Humidity in the air mixed with oil and stuff off your fingers gets to your guitar strings, deadens the sound and makes your fingers feel like they are touching really hard earthworms. Not only do they feel icky but worn out strings are a pain to tune. A good rule of thumb if you play every day for an hour or two every day is to change your electric guitar strings around every two weeks.

As a beginning guitar player you have ahead of you the hassle of sacrificing practice time to learn a new routine added to the daunting task of tuning and retuning your new strings. First, to make sure you're not changing your guitar strings more than necessary, you need to give some attention to your strings during their life on the guitar.

On electric guitars, you will find the first three strings are plain wire, and the other strings are wound around a central core. Some strings use nickel-plated wrap wire which gives a great overall sound, but if you're after a brighter sound you'll be using a stainless-steel wrap which gives you a brighter sound.

To keep the strings fresh for as long as possible, get in the habit of wiping your strings down with a soft, dry cloth. Get the cloth between and behind the strings every day before you put away your guitar, and you'll be giving them extra life.

Keep your cloth handy so that once you have begun the job of changing your guitar strings, you can wipe oil and dirt from the finger board as you go.

Your first job is to take a close look at how your strings are attached to the guitar. Not everybody thinks of that and they end up having to phone a friend to get their strings back on. Now would be a good time to mention that you'll need a string winder, a little item that will save you a whole lot of time. A decent string winder is quite inexpensive and will often come complete with a string cutter for removing the unwanted ends of guitar strings. If you don't get the built-in trimmer you will need a small pair of pliers.

Most guitarists find it best to remove and replace one string at a time. Once a new string is on the guitar, tune it. It will go out of tune again, but start on each one right away.

Start on the sixth string. Use the string winder to turn the tuning peg so the string loosens. Then use the cutter to cut off the twisted end of the old string and remove it from the tuning peg.

Take out the old string completely - once again paying attention to how your old string comes off so you can do the opposite when putting a new one back on.

Feed the new string through the hole in the body or the tail piece of the guitar. Pull until the ball is anchored in place.

Pull the new string over the bridge and the nut and past the tuning peg. Always wind so the string wraps from the inside of the post out. There should be enough string to go around the tuning peg a couple of times. Use your cutter to remove excess string.

Pull the string through the hole of the tuning peg and wind it, keeping it tight all the while, using your string winder til the string tightens up. Once the tuning peg is finger-tight, fine tune the string by hand.

Repeat the process for all the other strings.

Once you have all the strings on the guitar, do a little strumming and pull on the strings and retune them til they stay in tune. While you are still new to guitar playing set aside a whole afternoon for changing your strings. Pay attention to detail to make sure you are clear about what you have to do and why.