up needing the neck replaced.

[Woody Sound]

1967:




Danny W.

Nice loafers.

[Woody Sound]

This is what I bought:

Amazon.com

I had to return these, too short to wrap behind the first posts. Gotta find something a little longer.

[Guitfidle]

I've tried attaching the strap at the headstock, but just didn't like it. I started on solidbody electric before I ever got an acoustic or jazz box, probably has something to do with it. Also I'm a part time luthier and have had to fix a few headstock breaks. Some guitars could handle it better than other- a lightly built instrument could definitely suffer from stresses at the neck joint. Not an issue for most instruments but I had to say it.