The Lore Of The Stratocaster Guitar

By Peter Helton

Throughout the history of guitars, since it's birth as an instrument, there have been several models and types that have made an impact. Not only just because of the way that the guitar has been built or that they feature the recent and most innovative designs and materials, but that they have been strummed by the best guitarists of all time.

Most likely, the most widely known guitar would be the Fender Stratocaster. First made by its creator, Leo Fender, founder of the famous Fender Guitar company back in the fifties, the Stratocaster or Fender Strat as it is also called, has taken it's place amongst the legends of rock. Now having a enthusiastic following from new players and guitar collectors alike, the Strat still empowers the best of the current slew of musical groups.

The 1957 model of the Fender Stratocaster is probably considered to be the best and most collectable of the near 60 year run classic design. The 57 model features the famous 2 tone sun burst design, usually red and orange or yellow fading to black and can be seen being used by guitar greats such as Jimi Hendrix, Metallica and Led Zeppelin during the recent years. After it's inception all those years ago, the Strat was primarily used for playing blues style music until the likes of Jimi Hendrix blasted it into another world and started pushing the guitar and music to it's limits and crashing into a new era. Jimi was one of many who was able to combine their talents with the Fender technicians and the team behind the Fender Custom Factory to make his own white signature model of Fender Strat. Leo Fender was famous for encouraging the worlds best guitarists to work along side them to not only design their own personally designed named models, but also re-evolve their existing designs through experimentation and customization.

The Fender Stratocaster has been used on a wide variety of different music styles over the years from blues, rock, jazz and swing. It's clean and clear sound allows the guitar player have the freedom to make any sound and type of music accessible and the perfect build quality of each Fender Strat is perfect. The body of the strat is constructed from alder wood and the neck is made from maple wood with a rose wood fretboard. The guitar contains a set of 3 single coil pickups which aids the the clean and pure sound. There is a five way selector switch that allows you to alter various combinations of the guitar pickups to produce different tones and a set of volume and tone controls.

The Strat is definitely a guitar that will go down in musical instrument history as being a perfect and versatile musical instrument that had a hand in helping change the face of rock music and music made by guitars as we know it today. I am sure that Leo Fender could not have known that when he first created the Strat back in 1950, he would also be creating a legacy that will probably last forever.

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