Guitar Strings

A lot of players, not all of them beginners, take strings for granted. For them, the only reason for replacing a string is that is has broken. They go on indefinitely playing on strings that are discolored and rusty, their covering frayed and loose. And they wonder why they cannot produce a good tone!

Give your instrument a chance, Strings are literally its vocal chords, and the best guitar in the world won't sound good if it isn't stringed properly. In the course of begin played strings pick up dirt, grease and perspiration from the fingers of even the most fastidious player. I would not dream of picking up a guitar with dirty hands, but during he course of a three or four hours session, especially if the weather is warm or the room over-heated, everybody's hands perspire and some of that must end up on the strings.

I always wipe the strings of my guitar with a duster kept especially for that purpose after a playing session. Even so the underside of the plain strings picks up dirt and corrosion, and the covered strings absorb the same stuff in between the windings where it is impossible to wipe off. Imperceptibly at first, this deposit begins to dull the sound of the strings, getting gradually worse and worse as it accumulates. Added to this is the fact that after a time the action of the metal frets on the covered strings will cause them to fray. This will interfere with pitch and cause them to buzz.

They should never be allowed to deteriorate to that degree, and this one of the reasons why I say that you should not wait until a string breaks before replacing it. In fact, unless you're a very muscular player or just unlucky, you'll find that strings, particularly metal ones, break very seldom. Nylon strings have a habit of popping off during some quite moment with a sound like pistol shot and scaring the life out of you, because they are more sensitive to atmospheric changes.

A special note on 3rd strings. In the earlier post of this blog I recommended the use of a covered 3rd string on metal string guitars, because in those days uncovered 3rd string tended to play out of tune. Due to improvements in manufacture this condition no longer applies, and I have been quite happily using plain 3rds for some time on my metal stringed guitars as well as on my nylon stringed instruments.

These are just some of the bare bone facts about the guitar that you ought to know. You'll pick up a lot more as you go through this blog. But right now you must be anxious to start playing. So, if you've tuned your instrument, let's go to Title Types Of Guitars and get on with it!