Covering the headstock of your guitar when you play out.

[ST]

Riffing off the conversation about Peter Yarrow covering the headstock of his Larrivée

I usually cover the headstocks of the guitars that I play out.  These are now known as  "guit-toque"s by people who have grown familiar with this peculiar behaviour. Perhaps inspired by this bastion of Canadian culture.



I do it for three reasons -

• I frequently bump the headstock of my guitars on low hanging obstructions.  I stand while performing and wear my guitar fairly high. I change guitars during the sets, so there's a fair chance I'll bump the headstock into a low hanging monitor, or heaven forbid, a television, or a microphone.  I'm just as happy not to have little dents and divots in my headstocks.
  
• It's funny to mess with guitarists who think that my ablity as a player is somehow correlated with the name on the headstock.
  
• I'm not into talking "guitars" when I'm out performing. It's much more interesting to relate to people as they relate to music than it is to geek out with a guitar-freak who wants to engage me with his obsession with brand names and other minutiae. These  conversations are often a masque for  the narcissism of small differences.*
  
  

*No disrespect for anyone here. Everything in its place: This forum and guitar-centric get-togethers are the places for guitar-centric conversations, but I don't care to have conversations about guitars when I'm out at a gig - a performer for a broader audience.

[unclrob]

OK I understand I think.Though I've never bang my headstock on anything,though I have left a string or two long just to shock the vocalist BUT the real problem I see is you have to remove the hat everytime you want to check your tuner.

[ST]

Hi unclrob,

OK I understand I think.Though I've never bang my headstock on anything,though I have left a string or two long just to shock the vocalist BUT the real problem I see is you have to remove the hat everytime you want to check your tuner.

Much though you might have expected otherwise I'm not a fan of hanging **** off the headstock (tuners, capos, tassels, coils of unclipped strings, holiday themed ornaments).   I will admit to having caught undergarments that were tossed at the stage on the headstock, but that's another story.  My guitar tuners are in my rig.  

The guit-toque is flexible enough to turn the tuning pegs without removing it.  But since the guit-toque helps to keep the temperature of the headstock stable, the guitars tend to stay in tune better anyway.

[Danny]

   Makes me want to see that goof ball movie. Was it "Strange Brew"?

[unclrob]

So if I put a sock on my headstock is that ok.

[CJ]

So if I put a sock on my headstock is that ok.

Not if your foot is still in it, Rob.

[unclrob]

Not a problem there as I play barefoot anyway...OK when its cold I do were socks.

[tuffythepug]

St, I get it.  Really I do.    But it occurs to me that you may be trading one distraction for another.   Instead of people trying to engage you in a discussion about your Larrivee guitar or whatever other guitar you may be disguising with the headstocking, don't you now have those same people trying to engage you in a discussion about why you are putting a sock on your guitar head ?   It seems like covering it up would draw more attention to it than simply leaving it uncovered.  No ?

[ST]

Hi Lynn,

The conversations about this are fairly short.  The guit-toque doesn't show up much in a darkened venue under stage lights. It is likely barely noticeable unless someone is actually trying to make out the shape of the headstock  or to read the logo thereon. I focussed the lights to make it easier to see the guit-toque in the photo.

People who are not players rarely mention it. If someone does, I just tell him/her it's to protect the guitar and the things I bump into (sorry for the grammar). It almost never goes beyond that except that there's usually a comment like, "well it's a beauty", or something about the music. And then the conversation has moved off the instrument and that suits me just fine.

If it's a player asking, I'll say "That's something that I do to keep the name on the headstock from distracting other players from the music".  That usually moves the focus of the conversation away from the instrument.  If pressed on the point, I'll ask, Did you enjoy the music?" and let the conversation flow from there.

Whether or not people in the audience like my gear is not important to me, but I'd like them to enjoy the music and the show.  It's like my Mother  said about clothes, "When you get it right people will notice the person, not the wardrobe".

[jeremy3220]

It seems like a strange thing to worry about.

[L07 Shooting Star]

It seems like a strange thing to worry about.

Uh huh.

[ST]

With the exception of trying to minimalize damage to property at the places that I play (e.g. big screen tv's above the stage), I'm not worried about anything.




It's an inside joke. If you get the joke then I hope that you are laughing with me. If not then, if it helps, go ahead and laugh at me. It matters not a whit as long as there's some laughter in the air.

[unclrob]

 










With.

[GA-ME]

It seems to me that dressing a headstock up to KEEP from calling attention to the instrument is a bit like stripping down buck-a** naked to get warm...

[CJ]

It seems like a strange thing to worry about.

Seems like that - but I'm gonna try it anyway. The number of times another player or 3 have descended on me after doing a set and start gushing over my guitar, or my amp, or the FX pedal - as if the player doesn't have a thing to do with the sound/song - well it just gets old old old. I tried something like that once, slapping a John Deere sticker over the headstock of my green-burst Yamaha - but that made the problem worse because all the tractor guys couldn't believe John Deere made guitars ...

I've decided guitar playing song writers are just a special and rare breed - sensitive - creative - thoughtful and with rugged good looks. Putting up with dolts is just the price we pay.  None more purdy than Uncle Rob though - I gotta admit. ;)

[LeftyBlake]

I would be thrilled if I was playing a gig and a fellow guitarist came up to me and wanted to chat about gear. To each his own, I guess. 

[dberch]

So, ST, shouldn't you also disguise the fretboard markers and bridge? These things are often nearly as good as a trademark or logo to identify a guitar. Why stop at headstock?  

[broKen]

covering the name of the guitar is jipping the builder of the credit due him for a job well done. If someone covers one of your own songs then refuses to give you the credit for it...i

[Danny]

ST, I know your level of playing ability and just want to say that I get what you are doing. 

[ST]

Hi Danny,

ST, I know your level of playing ability and just want to say that I get what you are doing. 

Thank you.