Fender Stratocaster Highway One, is it the ONE?

last week i got lucky. my friend lent me his Fender Stratocaster Highway One and it was my valuable moment of learning guitar characteristics. stratocaster has my respect because of its tone originality and how many songs made with this guitar, also how far the guitar players has become legends with this guitar existence. you can easily find names, let’s say yngwie malmsteen, richie sambora, eric clapton and many more use the stratocaster as their main guitar, or using stratocaster as their tool of exploration (see a Frankenstrat)you might be one of them. a stratocaster lover. i can’t say I’m in it, but actually right now I’m still trying to get which series that suits me. and i got a milestone to start with, a Fender Stratocaster Highway One USA made, year 2002 i guess. here are the pics (it’s relic!) :

what i got from this guitar so far? well, i can’t say i’m in love with this one. it was about againsts my guitar playing style. the volume knob is TOO close so everytime i pick the strings, i accidentally touched it and made the volume knob turned the level down often. it happened to the switch too. for me it’s just made my playing become so unnatural. i need sometimes to get used to this guitar, the neck radius, the super jumbo frets, yes.. i need more time to get the best of it.

i read some articles on guitar blogs and find out that there isn’t so much love for Fender Stratocaster Highway One (this is the earlier products. the latest has big headstock and some users said that the new one is the upgraded one and it rocks with comfortable handling). one thing that doesn’t change is its tone, a glassy tone is stratocaster and i think Fender Stratocaster Highway One has a lot of it.

surely some real stratocaster can define this guitar in big details and i had my time. now it’s the time to take this guitar back to its owner. 😀 it was a great time in exploring and learning though. still wondering which stratocaster is best for my playing.. what do you think?

Is this Frankenstrat bike bothering you?

just few days ago i posted about EVH’s Frankenstrat and today i found that one of my friend is Eddie’s big fan (he’s not a guitarist, he’s a keyboardist). i never knew that until i saw him with his motorbike today. An EVH frankenstrat theme motorcycle and it’s cute!. here I share its pic:

Frankenstrat motorcycle

am I right or what?
i saw a lot of people have similar ideas about getting inspired by their idols. Actually it’s the best idea so far in learning guitar. get inspired by your favorite guitarists. you can start with almost everything and every element of this “get inspired” idea will help you in finding your guitar playing identity. surely you know what I’m talking about now isn’t about being a copycat, while actually it is fun when we can do our guitar idol licks and show them off 😀

well, since I’m a guitar learner, and i guess I’m a novice, so there’s nothing more i can talk about this getting inspired idea. all i can do is sharing more love about guitars. I love this Frankenstrat idea, have a good day and keep playing guitar!

did you know?
the Eddie Van Halen’s frankenstrat guitar paint and finish was inspired by a  red Schwinn bicycle paint. A quote from Eddie, he said “The Schwinn bicycle paint gives it pop.”

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