GuitarHack.com

Hey! If you're new here, make sure that the first thing you do is download my FREE "How to Read Guitar Tabs" guide, complete with really simple to follow video lessons. Grab the FREE Tabs Guide right here!

You’ve been practicing quite hard over a period of a few weeks, and while your technical skills have really started to improve, you’ve noticed that your guitar isn’t sounding as bright as it used to. In fact, the tone you are getting out of the instrument would best be described as ‘dull’ or ‘muddy’. Not only that, but you are having trouble keeping the strings in tune for longer than an hour at a time – they just seem to slowly unwind themselves from your tuning pegs, even though you’ve checked to make sure that the pegs are tight and not slipping. What is going on?

Guitar strings don’t last forever. If you think about it, they take a lot of abuse – picking, strumming, stretching and tuning all take their toll on the metals in these strings. Let’s take a look at some of the things that keep your strings from sounding their best, and some general guidelines for when you should consider changing them.

Without question, the most harm being done to your guitar strings is by your fingers themselves. The pads of your fingers exude natural skin oil, and this oil works its way down into the strings, particularly wound strings. The oil attracts dirt, some of which comes from your fingers and some of which is free-floating dust. Eventually, enough of this oil and dirt builds up in the string to significantly interfere with vibration, creating a dull sound. The process can be greatly accelerated if you are playing in a hot environment, such as onstage under bright lights. The sweat running off of your fingers is very damaging to guitar strings.

Next, consider the fact that you are hitting your guitar strings rapidly and repeatedly with a pick that is probably made from hard nylon or plastic. While the pick itself isn’t doing a lot of damage with each strike, it builds up over time – as does the effect of the strings being pressed against frets, the fret board or occasionally muted against pickups. As your strings vibrate more and more, they gradually get looser inside at a molecular level. Wound strings start to loose some of the tension that keeps them consistently in tune, and it can be hard to get all of the strings to tune to each other after a certain amount of playing.

When should you change your strings? In order to keep them sounding at their absolute best, you should change them after each and every gig. Sounds a bit extreme, doesn’t it? Some guitarists have their strings changed by guitar techs between each and every song! While it would be nice to have that kind of budget, by doing it between gigs you are making sure that the stress, sweat and dirt from the previous night’s show doesn’t affect the next night’s performance.

If you are practicing, you have a bit more leeway, particularly if you take care to wash your hands before playing your guitar to remove oils and dirt, as well as wipe down the guitar strings with a cloth at the end of your practice session. Generally, if your strings start to sound dull, it’s time for them to go. There is no reason to frustrate yourself with poor sounding strings when new ones are so inexpensive.

Popularity: 3% [?]