Tulsa Guitar Lessons | Changing Guitar Strings
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So today we’re going to be talking about changing guitar strings and what the best way to change your strings is. So right now I’m actually changing my strings as I am talking. And your guitar is a very interesting instrument. If you think of the way cars are built, a car is going to have many different aspects of that and that’s the same way as a guitar. Your strings are very similar to the way your tires work on a guitar. If your tires are terrible, you’re just going to lose control and you’re going to wind up in the ditch, which is very similar to Tulsa guitar lessons. You don’t want that to happen.
If you’re strings are terrible, you’re just going to sound awful. It doesn’t matter how good of a guitar player you are, you’ve got to have good strings on your guitar, which requires you to change the strings pretty frequently. It depends on the type of strings that you get. But for me personally, I, I like to get elixir strings. And what I’ve found is that they last longer, they feel better on my fingers and I can actually play a lot longer at one time because of the strings feel nice and coated.
So anyway, the type of strings that you get require you to change them pretty frequently. Elixirs typically can last about three months, whereas other strings are quite a bit cheaper, a less expensive, I mean, and they don’t last as long, so you’ll have to replace them more often. But if you would prefer to have a less expensive string, then that certainly something that you can do.
So what I am doing, I am replacing my elixir strings and I’ve got a new pack of Elixir strings to help me get that going. And right now you’re just going to start taking off your strings and once you take them off, I prefer to actually hold three strings on the guitar at one time. So I don’t, it’s just a personal preference. I don’t like to have my guitar completely naked without strings, especially during Tulsa guitar lessons. I prefer to have some sort of tension on the guitar. And so one of the interesting things about the way that the manufacturing happens is that they actually create your neck to be add a specific tension where you can have your strings creating pressure and you’re a guitar isn’t going to break because if you’re, if you could talk constantly has strings on it, there’s going to be that tension holding it against it.
And so you want to make sure that you always have that tension on there. I know a lot of people actually take all six strings off when they’re changing and that’s, that’s fine. I mean, they’re probably not really hurting anything. I just am a little bit overly concerned about the way that my guitars going on. So what you want to do is you’re going to place the end of the string into the notch. And what that does is it allows the Tulsa guitar lessons strings to go right into the notch in which they are being changed. And as you are changing them, be careful not to over tighten the strings because what ended up happening is they can actually break as you are changing the streams. So make sure you don’t over tighten them. You can always tighten them to pitch later. Just make sure that they’re on there nice and tight and then as you change your strings, you can always tighten them later. But one thing that I like about elixir strings is as much as I love changing strings, it’s very easy to get a little bit frustrated with changing strings. And so by having it lasts three times longer, it prevents you from changing the strings three times as much. So I like using elixir strings because then I don’t have to change my, my guitar strings every single month. I can wait a little bit.
So as you are changing them, you’ll want to push the pegs down and hold it down to tighten the strings. The peg won’t fly out. As you’re tightening the tuning pegs, it goes flying out. That is not good. And it’s a situation that will happen eventually to some of you, which certainly isn’t anything to be freaking out about, but it does happen. So that is one of the tips for changing strings. Some people think it’s really cool to the ex extra string attached to the guitar. I really do think it makes you look like a dingus. So make sure you top off those strings makes it seem like you don’t know what you’re doing. Instead of a professional guitar player who’s going to have that, those strings nice and trimmed so that there’s no excess left. Now when you get done with one side, you’re just going to repeat the process on the other side, you’re going to remove the three strings, and as you do that, they’ll come off pretty easily and you’ll just continue to replace them. So make sure in your Tulsa guitar lessons, you as your instructor
So one thing that’s kind of interesting, if you ever need to adjust the action of your guitar, you can do that as you replace your strings. One thing about that, however, is that you will definitely want to take off all six strings when you’re doing that because it’ll be easier for you to access that truss rod inside of your guitar and that trust ride is what actually determines how high or low your strings are because the tension of the neck is going to be chosen through that trust ride. If you have any bad action problems on your guitar, do you find that the strings are just way too far away from the neck of the guitar? You can adjust the action by tightening that trusts ride so that your string is, when we get closer to the fretboard, that way it’ll be a lot easier to play, so I highly recommend you do that in your Tulsa guitar lessons.
If you, if you don’t have experience with that, you could either brave, be brave and look at some youtube videos for you to do it on your own, or you could contact your local guitar shop in Tulsa to make sure that they do it correctly. Usually it’s not too expensive. Sometimes it’s anywhere between 35 and 75 I would not. I personally, I probably wouldn’t spend more than $50 myself on action adjustment, especially while taking Tulsa guitar lessons. So that’s just what I would pay. But another thing to be careful of is as you are replacing all of the strings, make sure you’re paying close attention to which string you’re placing in which position. If you place the sixth string in the first string slot, or if you placed the third string in the fourth string slot, it’s gonna, it’s gonna snap without a doubt, because those strings are specific to a, a number one, two, three, four, five or six, and they need to be placed in the correct position.
If you place the E string in the B string position, then it won’t sound right. And do you, we’ll snap a string. So make sure you’re placing the correct string in the correct position. I cannot stress that enough. So if you have any questions about changing strings, then free to contact us right here where you can get your first $1 lesson at Curtis Music Academy. There’s no commitment, there’s no pressure to make sure that you stay with us. We just want to hear from you and hear about your goals and we’ll even help you change strings in your Tulsa guitar lessons. If that’s something that you need to do, we would be happy to change strings for you.
Usually we charge $10 to change guitar strings, but we can make sure that you get hooked up in that your strings are nice and ready for when you need to practice.
Another thing to just point out real quick is that metal guitars and coup stick guitars and the classical guitars, they’re all different. You’ve got electric guitars that are going to have a different way to insert the strings, and then you’ve got acoustic guitars and even classical guitars, which have nylon strings. All of those guitars have different ways to change the strings. So be careful that you get the proper type of string that need that your guitar needs. And that will again ensure that the correct tension on your guitar is there, as well as making sure that none of your strings snap through it. So that’s my tip for the day.