This week at Guitar 101 we are going to have a look at the most popular guitar ever made, the Fender Stratocaster.
In 1952, the Gibson company introduced their first solid-body electric guitar, the Les Paul. It was constructed in an extremely elegant manner, with its arched shape and fancy paint jobs and finishes. Fender had started producing the Telecaster in 1950, but it began to look a little simplistic when compared to the Les Paul.
So Leo Fender decided that he wanted something a little fancier to compete with the Les Paul. Fender had been working on an instrument called the Precision Bass, or P-Bass that utilized a slightly more contoured body shape than the Telecaster, and he used this design as a basic starting point for the Stratocaster.
Many of the design features on the Stratocaster came from the fact that Leo Fender was not just a guitar maker, but also an engineer. He also had little experience in the guitar-making business when compared to the fifty years of experience that the Gibson company had. So he tackled problems in a somewhat different manner, and the result was a stroke of pure brilliance.
Fender worked closely with many guitar players when he was coming up with the design for the Strat. He wanted their input as to how he could make a better guitar than the Telecaster. What he heard was that the players wanted more pickups, individually adjustable saddles, and a body style that could be played both standing and sitting down comfortably. Apparently, the Telecaster had been jabbing into the ribs of some of the players who were using it on a nightly basis.
The result of all this research was the Fender Stratocaster. Introduced in 1953, the Strat featured a double cutaway body style for easy access to the higher frets and symmetry. It also had three pickups, one at the bridge, one at the neck, and one in between. There was a three-way toggle switch that allowed you to change which pickup you wanted to use. Some players began forcing this switch into in-between positions, allowing two pickups to work in combination with each other and producing some interesting tonal effects. In 1977, Fender finally realized this potential and began installing five-way selector switches that allowed you to change between single pickups and combinations of pickups much easier.
The Strat also featured individually adjustable saddles, which allow for individual string length and height changes, and a whammy or tremolo bar, which allows the player to adjust the tension of the strings with his right hand while he is playing.
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