Loud, Bad Guitar

When it comes to legendary metal bands like Opeth, some fans don't so much become fans of the music, they fall in love with the band. And who could blame them? Back in 1999, Opeth was the stuff of dreams for any metalhead, walking around wearing a Morbid Angel shirt and growling so sultrily. But then between 2005 and 2008 Opeth started hanging out with more psychedelic friends and the relationship got strained. Opeth just wanted a bit more space to be its own thing rather than going to hang out at the latest Horrendous show and the relationship started to drift apart. And things got really strained in 2011 when Opeth started wearing brown corduroy bell bottoms around town. It was like Opeth had become another person, and seeing them around town just reminded everyone of how things used to be. It would be easier if Opeth were dead. At least then you could remember the old times without having to see them having fun and acting all weird and selfish. In 2016 it's time to buy tha

So a lot of people have appreciated my discussions of scale length and pickup placement. Lately, though, I've been thinking about the other dimension that affects playing -- width. There's not a lot of discussion of it where electric guitar players are concerned beyond the big hands = wide nut conversations, but there's more to it than that. I'll get into the details of it in a moment, but first a bit of context. A few months back, I bought a Cordoba Mini R guitar. It's a nylon string classical guitar with a 20" scale length, but close to a full width and string spacing classical nut (2") and bridge. (It's tuned up a fourth to keep the strings from getting floppy.) It's a very good little guitar and so much fun to play, and the extra width at the neck really helps to keep the guitar from feeling as cramped as it might if I were having to deal with the closeness of the frets from the shortened scale. (For comparison, put a capo at the fifth fret