Are Telecasters easier to play than Stratocasters?

[Buck Woodson]

You hear lots of people say they can't make a strat sound good but like the sound of others playing a strat. You seldom hear the same about Telecasters. This is not about not liking the sound of single coils in general.

 

[supersoldier71]

Heck, I guess they are, for me anyway, although I haven’t thought of it in that way.

 

[Zado]

No, more difficult to play them good.

 

[Buck Woodson]

No, more difficult to play them good.

That's exactly what I meant.

 

[rockon1]

Harder for me to get along with the uncontoured body on a tele.

 

[suparsonic]

No

 

[JWes65]

No

 

[Matt Dillon]

Yes
No
Maybe?

 

[sitedrifter]

I have a hard time with the 3 pickups in a strat. My hand naturally falls and wants to pick right on top of the middle pickup. Since I have a hard/deep pick attack, the middle pickup screws me up so I have to play an S type guitar (in my case, a Pacifica) for a bit to get used to it. Once I am used to it, no issue but right off the stand and not playing it for a while, I have problems with it.

 

[nl128]

I think it’s less of a leap going from a humbucker guitar to a tele than to a strat.
If your rig is set up for a humbucker ,then a tele will sound fine through it. If you switch to a strat there might be some adjustment involved.

It all depends on the style of music you’re playing too.

 

[Ramboorider]

I guess they’re a little simpler to get a good sound out of, but there are more good sounds in a strat - you just have to get to know where they are. But in terms of playability I find them basically identical if you take the tremolo out of the equation. I can’t find anything useful to do with a trem, so I block em when I have em and these days I’m playing a hardtail...

 

[64 Tele]

I float the trem on my Strats and my Tele is a fixed bridge, so bends (especially multi string bends) are different (not really easier)
on a Tele vs. my Strats.
Tuning on a Tele is a little more solid due to the fixed bridge.
I go back and forth all the time, and have for years. The body shape of the Strat is more comfortable with cuts and contours vs. the
Tele's more squared off edges.
I thought I could get by with a 3 pickup Tele and no Strats…..ended up buying 3 Strats since that thought......Have to have both.

 

[Jabby92]

Not really, they're pretty similar to me.

 

[Tim Plains]

I've read more posts here over the years about having to fight Teles more than any other guitar.

 

[jvin248]

.

That Strat volume knob is in the way.
What's the real % of players that use volume swells frequently?


I have both a Tele and a Strat and they are the same level of ease/difficulty to play.
One of these days the Strat will get a stacked tone/blender knob and I'll move the volume back to the first tone knob hole, which is the same distance as the Tele knobs from the strings.

If you watch Hendrix play, his righty lefty, he strums all over the area where a normal player would hit that volume knob. He plays it like a Tele in that regard.

.

 

[musicman1]

Between my two, the tele plays better. Likely thats due to the tele having a modern radius and jumbo frets.

 

[Tootone]

I got both. You definitely have to try harder with a Strat, but the pay-off is worth it.

Strat's need to be coaxed.

I saw an interview with Mark Knopfler about how he "discovered" these little things you could with a Strat that could make it so expressive. One of the tips I learned off that interview was "shaking chords"... you know, there's lots of other stuff too.

 

[Stig Ø]

I suck equally on both.

 

[Bertiman]

I find strats more forgiving then teles. +1 on the poor location of the strats volume knob

 

[Uncle Dad]

In the way of what?

your picking hand