Guitar straps are useful tools, but they’re a little one-dimensional. Thankfully, SNL’s Fred Armisen has a nifty solution – straps with chord shapes printed onto them.
If, like this writer, you had a pencil case with the answers to the times tables on it during your school days, you’ll know how useful cheat sheets like this can be. It’s inspired. But, err, we’re not sure they’re entirely correct.
“The Fred Armisen Guide to Guitar Chords guitar strap is real. We think these chords are PROBABLY correct,” Couch Guitar Straps says in an Instagram post announcing Armisen’s new signature release.
The strap itself looks pretty comfortable, with a nice leather finish, but a look at the shapes reveals there’s more than meets the eye – they’re way out of whack.
“Here's a strap that I helped design,” Armisen says in the post’s accompanying video. “It's got chord formations with the names of the chords.”
Indeed, every single chord shape is an A minor, but is labeled differently every time – as a D♭ minor, C minor 9♯1, G7, and, for at least one bout of accuracy, A minor.
“It's best always to just do the same chord and just call it different things,” he adds.
And to make it “a little more official,” the strap has a little tag on the inside, which reads, ‘Fred Armisen's Guide to Guitar Chords.’ Going off this evidence, it's unlikely he'll get a gig teaching at Berklee any time soon, but he certainly gets a gold star for trying.
“At Couch, we're huge fans of comedian and musician Fred Armisen,” says its creators. “Recently, Fred asked us to help him make a guitar strap he designed to sell on his current tour, ‘Comedy For Musicians But Everyone Is Welcome’ and we were stoked.
“This design is a cool conversation piece, especially for guitar players – when they get a look at that chord chart on your strap they're gonna think ‘something's wrong.’ You, of course, get to explain to them that this is ‘Fred's Guide To Guitar Chords’ and show them the hidden badge sewn onto the back.”
The comments on the post have divided opinions. On one side, there's an outpouring of love for Armisen, whose musical talents and drier-than-desert humor have earned him a place in the hearts of SNL fans. Another user has called for him to “go straight to jail” for his crimes against music theory.
The guitarist is heading on the road, where he'll be selling the straps – for those who need a little assistance on the fly.
And for those not attending any of Armisen’s upcoming live dates, a limited number are being sold on the guitar strap company's website for $54.
Head to Couch Guitar Straps for more details.
For other strange strap innovations, look to the Axel for one that can make guitars spin 360 degrees, and Joe Satriani and D’Addario’s Auto Lock Swivel strap for one that will never tangle again.
