Hey Friend,

That’s right, I included you. There’s a little guitar nerd in you even if you’re unwilling to admit it...

The other day I talked about how environmental conditions can affect how your guitar sounds and that cleaning up your guitar and changing strings can really brighten up your day… or at least brighten up your guitar tone.

That’s a simple way to physically change the quality of the sound coming from the guitar. 

Always interested in the “why,” I read an article this morning in Premier Guitar about an aspect of guitar construction I had never thought much on before.

The article is about neck pitch. In layman’s terms, that’s the angle of the guitar neck to the body. And yes, this can apply to both acoustic and electric guitars, although more so to electrics.

Fascinating stuff, but I was initially pulled into the article by the author - Jol Dantzig.

Who? I understand if you’ve never heard of him, especially if you missed the 80s.

Jol Dantzig was the creative and engineering genius behind Hamer Guitars. You know, the iconic guitars played by Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. 

I’ve always wanted a Hamer Standard (their Explorer body), and almost had one of the Cheap Trick checkerboard XT models back in the early 80s. It was a toss-up between that and the BC Rich Mockingbird, and the Mockingbird won.

It’s hard to find affordable vintage Hamers now. The company (like so many guitar companies) changed hands to different owners and was eventually purchased (and closed) by Fender. 

Thankfully, KMC Music bought the licensing and Hamer is back! I’m really liking the looks of the Cherry Sunburst STDF-CS XT, but I also like the XT Sunburst.  Aw hell, who am I kidding - I like ‘em all!

Jol has since gone on to build another guitar design company, and he writes a guitar design column for Premier Guitar called Jol Dantzig’s Esoterica Electrica. For those of you that get into the technical aspects of guitar building, you can gain a lot of insight from what he has to say. 

In fact, even if you’re not interested so much in building guitars, you can gain a better understanding of how guitars produce sound and why one feels better in your hands than another.

Feel free to geek out at your leisure. Rock on!

Peace~

Dave