How Paul Reed Smith’s Mom Had an Obsession That Led to an Iconic Guitar Look
I have a confession to make: I love the birds.
This can be a bit of a polarizing statement, I realize. Some people absolutely love the birds, while others hate them. But I think I’m in good company. John Mayer seems to be in the former camp, as does Mark Tremonti. Even Carlos Santana has jumped on the “birds” bandwagon.
But whoever designed my “unicorn” guitar, the Vela, seems to prefer dots.
I’m talking, of course, about the now-famous birds on PRS guitars — specifically, the bird inlays that are found on many of the guitars they sell.
A brief recap of fretboard inlays
I’ve written about guitar inlays before, but the gist of it is these are the markers on the guitar’s neck that help orient the player to where he or she is on the fretboard. To put it simply, inlay markers tell you what note you’re playing.
Historically, while there have been ornate fretboard inlays for decoration purposes for centuries, functional markers have almost always been simple dots, rectangles, or trapezoids, with very few exceptions.
