How to Change Guitar Strings

For a newbie guitar player, this may seem a little intimidating. But with the right tools, a little knowledge and some practice, you'll be able to restring an electric guitar like a professional guitar tech. When I was gigging regularly, I would restring my guitar every week.

My body chemistry is acidic and the sweat and oils from my hands would tend to dull the brightness of the strings as well as make them feel "dirty".

For me, the bright sound and smooth feel of a new set of strings would inspire my playing. It became a ritual for me the night before the weekend’s gigs started. I would sit in front of the TV and restring my electric guitar; my acoustic guitar was restrung less frequently since they detoriated much slower.

You are about to learn how to easily change your guitar strings, and if you already know how to do this through one method or the other, there is no harm in learning further how to possibly do it in another way.

Changing the strings of your guitar should not necessarily pose any difficulty to you once you learn the basic skills, and this is what this article is set to teach you in the most comprehensible manner.

a. Loosen the strings from the tuning pegs: You can easily loosen the strings of your guitar with a peg winder, or you manually loose them through the tuning machines until they can be removed from the tuning pegs.

In doing this, you may first need to decide to either remove the strings one after the other or remove them all at once before stringing them back on again, but when you think of the ease of cleaning the dirt and stains on the fingerboards and so on, you might come to a decision on how to go about systematically removing the strings.

b. Order the strings as you wish: Just take note, do NOT remove all six strings at the same time. Most guitar necks are designed to withstand the tension of the strings and if all of the tension is removed for any significant amount of time you could damage your guitar.

Now, you need to decide on how to restring your guitar after removing the strings. But before this, you must have removed the bridge pins with a bridge pin puller or with any other method you are familiar with, then have the strings removed from the peg holes.

You may also need to thoroughly clean the guitar from all dirt and stains, before deciding the definite order strings thinness or thickness you want to follow or alternate with one another.

c. Insert the strings into the peg hole to tighten: This is where you need skills and strength to get what you actually want in tune. Pull the strings very tightly to insert them into their respective peg holes at the head of the guitar and hold them in place with the end peg once they are firmly inserted into the tuning peg holes.

Learning how to change guitar strings basically has to do with the finesse you are able to achieve after successfully restringing your guitar strings in the desired order to produce the desired tunes. You must be cautious when winding the strings into the tuning pegs that they are neither too short nor too long to cause any difficulty when you want to adjust them.

d. Wind your strings round the peg with the tuning key: With the help of your peg winder, you will need to wind the guitar strings round the peg under each other with the help of your tuning key. Once you are able to get this correctly and the strings are held firmly in place with the bottom pegs so that the strings maintain the required pitch and tension without any risks of falling off, then you are gradually becoming a master on how to change guitar strings.

Take satisfaction in knowing that you now know how to restring a guitar. For more guitar setup and guitar maintenance tips you can easily get answers to resolve common guitar problems at our website. Stay tuned for for online guitar lessons...

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