Acoustic armrest - good idea?

Hi, Bill,

First of all, welcome to the home for the musically deranged.

We swing both ways at GN. I think almost all of our electric players have been outed as not being averse to a bit of acoustic and all of our acoustic players have admitted to occasionally getting plugged in and turned on. So there really is no bias here - if it's a guitar, it's OK with us.

However, I can't help you with the acoustic thingymajig, I've not tried one.

http://www.jpstrings.com/armrest.htm

Seems like a cool concept. Give it a shot and see what happens. It's like the banjo armrest.

I've never seen it until you mentioned it. :)

I don't know... While it may prevent contact between your arm and the surface of the guitar, just sticking it on the guitar may eventually damage the finish. At the very least, the color of the portion of the top under the armrest may not age the same way as the rest of the top, so if you remove the armrest later, there may still be a "shadow" left on the top. Who knows, but I wouldn't risk it. Besides, I buy guitars to play, not to put under glass (or plastic).

Something to think about.

If prolonged playing hurts your forearm then I would say to go for it, if you're just trying to protect the finish of your guitar, then I would say don't. It would probably do more damage then good in that department.

Hey Folks,

First, thanks to everyone who has sent in their opinions.
I'm not the least worried about the effect of my sweat, etc on the finish of my guitar. So that's not a factor.
When I play, I can feel the vibration, particularly from bass notes, travel up my arm. This has got to be energy that I'm absorbing from the soundboard; energy that would otherwise be turned into music.
My guess is that the armrest keeping my forearm off of the soundboard will prevent that loss.
Bill :roll:

it should, maybe u should concentrate on being a little lighter on it. It might dampen the sounds loss a bit, but I don't think it will really help all that much... but hey, try it out, I've never used one I'm just guessin