Strandberg Boden Original NX 7

to service your guitar and bring it to a guitar
tech, I’m pretty sure 100 per cent of guitar
techs would just say, ‘No, I’m not going to
touch that…’
“So I wanted to accomplish the same
function but with more standard production
techniques, something that would be more
user-friendly and wouldn’t require you to
change your playing style. That was the first
objective. The second was very early on I did
some collaborative work with Rick Toone,
who is an American guitar builder. He had
come up with this trapezoidal neck shape,
with three flat surfaces on the rear. I noticed
that kind of neck shape was just more
comfortable to play; there was less fatigue in
the hand when playing.
“Later, I combined those two concepts
with the angular surfaces – but I would
just twist the surfaces, so I twisted the rear
of the neck but not the front of the neck.
I discovered that worked just as well as the
original Torzal Twist innovation because
the angles in both surfaces would encourage
you to play with a straighter wrist angle.
Combining that with the three distinct
surfaces [on the rear of the neck], rather
than the semicircle, gave those benefits as
well, so it both relaxes muscles and tendons
in your fretting hand and forearm but also
encourages this straighter wrist angle.”
How do players take to it, in your
experience? It’s quite different from a
traditional neck shape.
“In general, what I find from people
who try our neck design is that it seems
weird for a few minutes but then quickly
becomes second nature and doesn’t feel
strange any more. I guess there’s also a
third aspect of it, which is the cross section
of the neck, so what you would refer to as
thickness, is actually thicker than a lot of
necks. That also comes from ergonomics:
if you want to grip a very thin object you
have to press hard and it creates fatigue
in the hand. If you grip something that’s
thicker, it’s easier to grip.
“With the way the three surfaces interact
and the angles, you don’t necessarily think
of it as, ‘What a chunky neck.’ It kind of
tricks your brain into experiencing it as a
thin neck. That contributes a better tone
because there’s more mass in the neck, but
it also has these ergonomic benefits. I think
generally, if people want a comfortable
neck on a fast-playing guitar, they think of
a super-thin Ibanez Wizard-type neck. So
a lot of people who are looking for good
ergonomics will contact us and say, ‘How
thick is the neck? I like thin necks.’ We then
say we prefer not to talk about dimensions
because that dimension won’t mean
anything to you – we say instead, ‘Just try it
and see if you like it.’ Generally, people find
that it works really well. That’s regardless of
playing style – even people who wrap their
thumb around the top of the neck, they still
find that it works really well.”
How do you feel when you see
professional musicians making the
switch to your guitars?
“That is the ultimate reward, I think. To see
the instruments in use, hear music that’s
created by them, hear the stories of people
who become more inspired by a .strandberg
guitar and they look at it and want to pick
it up and they start playing more, whether
they had ergonomic problems or not.
“Right now we know that most
.strandberg customers didn’t buy a
.strandberg guitar because of ergonomics.
They got it because they felt it was a better-
performing instrument. I also think we’re
going to more of a digital environment [as
guitarists] and being like a desktop musician
using a lot of headphones and near-field
monitors. In that environment, you hear
the difference in a .strandberg guitar much
more than you would have a bunch of years
ago when you went to some rehearsal space
and you had a stack of amplifiers behind
you. So I think the environment where
you create music has gone hand in hand
with this. I mean, now, just the resolution
of the audio chain highlights the defects
of 1950s technology. So I think it raises the
bar of what an instrument needs to do, and
we’ve been able to meet that better than a
traditional design.”
https://strandbergguitars.com
Ola Strandberg first
devised his Ergonomic
Guitar System back in
2007, having worked on
his lutherie skills since
the early 80s
The Boden Fusion NX 6,
here in Amber Yellow,
has a chambered alder
body, solid maple top
and maple neck, with
a trio of Suhr pickups.
A versatile and genre-
straddling instrument
97
DECEMBER 2021 GUITARIST
.STRANDBERG BODEN ORIGINAL NX 6
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