It's been a wet Friday with hardly anywhere to go. The exciting indoor places would probably be full of people who would wanna get away from the rain so the best place to be is home...
Lots of coffee & many harmonic minor runs later, I still find my Fender Highway 1 Strat to be one of the best guitar I own. Depite its pariah tag, the H1 model is a fantastic instrument that would only appease the non-snob players who aren't critical of what an ideal guitar should be because this instrument per se is crafted with components which would get the job done, nothing excessive. Anyway, some productive time was spent with my H1 today, particularly the exploration of the harmonic minor scale. I dislike this scale because it sounds too Malmsteen-ish (no disrespect for Mr. Malmsteen, of course), a chock full of classical sounding notes & nothing happy-sounding unless one gets creative with some additional notes in the mix. Ironically, it's the omission of a few notes which made me play quite extensively, forgoing a routine visit to the latrine, to say the least. I discovered this omission manifested a very Japanese sounding lick. Through another phrasing, it then sounded like what a Javanese gamelan player would churn out. It's slightly past midnight now & I'm finally retiring for the day. No, I'm not interested in the World Cup in the mean time.
I'm also glad I have a humbucker in the bridge position- Duncan's Hot Rails. I somehow knew I would have something going fusing the H1's midrange-rich body with this rather boomy pickup (but there's much clarity on board, mind you). Someone who witnessed this pickup swap said I'm desecrating the Fender tone which should be an all single coil affair but I have my ST-72 & 50th Anniversary Strat to handle that hallowed tone.
