Granted, there are times when I just *have* to take an axe along – for instance if I’m flying to a gig. Since leaving Nashville in 2006, though, I’ve elected to leave at least one of my guitars at my family’s home in Italy, so that whenever I come for a visit I can keep up the practice regimen as well as play the occasional show. My 1993 Ragghianti has been “living” there pretty much ever since, as I’ve used a cedar/cocobolo McGill as my main squeeze starting in the spring of 2007.

Fabio Ragghianti is a terrific builder from Pietrasanta, just a couple of hours south of Genova. The guitar was originally built for my first teacher Armando Corsi in 1993, and I acquired it as my first “serious” classical in 2001. Its main characteristics are stunning looks (curly spruce and birdseye maple), a warm and fundamental tone, and a neck roughly the girth and heft of a baseball bat. I remember being completely captivated by its smell, feel, and overall character when I first played it in a local music store, where it was held on consignment: guitaristic love affairs often involve more than one of our senses.

In 2003, I packed this very guitar (as well as a 12-fret Ted Thompson T2X, since sold…cute little one!) on my way to college in Nashville. Despite its idiosyncratic wood combination, and an overall construction more akin to a sort of über flamenco/bossa nova crossover instrument, the Ragghianti served me exceptionally well through the program, and accompanied me on countless musical trips across the US and to Canada, Germany, Denmark and France.

Needless to say, it’s always very special to get back with such an old trusted companion – one that I can never bring myself around to sell, even though I could probably get twice as much as what I paid for it. Its voice is clear and strong as I remember it, yet I can hear my *own* technical improvements in its increased warmth and richness. As I’m packing my things to head back Stateside, the guitar lingers out of its case, waiting until the last minute to get a few more clandestine hours together.

I based my decision to switch to a strap after some years of using various guitars support, which in turn followed a few more years spent with a footstool. I should preface any further discussion by saying that positioning and support of the instrument is an extremely personal matter – what works for me might not necessarily work for you. With that said, there are some general principles at play here – in no particular order:

If you put together the above three “principles,” and factor in a given player’s physique (tall and lanky in my case), you will not be surprised by seeing that there are not a whole lot of solutions capable of accommodating everything at once. For me, I found that the guitar could easily be raised by resting more “on top” than “in between” my thighs than it would by using a support – that’s a rather logical consequence of the fact that most supports stick to the guitar’s sides rather than the lower bout.

The steep neck angle was the result of a series of progressive adjustments – a combination of the quest for optimum tone while maintaing straightness in both wrists; it took only the most benign symptoms of CTS back in 2004 to scare me off of a “bent” right wrist for good. In this sense, the right hand “leads” – I found adjusting my left arm for the steep neck angle much easier than approaching the strings in a physiologically sound way with a more “horizontal” setup. I should say that the slightly raised LH shoulder is something I’m keeping and eye on, and perhaps the biggest drawback to my current playing position. Again, I found taking care of that with stretches and overall awareness much easier than dealing with ailing wrists and fingers.

So, enough for “why.” How does one take a strap to a classical guitar? The answer is easy than you might think.
The required ingredients are:

A strap – I prefer wide, soft leather straps – Long Leather Hollow makes excellent ones called “softy,” they roll up nicely and fit under the headstock in my Calton. A wide strap makes sure the guitar doesn’t press or bear down on my back – in that sense, the wider, the better. LHL straps only come with an adjustable part which comes in handy for a counterstrap, as I will explain later.

A device to connect the strap to the headstock – which incidentally will not put the weight of the guitar “on” your shoulder, as it would if you used a pin at the heel block, but rather “off” of it, which is a very good thing. I use the “Quick Release System” by D’Addario, but I actually attach it to the “bottom” end of the strap – the one you would use with the adjustable extension. This allows me to make the attachment a bit shorter by looping it around the “slots” of the strap like you can see in the pic. I should point out that the overall length of the strap influences the resulting playing angle – a longer strap will result in a lower peghead and a less steep neck angle.

Of course, you need to attach the other end of the strap to your guitar, too. I used a suction cup for a while, but eventually moved on to having an endpin installed. While the cup never failed on me in concert, it did come off enough times during practice to prompt me to switch. The endpin feels much sturdier and is an overall better solution, so go ahead and drill away.

As I mentioned, I use the “adjustable extension” as a counter-strap, which is a concept borrowed from bassoonists (who would have thought…). As you can see in the pictures, I simply “loop” it around the lower-bout side of the strap, and then proceed to sit on it (it goes along my inner thigh to be precise, rather than around). Now the instrument will not move, wobble, or otherwise distract me from playing, unless of course I were to rock side-to-side; in that case, the guitar moves with me, maintaing the same position in relationship to my body. I find that a very desirable trait (as I tend to sway and move quite a bit), and one that is all but impossible to replicate with the same degree of “stability” with other support methods.

I hope this sheds some light on my choice; I encourage everyone to think critically about their playing position – take some Alexander Technique classes, learn about proper posture, and remember that you should NEVER adapt to your instrument – it should adapt to you.

p.s. credit where credit is due: I am grateful to Bob Britton, AT teacher at the SFCM, for his guidance and encouragement during my search for a better playing position. David Tanenbaum, Sergio Assad, and Paul Galbraith also provided insights, critiques, and much inspiration for my postural development.