Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Doug has pretty well nailed the chord placement. I have trouble muting those low strings too, and I've got big fat hands.

Now if someone would get Mr. McCartney on the phone and let him know that his new backing band is ready.....

LMAO! Ooh.. right... like that's likely! His two guitarists are AMAZING!

I should also mention that in the last few bars of AML, during the synchopated strumming, John plays the C#m and the E as barre chords waaay up the neck (the E is at fret 12 - just like in the opening of "She's a Woman") and it sounds great on the little RIC.

I pulled the 325 out last night and messed with these a bit. I was surprised to find that I had little trouble nailing the rhythm, although I haven't played this all the way through in twenty years or more. Back then, it was a Les Paul I think and of course I played mostly barre chords, for obvious reasons!

If you have trouble getting those "thumb-wrappers", pick up a 325, that's all I can say. That little neck is magic. To John, it must have been a revelation.

This is the first time I played the 325 loud through the Magnatone, and the HGs are so powerful that they push the Maggie into (nice) distortion quite easily, depending on how staccato my attack is.

I have trouble with the thumb wrapping WITH my 320! LOL

I played a 325v63 (jetglo) yesterday for the first time, and the first thing I played was the "riff" from "I Feel Fine." No wonder John loved those little guitars, so easy...and so tiny!

J. Oliver! That was exactly the riff I played the moment I owned my 320JG! It is sooo much easier than on a long scale instrument!

Don't forget John's first instrument was a banjo, or at least he learned banjo chords adapted to the guitar from his mother, so the 3 and 4 string chords would be natural to him, and he'd feel more comfortable w/ a smaller neck. (If logic is a factor at all..))