Irony Thursday: I no longer want a Les Paul

Ever since I waxed nostalgic about the Les Pauls I've owned and sold, I thought that some day I'd have another one, whether it be an official Gibson/Epiphone or a good quality copy like the ones made by Agile. The more I play, though, the more I'm learning what guitars fit me and which ones don't. Which made me come to a realization:

Les Pauls don't fit me.

Why? It all has to do with the body shape and, more specifically, the location of the lower body arch. I don't know the exact name of it, but it's the curve on the bottom of a guitar where you rest it on your right leg (or left leg if you're a lefty) when you play sitting down. There are two ways to sit with a guitar. One is the way I explained above; the other is similar to a classical guitarist, where you put the guitar between your legs with the lower curve on your left leg.

The designers of the Les Paul apparently had the latter position in mind when designing the guitar. The bottom curve is offset closer to the neck so that when the guitar is held in the classical seated position, the bridge is closer to the right leg, putting the playing area just about dead-center. The downside of this is that when the guitar is held in the right-leg position, the playing area is shifted even more to the right, which for me is very uncomfortable.

Contrast this with Fender guitars. On Strats and Teles, the bottom arch is more centrally located between the neck and the bridge, which makes the playing area perfectly placed for right-leg playing. This also holds true for Strat-based guitars like my Ibanez.

So what does that mean for me? Well, I'm a right-leg player. I try to play holding the guitar in the classical style but it just feels wrong to me. So when I play a guitar sitting down (which is most of the time) I set it on my right leg. Which is fine when I play my Strat or my Ibanez or my Durango. However, when I play my Les Paul Junior, it feels uncomfortable - it hurts my shoulder after a while because I have to hold my arm back further. So I end up switching between the right-leg position and the classical position, but since I don't like the classical position, I end up going back and forth until I just say, "Screw it" and use another guitar.

After coming to this epiphany, I naturally came to the conclusion that a Les Paul would not suit my needs. There are a few other guitars I'd like to have, and I would like to get one more guitar someday to round out my collection, but a Les Paul will not be one of them. The irony is that the whole Short List started with my desire to replace the Les Pauls that got away. I'm glad I went through the process of picking the right guitar instead of caving to my nostalgia or I would've ended up with another guitar that wasn't the right fit, like what happened with my Telecaster.

I also have a tough decision to make about my Les Paul Junior. It's a beautiful guitar and it does hold some sentimental value, but it spends most of its time in the closet because it's not comfortable for me to play. Like my old Telecaster, the Junior has real world value that could be used to acquire the gear I want if I choose to go that route. Sentimental value has a strong pull, though, so this won't be as easy as it was for the Telecaster. I only owned that for about eight months before selling it and getting my Ibanez. I've had the Junior since I bought it new in either 1998 or 1999.

I hate tough decisions.