carved top vs flat top

is a carved top easier to play (all else being equal), or is it just done for looks?

Carved tops are for looks not for playing ease.

Depends what you like. The carved top is no more easier or harder to play than any other type of guitar. I have owned and still own and play both. The biggest difference I have noticed is in the angle of the neck. A flat topped guitar's neck is straight out from the body, while a carved top is usually angled back a few degrees. Some say this can make the neck easier to play. I haven't noticed the slightest difference in playability between the two.
And, while these days the carved top may indeed be for looks, it originally came about in the electric guitar(Gibson) as a throwback to other earlier acoustic instruments of the violin family. The LP design especially, is a solidbody version of those basic designs. That's what Gibson made before they went electric, so when it came down to designing a solidbody, that's the route they took. IMHO, it's a very beautiful, graceful design.
With a good setup, they can all play great. MHO.

Most of the guitar books I've read have said the carved top on a LP was also originally designed to help deter counterfeits, before the wholesale adoption of CNC manufacturing.

Some of the carved tops are more comfortable to hold. This was certainly the driving thought when Fender developed the Strat.
And then a little known guitar builder (Semie Mosely) perfected the idea with his German curved Ventures model.

Carving the top also reduces the weight of the body quite a bit.

Carving the top also reduces the weight of the body quite a bit.
Depends on the guitar. An LP is quite a bit thicker than the standard 1 and 3/4" in the first place. Carving the top on that guitar does absolutely nothing to reduce weight, as compared to other guitars. Most of them are boat anchors, lol.

Also, the classic Les Paul with the carved top is constructed with two different types of wood. Mahogany on the belt side and maple on the bridge side. It's an important element to the classic Les Paul tone.

Music321,

It's all about the feel of the guitar. You are the one who needs to decide what you like best and what feels the best for you.

Don't worry about all the talk of what is better than what.....it's really mostly just that; talk.

Life is short. Find a guitar that you can't stand to put down and go like hell! :wink:

Most of the guitar books I've read have said the carved top on a LP was also originally designed to help deter counterfeits, before the wholesale adoption of CNC manufacturing.

Not that I doubt you, but I've never heard that before.

Were Chinese knock-offs common in the 50's? :shock:

I don't think carved tops are any easier to play (after all, one hand is on the fretboard and the other only ever touches the strings or bridge) but I agree that it follows the tradition of building stringed instruments.

Usually a carved top has an angled back neck and the flat top has a straighter angle. A Les Paul is a carved top with an angled back neck (and headstock). I don't think it's harder or easier to play but more a style thing.

But the SG, a flat topped guitar, also has the same angled back neck and headstock as the Les Paul. Most other flat topped guitars, tele and strat and many other designs, tend to have a straighter angle with straight headstock and this lends to better tuning stability but not that much, if any, difference in its playability. String action, string gauge, scale length, as well as type of frets, determine the overall playability of a guitar. Leo could have just as easily made his guitars have a slight angle back on neck and headstock where a Gibson is at and things would look different than the teles and strats we use but they would still play like teles and strats.

Here's a tele/strat style neck with angled headstock:

If you think of the LP as essentially a solid wood archtop; with the the archtop being a guitar version of a bowed instrument, it all makes sense.

The tele wasn't designed by a luthier, and its simplicity/cheapness of function over form shows.

Also - it's from a time when labour was cheaper, there was a working middle class, and people actually "built" things in the developed world.