Strat #10: 2008 American Standard in Blizzard Pearl, lefty.
But wait…I play right handed! Why the heck did I buy a lefty for myself? Well…I always wanted to try out my own “reverse Hendrix” and when I found this guitar used at a local shop for under $700, I figured I would give it a try.
So…how do I like playing an upside down guitar? Let’s put it this way: I used to have an enormous respect for Jimi Hendrix’s guitar playing. After playing my own upside down Strat, I now have EVEN MORE respect for his abilities! It ain’t easy to play an uside down guitar for many many many reasons…which I may talk about in a future post…it’s a LONG list! :D
2008 American Std. Stratocaster - it’s a “lefty” that I converted to right-hand so I could play a guitar like Hendrix did!
I gained an even higher level of respect for Hendrix’s playing after I converted this lefty. Why? Because it’s so much more difficult when everything is upside down! Here’s a short list of things that make playing it more difficult than a “regular” guitar:
- The upper cutaway is now on the bottom, so it’s harder to reach the high notes
- There are no dots on the underside edge of the neck, so when you flip it over, you can’t easily tell which fret you are on (unless you bend your head over and look at the fretboard itself!)
- The “comfort contours” for your right arm and stomach are now on the bottom…so the guitar no longer has that comfortable “fit” like it used to.
- The knobs, pickup switch and jack are now EXACTLY where your strumming arm wants to be…and they interfere with its movement!
- The knobs function in reverse now: clockwise is “down”, not up, and counter clockwise is “up”, not down!
- The pickup selector is now backwards too…so the furthest position away from you is now the neck pickup and the closest is the bridge pickup.
- The tremolo arm now hangs down right over the bridge saddles…and interferes with the right hand - especially when palm muting!
- The tuning keys, in addition to now being on the bottom of the headstock, are also in reverse order…the low E is now the furthest away and the high he the closest. I keep reaching for the wrong tuner!
Despite all these oddities, which I am sure could be gotten used to with time and practice, it’s still pretty cool-looking though… :D
First X-ray view of Martian soil
This graphic shows results of the first analysis of Martian soil by the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) experiment on NASA’s Curiosity rover. The image reveals the presence of crystalline feldspar, pyroxenes and olivine mixed with some amorphous (non-crystalline) material. The soil sample, taken from a wind-blown deposit within Gale Crater, where the rover landed, is similar to volcanic soils in Hawaii.
Curiosity scooped the soil on Oct. 15, 2012, the 69th sol, or Martian day, of operations. It was delivered to CheMin for X-ray diffraction analysis on October 17, 2012, the 71st sol. By directing an X-ray beam at a sample and recording how X-rays are scattered by the sample at an atomic level, the instrument can definitively identify and quantify minerals on Mars for the first time. Each mineral has a unique pattern of rings, or “fingerprint,” revealing its presence. The colors in the graphic represent the intensity of the X-rays, with red being the most intense.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames
