Sooner or later, all guitarists need to learn how to change the strings on their guitar. Sometimes you’ll be compelled to change one when a string snaps. But generally, you will simply want to change them, as strings reduce their brightness and wear out.

Most Expert guitarists often change their strings before each gig. But in the end, it all comes down to a point of personal preference. Something to bear in mind if you are using your guitar for a gig, is that your strings need a few hours of play to break in correctly. During this time, your strings will go out of tune as they stretch so you will need to retune.

Anyway, here’s what you need to do:

Take out the old strings by detuning the machine heads until the tension will become loose enough to permit you to pull every string away from the headstock.

One more quick way to take out the old strings would be to snip them with the help of a pair of wire cutters. Be very cautious if you need to do it this manner.

How you go about installing your new strings will generally depend on the type of guitar you have, as numerous guitars have somewhat different methods.

Here is a small insider tip guitarists have been making use of for years to get much more life from your steel strings as soon as you’ve removed them: Boil them.

Putting a set of strings into a pan of boiling water for ten to fifteen minutes will get rid of a lot of the grimy build up and bring a new life back to what would otherwise be lifeless strings.

It won’t carry on for for an extended time, and you can’t get away with doing it as well many times, however it could be an effective temporary procedure.

Regardless of what kind of guitar you have, your strings require to be stretched after you have placed them on. When you first tune your guitar, place your hand under every string close to the pickup area, pull the string several centimeters away from the fretboard, then release it. If the pitch has fallen, re-tune and repeat the process. Keep doing this until all of the strings stay in tune.

On most electric guitars the strings are either secured at the bridge end by an independent tailpiece (just like most Gibson guitars), or passed through the body of the instrument from the back into an all-in-one bridge unit (like most fender style guitars)

At one end of every steel string, you’ll find a tiny disc of metal close to which one end of the string is wrapped. This is called the ball end.

Take the opposite end of the string and thread it through the fixture at the bridge.

Pull the string through until the ball end prevents you from pulling the string any more.

Most electric and steel-string guitars use a comparable system for securing strings at the machine head. The capstan to which the string is attached stands out vertically from the headstock. Strings can be passed through a hole in the side of the capstan.

The end is then passed around and under, trapping it in position when the machine head is tightened. Some capstans have vertical slots rather than holes. To make use of these, cut the string to length, and insert into the tip of the capstan. Then bend the string to one side and wind it around.

This leaves the string endings nice and clean. Here’s what you do next: Slowly turn the machine head for every string, increasing the tension until the string becomes appropriately tight.

To save yourself time and energy, you can use a cheap plastic string winder, which merely fits over the machine head permitting you to crank it along more rapidly.

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