Guitar Music Lessons – How To Change Guitar Strings

Sooner or later, all guitarists need to learn how to change the strings on their guitar. Sometimes you will be forced to change one when a string snaps. But generally, you will simply want to change them, as strings lose their brightness and wear out.

Most Expert guitarists tend to change their strings prior to each gig. But in the long run, it all boils down to a matter of personal preference. Something to keep in mind if you’re using your guitar for a gig, is that your strings require a few hours of play to break in correctly. During this period, your strings will go out of tune as they stretch so you’ll have to retune.

Anyway, here is what you need to do:

Take out the old strings by detuning the machine heads until the tension will become loose enough to permit you to pull each string away from the headstock.

Another fast way to remove the old strings would be to snip them with the help of a pair of wire cutters. Be extremely cautious if you do it this way.

How you start installing your new strings will generally depend on the type of guitar you have, as many guitars have slightly different techniques.

Here is a little insider tip guitarists have been making use of for a long time to get much more life from your steel strings once you’ve removed them: Boil them.

Dropping a set of strings into a pan of boiling water for ten to fifteen minutes will remove lots of the grimy accumulation and bring a new life back again to what would otherwise be lifeless strings.

It won’t last for very long, and you can’t escape with doing it as well many times, but it could be an effective temporary measure.

Regardless of what type of guitar you have, your strings need to be stretched after you have put them on. When you first tune your guitar, place your hand under every string close to the pickup region, pull the string several centimeters away from the fretboard, then release it. If the pitch has dropped, retune and repeat the procedure. Maintain doing this till all the strings stay in tune.

On most electric guitars the strings are either secured at the bridge end by an independent tailpiece (like most Gibson guitars), or passed through the body of the instrument from the back into an all-in-one bridge unit (just like most fender style guitars)

At one end of every steel string, you’ll discover a tiny disc of metal close to which one end of the string is wrapped. This is known as the ball end.

Take the opposite end of the string and thread it through the fixture at the bridge.

Pull the string through till the ball end stops you from pulling the string any more.

The majority of electric and steel-string guitars use a comparable system for securing strings at the machine head. The capstan to which the string is attached stands out vertically from the headstock. Strings can be passed through a hole in the side of the capstan.

The end is then passed around and under, trapping it in position when the machine head is tightened. Several capstans have vertical slots instead of holes. To use these, cut the string to length, and insert into the tip of the capstan. Then bend the string to one side and wind it around.

This leaves the string endings nice and tidy.
Here is what you need to do next: Slowly turn the machine head for each string, increasing the tension until the string becomes suitably tight.

To save yourself time and energy, you can make use of an inexpensive plastic string winder, which simply fits over the machine head allowing you to crank it along more rapidly.

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