How To Know For Sure If It's Time To Change Guitar Strings
While changing guitar strings is universally understood to be a good thing,
and a normal part of guitar ownership and playing, there seems to be a lot of difference of opinion as to how often the strings should be changed. This article will make this a little more clear, and give you some solid guidelines you can use for knowing how often to change your strings, and, allow you to look at them at any point in time, and make a judgment as to whether it's time for a replacement set of strings or not.
I - Let's begin with an example of what not to do. How often you should NOT change your guitar strings. This is a story about Sam. Sam played his guitar quite often, and he played some serious time most every day. Sam, however, was not big on maintaining his guitar, or on monitoring string condition and changing strings when necessary. Sam would bang away day after day, hit the strings hard, doing a lot of heavy string bending. Not paying attention to the sound deterioration, or the string condition changes. Then one day, Sam's in the middle of a solo, doing some massive bends on the small E string up at the 14th fret, and POP! There goes Sam's E string - breaks right in the middle of an important solo. Now he's screwed. Don't let what happened to Sam happen to you. Read on for some tips on knowing when to change, and how often to change, the strings on your guitar.
II. String inspection. Take a look at the strings on your guitar. Look, especially at the space right near each fret where you finger goes when you stop a string. Do you see much difference in the shade and color of the strings at this point? Do parts of the strings have a dull look and lack the shine that the rest of the string has? Look at the string with a lot of light shining on them to really be able to clearly see a difference.
III. Perform an aural string inspection. Now listen to the strings. Do you still hear the bright sound they make when a fresh set has recently been installed? Or is the sound kind of dead and flat, and has it lost some of its melodic qualities?
IV. How much time has gone by since your last string replacement? The interval between your string changes should be a function of how often you play (every day, 3 times a week, etc) and also how many hours a day you play the guitar. For a daily player, you should consider a change every 1 to 3 or 4 weeks. Your mileage will vary. How much natural oil does your skin have in it. Do you ever make it a habit of washing your hands before playing the guitar? The oil on your skin comes off and reacts with the metal strings on the guitar. It builds up on them and has an effect on the sound the string is able to produce. So because of all the variables involved, you will want to be able to judge for yourself the condition of your strings, and notice when it's time for them to be changed.
Sometimes it's helpful to have a record of the day you last changed your guitar strings. This way you can always look back and see how long it's been. Some people just keep this on the string boxes, or a piece of scrap paper, or you could keep this in a log book, along with any other changes or maintenance you've done to your guitar.
