for slide playing) propped up against an amplifier. Trower picked up the guitar, plugged it in, and with a shout that resounded around the auditorium he yelled, "This is it!" "I then switched to Strat" he says. "Up to then I had been playing Les Pauls." Since then Trower has been an ongoing proponent of the Fender Stratocaster. He currently uses his custom-built Strat (made by the Fender Custom Shop) which comes in black, white, and burgundy. The guitar is equipped with a 1950s reissue pick-up in the neck position, a 1960s reissue in the middle position, and a Texas Special at the bridge. Other features included a custom C-shaped maple neck featuring a large headstock with a Bullet truss-rod system, locking machine heads and a maple fingerboard with narrow-spaced abalone dot position inlays and 21 jumbo frets. The Strats he plays live are an exact model of his signature guitar, which is entirely unmodified. For his first two albums, his guitar was tuned in Standard Tuning EADGBE. Starting from the third album, he detuned the strings a semitone to an Eb Tuning (Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb). It is reported that during live performances, his guitar is tuned a full step down to a DGCFAD tuning. This long-established practice of detuning may have been prompted by his preference for very heavy gauge guitar strings. Trower's three top strings measure, high E, B and G = .12, .15 and .17 gauge. By comparison, the most common choice of rock and roll lead players is .09, .11, .15. The width and weight of Trower's string set are similar to common acoustic guitar strings, and that weight makes vibrating and bending the strings more difficult, especially with the full tension of a standard tuning. Detuning them a half-step or more lower eases the tension and provides greater control. Trower told Guitar Player Magazine in a July 1980 interview that he recommends every young player try a thicker set of strings. "The thicker sound alone is worth it, but they also help keep you from forming bad habits." (String gauge measurement: .12 = .012 inches diameter). Trower uses between one and three 100-watt Marshall heads with four to six cabinets on stage. While he usually uses two JCM 800s and a JCM 900, he also links 100-watt Marshall Plexi heads. In studio sessions, Trower uses a mix of amplifiers, such as a