It's a stupid question, after all (so you can pass over this one)

After having viewed a number of pics of the Stones playing live, I noticed that up until 1979 (ie. The New Barbarians), Ronnie used to hang his guitars quite high, almost up to his breast. In 1981 he put his axes a bit lower. And after the 1989 tour he uses to hang them even lower, almost as Keith does. (Could this fact have any relation to his playing abilities, btw?). Keith used to hang his guitars higher too in the Golden Years, but the change is not so drastic. (sp?)

Maybe an influence after the punk years?? I don't think so, as this fashion of hanging the guitars lower had been followed (or started) by Page before.

What height do you hang your guitar? I use to put my LP so that the lower horn is somewhat over my... paquete.




[There'll be no wedding today...]

I hang mine to the right..........

My height is the waist height. Not too low, not too high.

JumpingKentFlash

Has it lost any length?
I know Bill had small hands/fingers, so had small basses in latter years.

You also left-handed Potted?
That way it won't break...

Yep...

I check out many straps before I buy one. I let the guitar sit as low as the strap goes. The top of my guitar is usually at waistline, it just feels comfortable. It also has to do with your playing style. I find to get nice loose playing, hanging low is best.......you get to use your arm and wrist in many different ways.

To play Stones material in G tuning a low slung guitar is essential, in my opinion. The low slung lets you bang away, the playing in that tuning is more percusive (almost like drums) and keeps your arm in a good position to be loose and play the strings near the bridge, the middle or up on the fretboard. It also gives me the ability to see what I am doing when I need to. Also, I started playing guitar because of Keith Richards so I always thought thats just the way you hang it. Acoustic playing I am most comfortable sitting, but even standing with acoustic it hangs kinda low, but not as low as electric.

Keith has been keeping his guitar at waist level since about 68.....around the same time he started screwing around with alternate tunings.

I cannot understand how someone can play the guitar all the way up on their chest. The pictures of George Harrison and Lennon always made me laugh. I cannot play with the guitar up that high, it limits me to using only my wrist and it just feels awkward.

Milo, NYC
With a suitcase in my hand

As low as poosible. It's rather stupid, because it's harder to play with the axe on your legs, but then again - it looks good

It differs with the music I play. For Flip the Switch I play almost all of the solo's, and then I have my Les Paul fairly high, about the same as Mick Taylor has. If I play mainly rythm (so I play my Tele) I have it quite low. My Strat (rythm, some solo's) is somewhere in between.

Talking about good looks: it always amazed me that a Telecaster looks so good on Keith, and no one looks cooler with a Les Paul than Jimmy Page. I noticed that part of the ingredient is size -a Telecaster looks perfect on the midget Keith is, but it looks kind of small and out of place when I strap one on, and I am 1.87 meters tall....

Mathijs

That's my height as well - it suits me

About good looks too: I believe it has pretty much to do with the "mythical look" we have about every "rock god". So no one looks cooler with a LP than Page, no one looks cooler with a Strato than Hendrix or SRV, no one looks cooler with a SG than Townshend... and so on. Maybe Keith is the only one who looks cool with any guitar, as it seems very difficult to me to see Hendrix playing a 335.

DP: yeah, it looks cool. When I was younger I used to hang it lower, but I learned that it's easier to play when you hang it not so low. (As everything in this life, in fact it's easier to play when it's higher... )

[There'll be no wedding today...]

I went to see a band last night and I noticed how low they slung their guitars - almost to knee level!

I find it easier to play with the guitar higher, but find myself wishing I could play better with a lower position since it looks so cool. But I guess everyone has to find a position they are confortable with.

Low slung guitars are quite good for posing because you can use them as a phallic symbol and point them out to the audience etc. Very "cock rock".

I can't keep my guitar too low (a la Jimmy Page) because I often use quite extended fingerings - therefore I have to keep my wrist loose and my thumb in "classic guitar" position. This way it is also easier to play with the slide (and this is why rw kept it higher in the 70s).

Re "cool looks": I agree - there is not a rule, it depends from person to person and from guitar to guitar. Jlennon always looked quite stupid with his guitar strapped right under his chin, but andy summers also kept it high and he looked great! Neil young's LP looks like a banjo in the arms of a bear, but it some how worked. Hendrix was perfect. True: no one looks cooler with a Les Paul than Jimmy Page. But all these Page (or slash) wannabes with the LP hanging under their balls always made me laugh. Yep, Keef is "the" coolest with the telecaster (but it was way too low in 81). ha, yes: women and guitars together just don't work!

C

<True: no one looks cooler with a Les Paul than Jimmy Page.>

Slash?

Slash looks way cooler.

I have the coolest strap ever BTW. It's black with skulls. Real Keefish.

JumpingKentFlash

DP wrote:

<True: no one looks cooler with a Les Paul than Jimmy Page.>

Slash?
-------------------------------------------------

NO WAY. In fact I think (and I'm pretty sure) Slash copied his way to hang the LP from Page.



[There'll be no wedding today...]

BB King looks cool with guitar up high - just not in the same way that Jimmy page does.

Perhaps BB King doesn't need a penis extension?

I think Keith perhaps got the low slung guitar idea from Chuck Berry? However, I'm not sure if Cuck always wore a low guitar or if he only did this in the 60s?

<NO WAY. In fact I think (and I'm pretty sure) Slash copied his way to hang the LP from Page.>

More likely, he is copying Joe Perry (who also looks cool with the Les Paul.

DP: probably from Joe Perry also, who I agree looks cool with the LPs, too. But to me the prototype (sp?) of LP player is Page, no doubt.

Thinking about that, Jagger did change his way of hanging the guitar: check any DVD from 75 or 81 and check from 89 onwards. I believe he looks cooler when hang it higher. But thinking twice, Jagger doesn't look very cool to me with a guitar.

[There'll be no wedding today...]

I don't think Keith started hanging his guitars lower for looks, I think he started doing it out of need. As he explored and learned, especially the G tuning I think he found that the guitar position in just the right spot allowed him to really pound out some real powerful chords. Remember his playing style, he changes things up, bangs out a chord here and there.......I think it is an extension of his playing, sense of timing and the freedom of not having to damp the sixth string, and this was way before the gigantic video screens took over shows, with the the camera crews egging them on to pose.

Also check out Keith 72 tour, that ax was hanging way low, and further from all the pics and video I have seen of KR in the studio since he started G tuning, show him low slung.

As far as the kid guitar players today of hanging near their knees...thats just ridiculous. Most of the young players today play in open tunings and just smash away, the solo and melodic playing is unknown to them or they are incapable of playing it. The other generation, Slash, Perry, Kravitz, etc (with the exception of Eddie Van Halen who wears it mid range to high) grew up looking at Keith and in my opinion NOBODY ever looked cooler playing the guitar than Keith Richards. Just by being himself he set the standard for what looks cool as a rock guitarist.

Just my opinion.

Milo, NYC
Baby better come back maybe next week

on your knees.

Actually Jagger knows how to look cool with a guitar. In 78 with that Strat he ruled. The reason he started wearing it higher is that he started actually playing. In 75 and especially 78 it was all looks. But beginning in 89 he plays, so he needs to be able to access the instrument.
Back to original Q: I think Ron Wood kept it higher in early days, simply because he took a LOT more care in his playing. he was always soloing, and solo-ing well. He was on those heavy, big Zemaitis axes.
Now he is mainly on Strats, just goofing around. Even when he solos on YCAGWYW or CYHMK I see him do a lot of these octave type runs up and down the neck. You don't need a guitar way up for that.

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

OT but...
I think MJ looks very cool with an axe.
He certainly doesn't look comfortable with it that's for sure, but most definately cool in a way that only he could.
I think he approaches them with the same level of respect he has had for a lot of his women :-)

Oily.

anyone who plays their guitar above waist level looks stupid

apart from Angus

The Les Paul never looked any better than on Keith Richards in the early seventies. Slash doesn't even get close.

Mick just cant play guitar in public, he looks totally lost.

I think Ron might have changed the length of his strap when he started useing guitars with B-benders on stage. The B-bender needs a push/pull situation on the strap, so the right length must be somewhere near the hip.