John Lennon with his stripped-of-finish guitar on the roof of London's Apple Records shredding the licks for "Get Back"
Can Guitar Paint Affect Your Tone?
Reminder: In addition to being an annoying curmudgeon and prickly priest, I also run a craft guitar business. At the shop, we either strip the finish off of a market guitar entirely or make sure that any finish or color that we apply to our own original instruments is not that shiny, lacquer-like varnish that is prized at musical instrument stores. They do that because people will buy things that are shiny.
The instrument needs to breathe, after all.
Related: The Beatles’ Casinos The Casino being a model of semi-hollow electric guitar made by the Epiphone company. It is prized by blues musicians for its warm tone.