Intrinsic Loyalty

From the desk of Ned P. Rauch:

This is the back of my Fender Telecaster American Plus guitar (my favorite part, and no one gets to see it). It’s the back of a Telecaster that reveals the secrets that have won this kind of guitar so many admirers since its introduction in 1951 (under a different name, I know, but with the same basic design). See, where other electric guitars likes Strats and Les Pauls have more curves, more of this and that, the Telecaster has always been…direct. Nowhere is that more evident than on the back of the guitar. See those six holes in a line? That’s where the strings go through—through the body, over the bridge saddles and up the neck to the tuners. The strings, then, are anchored inside the body of the guitar, held in place by the same block of wood that a player holds against his or her body.

Other electric guitars don’t work that way. A Strat comes close, but its strings are held in place by a metal, spring-loaded assembly that moves, with the help of a tremolo arm, independently of the body. On a Les Paul, the strings never touch the body of the guitar. They’re hooked into a tailpiece that floats over the face of the instrument. All hollow-bodies work that way. Solid-body Gretsches, too.

How does that affect the sound? I don’t know. But running the strings through the body of a Telecaster sets it apart from other guitars. And there’s something admirable about it, isn’t there? It speaks to … commitment and loyalty and intimacy. I picture the strings saying to the wood, “Well, this may or may not be the most efficient way to do things, but we’re in it together.” It’s the closest wire and ash or alder can come to being blood brothers.

(Photo by NPR)