Tuesday, December 18, 2012

What Is A Travel Electric Guitar

By Katy Dinardi


Guitars can be awkward items to travel with and especially so if flying is to be part of the mix. The travel electric guitar is a hybridized version of the standard instrument that addresses some of these size and shape problems. It may even save the owner some money in some circumstances.

Non complying items of baggage that can freely accompany a passenger have been increasing over the last few years as air transport becomes more cut price. To recover their costs some airlines have been charging additional amounts for any baggage that does not meet their strict criteria. This criterion seldom includes the humble standard instrument which can be classified as over sized or at least addition baggage.

A travel electric guitar is normally seen as a smaller instrument than its normal counterpart and has been developed in most cases to deal with these air transport problems. The smallness is achieved in different ways. The instrument may just be physically smaller in body and have a shorter neck or scale. These models are also often marketed as a children's item however in these cases the quality of such instruments may not always be as good as their larger counterparts.

A more complex response is to keep the existing scale (distance from the nut to the bridge) of a normal model and reduce everything else that protrudes beyond this scale. The result is often an instrument with no headstock at the far end of the neck and a body length that minimally extends beyond the bridge at the tail end of the body. The tuning function in this case takes place from the body.

Other makers produce instruments that can be easily disassembled and of course easily reassembled. Some of these items can be broken down to such a size that they can be packed into a small bag and taken on to the aircraft as cabin luggage.

Alas this not often the case anymore so the only way to get an item on board is as cabin luggage. With this goal in mind some manufacturers have devised instruments that can be easily disassembled to fit in the approved cabin bag to be stored in the overhead locker

For the older romantic rocker however the term travel electric guitar probably conjures up an image of a favorite old beaten up instrument that has been taken on the road. The fact that it could be relied upon to perform at every occasion despite it's treatment added to it's the travel status.




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