Short Shrifted

Yes — this is topical (sort of). Way back in the 1990s, my friend belonged to an indie-rock mailing list. Or maybe it was a usenet group (ha!). All I know is it was some sort of archaic but semi-exclusive form of electronic communication. I remember vividly him telling me about this (via Pitchfork):

Back in July of 1999, Sonic Youth were victims of a robbery when a ton of gear — guitars, amps, the works — was stolen from a Ramada Inn parking lot in Orange County, California. At the time, Lee Ranaldo wrote an open letter to fans, giving them a heads up: “Our guitars are all mostly older and either very modified and/or fucked up/beat up. They are unmistakably ours.” One of the lifted items was Ranaldo’s Fender Mustang — you might recognize it from the band’s “Macbeth” and “Mary Christ” videos.

You might also recognize the Fender Mustang from when I did that post on shortscale guitars. (They’re essential gear if you happen to have small hands/short arms.)

For Sonic Youth, a theft like this was detrimental to the band’s ability to recreate their sound in a live setting. Ranaldo wrote at the time:

“This is really serious — all the gear we’ve used to write our last few LPs worth of stuff, instruments used for songs old and new which if truly lost will mean those songs will be lost forever.”

But Pitchfork reported good news this week:

And then, almost exactly a decade later, the orange/red ax was apparently found by a dude from the Netherlands who goes by the name Sauerkraut. According to a now-massive thread on the Offset Guitars message board entitled “The OH MY GOD! I BOUGHT ONE OF SONIC YOUTH’S STOLEN GUITARS”, a user named Sauerkraut realized he bought Ranaldo’s old guitar on eBay after finding a picture of it on Sonic Youth’s intense online instrument archive. And he wanted to give it back. As long as the Mustang can make it through Dutch customs, it seems like a happy reunion with its rightful owner is all but assured.”

I dunno. I just thought this was cool. It’s pretty gratifying to see a partial resolution to this story that I’ve been following for 10 years. And it’s a reminder of how unique and special these shortscale guitars can be.

What doesn’t kill you makes you a better punk rocker. Or so I thought in high school. And it was mostly true. Except when it came to my height — and freakishly small hands. It made playing the guitar difficult; my fingers just weren’t long enough to form some of the more complex chords. So I made up my own chords. And I soldiered on, writing songs, playing garages, churches, and rec rooms until I managed to put together a halfway real band in college (Listen to my band, the Franklin Mint, here).

Even though I haven’t written any songs for well over five years now, I find myself getting the itch again. (Very Kevin Shields/Scott Walker/Lee Mavers of me, no?) But this time, I’m on the lookout for a guitar that’s more ergonomically suited to my small stature: a shortscale guitar.

The foremost web authority on the subject is Shortscale.org, which explains the history of the phenomenon here:

Typically, “short scale” refers to guitars originally produced by Fender Musical Instrument Corporation during the 1960’s including: Mustangs, Duo-Sonics, Musicmasters, Jaguars, and Broncos. What set these guitars apart from other models was the reduced scales (the length from the bridge to the nut) and off-set or elongated bodies. The scales of 24″ and 22.5″ were 1.5″ and 3″ (respectively) shorter than Fender Stratocasters, Telecaster, and Jazzmasters. This made for easier speed-playing on heavier gauge strings, and these shorter instruments could be used as “Student Guitars” as the reduced length was easier for smaller and less experienced hands.

Most of the original short scale models had disappeared from Fender’s catalog by the late 1970’s. But with the resurgent influence of punk rock in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s there arose a crop of players willing to use non-traditional instruments. This primarily was due to how inexpensively one could find a Mustang, for example, at a pawn shop or local music dealer. Prices as low as $50 for instruments rarely played were not unheard of.

However, not long after teenage fans saw their favorite bands like Nirvana and Sonic Youth sporting these distinct looking instruments, they began to disappear from the very storefronts they once had flooded. Not to be left out of this rebirth, Fender Music Corporation began not only re-issuing these short scale classics, but new breeds of varying shapes, sizes, and setups began rolling off the line and continue to this day.

Cool. So shortscales are not only suited to folks with smaller hands, they’ve got plenty of rock ‘n’ roll credibility. I mean, it they’re good enough for The Pixies, Elvis Costello, Yo La Tengo, Echo & The Bunnymen, Graham Coxon, and The Beach Boys, they’re good enough for me.

So, if you’re you’re in the market for a smaller-sized electric guitar, try out a shortscale. And check out Shortscale.org, which features a user forum and a comprehensive wiki. The latter contains all sorts of info on different makes and models as well as links etc. Oh, and if you have a dirt-cheap Jaguar that you want to unload…

Witness the small but mighty Jaguar in action:

Other resources:

Fender Shortscales on Myspace
Tim Pershing’s history Fender’s 3/4 Scale Guitars
Scale length and what it means for you