When to Change your Guitar Strings

Arts & EntertainmentBooks & Music

  • Author Erica Mills
  • Published May 28, 2010
  • Word count 505

You will probably get some advice about changing your guitar strings as regularly as you can. But practically, the frequency of changing your strings depends on how often you play and the type of strings on your guitar. Whenever you play, the strings will slowly turn out of tune due to the oil and dirt buildup and as well as the stretching. How your strings sound may be a good factor in deciding when to change your guitar strings.

You can do some things to help preserve your strings’ tone by making sure that you play with clean hands. You can also clean the strings after you play. You can use some cleaning formulas or simply wipe your strings with a clean dry cloth. You can consider doing this especially if you are the type of person who gets sweaty hands after long hours of playing.

There are some signs that you need to take note of. These signs will signal that you might just want to get a fresh pack of strings and replace your old ones.

Notice how bright and full new strings are. As time passes, the strings will age and will be used more often. This will cause the tone to soften and sound less crisp. If you like keeping the crisp sound, then you may want to consider replacing your strings as soon as they lose the crispness.

Dirt and grime is also one thing that you can consider. As mentioned earlier, your strings can build up some amount of dirt when you use it. If your strings have accumulated a considerable amount of dirt, then it’s high time you replace them.

One of the most obvious reasons for changing strings is a broken one. At least once in your entire guitar playing life, one or more of your strings will break. There are several reasons why your strings break. It can either be due to weather, a birr on the nut, age or fret wear. It’s a natural occurrence. You can always buy individual strings. But change all of them if you can. If a string always breaks, take your guitar to the shop. There might be a problem with the nut.

If you notice that your strings are already getting some fret marks on them, it’s time to change those strings. These spots will definitely affect the tone of the string. This can also cause breakage.

When steel bass strings get worn down extremely, you will notice that the strings’ winding start to fray or come off. And this will soon lead to breakage of the string. This is a sure sign that you really need to change strings.

There are a lot of signs that will tell you when you need to change strings. It is best to always change your strings as a set and not just one by one. Changing the strings in sets will ensure that you get a consistent quality of sound when you play some songs with your guitar.

Erica Mills is a guitar teacher and musician for over 10 years. He loves teaching students with a passion in music on how to play guitar songs. He is passionate about his work and dedicated in helping students achieve their dreams. Visit http://www.bandjammer.com for more guitar song lessons.

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