How To String A Guitar – 3 Simple Steps To Choosing A Guitar String

If you want to know how to string a guitar, the first step is of course to choose a good guitar string.  There are so many kinds of guitar strings these days that it can be hard for a beginner to choose.  Let me break it into 3 simple steps:

1. Identify The Type Of Guitar

The first step to stringing your guitar is to get the right type of guitar string for your guitar.  Do not string your nylon string classical guitar with steel strings!  Steel (and metal) strings have a much higher tension compared to nylon strings and putting metal strings on them will definitely damage the guitar neck.  You might end up with a warped neck and regretting such a silly move.  Purchase the right kind of guitar string for your guitar.  This is usually marked clearly on the package.

2. Gauge of string

Choose a suitable gauge of string for your guitar.  For beginners, I recommend a lower gauge of string.  This might be marked on the package as lower tension, or light tension.  This is because lower tension strings are easier to play and less taxing on your fingers.

For acoustic or classical guitars, you can choose change freely between the gauge of string easily and this should not affect the sound.  For those of you with an electric guitar with a floating or floyd rose bridge, take note that your guitar would have been specifically set-up for a particular tension string.  Changing the string without the proper change in setup would affect your intonation significantly and is not recommended.

3. Material of string

Please feel free to experiment with different materials of strings.  There are so many varieties now, including nickel, steel, hybrids and even the more exotic coated elixir strings, which are coated with a special material to make them last longer.  Elixir strings are more expensive when compared to the other types of strings, but in my personal opinion they last longer and feel wonderful when you slide your fingers over them.  Unfortunately they only produce strings for acoustic metal-string guitars and not for classical guitars.  For classical guitars I recommend the Augustine Blue Label Classical Guitar Strings which I have been using for a long time and they are simply great!

Hope that this post has helped you learn how to string a guitar better.

Cheers,
Jon J Tan (HowToStringAGuitar.Net)

How To String A Floyd Rose Tremolo Guitar

Floyd Rose tremelo guitars have a floating bridge and are slightly harder to restring. Please remember not to remove all the strings at once especially when you are restringing a floating bridge guitar, if not you will need to prop up the bridge.

The below video shows how to string a floyd rose tremolo guitar.

How To String A Guitar – When To Cut The Guitar Strings

One of the common mistakes beginners make when stringing a guitar is to cut the guitar strings short too early. Usually we are tempted to cut the guitar strings once they are taut.

 

However, do remember that there is a lot of tension in the guitar strings and very often the strings might slip from the tuning peg and bridge. My advice is to only cut the guitar strings when you have fully tuned up your guitar. After it is tuned, you can try strumming a few chords just to make sure that the guitar strings won’t give way.

After you are certain that it is safe, then you can proceed to cut the guitar strings.

How To String A Guitar – Video Instructions On How To String Any Guitar

Regular string changes keep the tone of your guitar to the most optimum level.  However, there is absolutely no reason why you should pay somebody to string your guitar for you!  Guitar string changes are easy, just follow the links below and we’ll show you how.

How To String A Guitar – A Few Tips

A few quick tips before you begin on your process of changing your guitar strings:

• Type of Guitar String: What kind of guitar do you have?  Replacing the wrong strings on your guitar can have the potential to cause permanent damage to the neck and the wood of your guitar.  Classical guitars have a combination of wound nylon guitar strings and nylon guitar strings (3 each).  Acoustic guitars have a combination of 4 metal sound guitar strings and 2 metal guitar strings (may be steel strings, nickel strings or some alloy, depending on your preference).
• Gauge and Tension of Guitar String: For beginners, try stringing your guitar with a lower gauge guitar string (that has lower tension) so that is easier for you to play.  You can always work your way up when you get better and your fingers get stronger.
• Change 1 Guitar String at a Time: In order for the guitar neck not to experience a great change in tension when you are stringing a guitar, I do not recommend that you change all the strings at once, but rather 1 string at a time.  Occasionally I do break this rule when I want to clean up the frets and the fingerboard but generally speaking, it is not recommended to change all the strings at once.

Videos on How To String A Guitar (of Any Type)

Below are the links to posts which contain the specific videos on how to string a guitar of any type:

• How To String An Electric Guitar
• How To String An Acoustic Guitar
• How To String A Classical Guitar

How To String An Electric Guitar

Stringing an electric guitar is a straightforward task as the hardware of the electric guitar is designed for easy restringing.  See below for a video on how to restring an electric guitar.

How To String An Acoustic Guitar

Stringing an acoustic guitar is similar to any other kind of guitar except that the strings are attached to the guitar bridge by string pegs.  Acoustic guitar strings are also all metal with 4 wound strings and 2 plain metal strings.  See how to restring an acoustic guitar below.

How To String A Classical Guitar

Stringing a classical guitar is similar to stringing any other kind of guitar.  Classical guitars have 3 metal wound strings and 3 nylon strings.  The main difference is you need to attach the strings to the classical bridge which can be quite tricky. See below for a video on how to string a classical guitar.