Or look at it this way: the higher your guitar, the higher your IQ
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Happy to see this thread here. For years, I played an archtop guitar and didn’t use a strap. (I used a guitar cushion.) But last Christmas I switched to a Tele. I love it. Back to wearing a strap but still not settled on how high to wear the guitar. (I’m 5’11" with short legs and a l-o-n-g torso.) Hope to figure this out this summer. ;o)
This particular topic was the bane of my existence. I got really fluent with the Al DiMeola type picking but I write, play and love heavy music which did NOT lend itself to where my guitar was hanging. And stage having a “mean” stage presence like Zakk Wylde is very important to me, actually I love his stage presence. He uses the forearm, Gypsy style almost to the level of Marty Friedman and when playing leads spreads his stance and tilts the guitar up for his left hand to reach.
I’ve always struggled with this until cracking the code. Just how analytical Troy is has really set me free. I now have a bar stool that I sit at the edge of and can practice with the guitar at standing length and can play for hours on end because its very comfortable.
Thanks Troy, its amazing how many picking/speed programs I’ve owned over the years and you literally are the only one with a true analytical mind.
Brian
I’m not sure if this is intelligent, but I have two basic requirements:
- Sitting and standing need to be about the same (no big difference).
- Sitting should look roughly like a classical guitarist.
- The guitar neck has to be up at about a 45 degree angle.
- I don’t want any joints in freaky positions (sharp bends, etc.).
So the consequences for me are that my strap is adjusted to leave my picking hand in front of my belly button. This makes it very easy for me to figure out how to play any random body shape, a benefit. I usually leave the strap on when I sit. The only way to sit as far as I can tell is like the classical guys, at the edge of a chair with the guitar body resting between both legs; I note lots of great players seem to put the guitar on their right leg and have the neck parallel to the ground, and I don’t know how they can stand that, but they have my respect!
I don’t think there is a correct solution here. The strangest is Nuno, he said (if I recall) that it is worth giving up 25% of his chops to look really cool (he believes that low is cool, I suppose), perhaps like Slash and Zakk. Each to their own!
But all those guys do the ol’ “foot on the stage monitor to get the guitar up in the air” trick when the really challenging fretting parts of their songs come up 
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Or just play punk rock and not worry about lifting up that guitar! Check out Johnny Ramone, is he the king of a low-slung guitar? Possibly… he’d be hard to beat, that’s for sure.
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Punk rock is, ofcourse not technical guitar. By definition I guess. Tho at least its not grunge, at some point you may as well be a model than an actual musician. Sid comes to mind…
For me as long as I can play and satisfy myself I’m happy. I’d rather play well than look a certain way, Guitar is a technical instrument. Tho how you look is very important in how your express yourself, one reason I love buckethead, didn’t exactly go for a cool look, yet made it cool, and his strap is a flexible one Buckethead - Hardly Strictly Bluegrass full performance 1080P/60 [1/2] - YouTube
@WhammyStarScream He obviously stole the flexible strap idea from Sykotik Sinfoney’s Stanky Poozle. 
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lol so cool i love the voice box
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lol omg just seen him surfing on the guitar! wtf
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They’re my favorite band no one has ever heard of. lol There’s a fair amount of this show up on youtube, and it’s all pretty wild. The nun guitar player (Brian Young) was really quite good, and later played for David Lee Roth for a time.
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I grew up on grunge, Pearl jam, nirvana etc etc. I still listen to it every so often. Especially Pearl jams first album “ten”. Different strokes for different folks eh!?
I love hair metal, probably why I have auto dislike for grudge. Tho I saw a video of nirvana awhile ago and thought it was awesome, so I’m mostly talking shit.
I love it lol just like when axl rose jumped into the crowd after a cameraman, true entertainment.
lol! imagine getting attacked by your own bouncers! I can’t dislike that it’s awesome
You clearly have a grudge against grunge since it killed hairmetal It’s even manifesting itself into typos!!! lol
Joking aside, I love grunge and hairmetal. I rediscovered SuperUnknown a few months ago and was blown away. So much of that songwriting was over my head since I was about 12 when I played it non-stop. There is some top-notch songwriting happening on that album.
Re: grunge vs hairmetal, there is some awesome stuff and some horrible stuff that came from both genres. That’s true of all genres and music from all time periods in general though. As time goes on, the gold works its way to the top and the garbage sinks. I’m sure Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn weren’t the only three dudes creating music in Austria/Germany back in their day, but those three became immortal. There was even a period where Bach drifted out of popularity, then people rediscovered him and of course went “OMFG what a genius”. Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite composers and from things I remember reading in college, there were times where musicologists didn’t value him that highly compared to others. Now he’s one of the most played that’s out there.
Back on topic, I never could stand wearing my guitar low. I played in a pretty heavy band so I’m sure I looked really stupid on stage, but at least I could play my parts comfortably without too many mistakes lol!
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lol Freudian slip.
I agree many great songs in all genres. I think that main thing I dislike is the lack of virtuosity on the instruments thats happened over time in music. Popular music ofcourse
Yep, agreed. I went through a period (judgement only aimed at myself, none others) where I got a little, lets say “snobby” and I considered lots of music as inferior due to lack of virtuosity. I think at the end of the day though I just really appreciate anything that’s put together well, or even just something I connect with in some way.
The way Soundgarden utilizes alternate tunings, unusual chord progressions, and odd time signatures (that don’t sound odd unless you actually count them out) is all pretty amazing to me. That’s as impressive (again, to me) as some crazy solo with perfect alternate picking. To me it’s a type of virtuosity because I consider it highly refined composition. I can sit back and marvel at both as something that only elite musicians can pull off. Plus, if Chris Cornell isn’t considered a virtuoso rock singer than I don’t know who else qualifies lol!
There’s other songs I really like that don’t have anything impressive at all about them It could be something nostalgic, or just some catchy pop song where I like the chorus. Different strokes for sure.
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You could say jumping into the crowd to beat up a camera man is a form of entertainment virtuosity 
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I think on topic, in terms of virtuosic preformance, the violin is up there, and thats literally under the chin.
I understand the idea of low strap vs high, it’s like telling a joke, if you look like you’re putting to much effort into it, it falls flat, but if you just casually chuck it out there then people recognize it better, they big it up, instead of you. It’s like memes, they are low quality but communicate the idea, if you put to much effort into the communication it comes across poorly. If you can’t put things into basic English and simple words you don’t understand it.
Thats the whole concept of being cool, having a control over things to the point it looks like you’re not trying.
I think you can look cool/relaxed with a high strap if you’re playing well.
Jeff Young looks cool to me.
Ultimately being yourself is the coolest thing you can do. Even if like Jesus you get killed for it, pretty cool lol
Many years ago I went through the same thing, until I tried to learn songs by some of the artists I considered the most “sophisticated” (see: Anata, The Conductor’s Departure) and realized they were “medium difficulty” at most.
I had an epiphany the other day: all of the music that just sort of “jumps out of me” is remarkably easy for me to play. It’s not that way because I’m only writing what I can play, but because it’s what I want to hear!
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Takes a form of virtuosity to play good basic songs tho… Virtuosity is ofcourse not just physical mechanics. It’s being really good at bringing your inner imagination into reality. So it’s still about being highly skilled be it dancing around or sitting down. Like bruce lee said, expressing yourself truly as a human being is the hardest thing to do.
