If you have been reading my blog for a while now, you know that I put a lot of stress on the technical sides of playing guitar. Whether it’s electric guitar, acoustic guitar, or classical guitar, having sound technical advice (often through a luthier) and solid theory are essential backbones to building a body of good guitar work.

Unfortunately, I have found that many instructors neglect some of the more “boring” parts of learning guitar in order to get the most notes possible crammed into each session. To be fair, the instructors aren’t all to blame. There are a lot of lazy guitar players out there, whose main goal is to learn a specific song instead of build up a knowledge base which can allow them to play any song.

When I first started to take guitar lessons, I took them from a paid instructor at a local music academy. I took lessons from him for about a year, and not once did he go over the details of changing up my guitar strings. In fact, the times I came in with a broken string he fixed it quickly for me, rather than show me how to change it myself. And of course, I was too shy at that age to ask for the proper tutelage outright.

The consequence of this was that for a few years, I was outright scared of changing my strings. The times I attempted it, it could take hours, and I even broke a few new strings at first when trying to change them. You have to be able to wind them in the right direction, keep the pins in as you wind (on acoustics), and keep from hurting yourself, among other things! It’s more of an involved process than you might think.

Long and short, make sure that your first country guitar lesson includes some information on changing your strings. It’s an essential part of playing any guitar.

photo credit: Roadside Guitars