I’ve been changing guitar strings for decades. Smugly, I had always placed the degree of difficulty somewhere between tying my shoes and pumping gas. That all changed when I met Joey Brasler, now one of our top guitar merchants. He took a sad look at a Baby Taylor I brought into work, rolled his eyes, and sat me down for a restringing lesson. I indulged him, figuring he was just another purist with a mania for ritual. Wrong. The result, actually, is that my guitars now all stay in tune. My old method (the chaos twist) caused the strings to slip rebelliously, creating unique and sub-musical surprises in the middle of solos and other moments of truth, especially with new strings. But no more.
Enter The Axesmith: a series of DIY videos we’ll be posting over the next few weeks designed to help you maintain, adjust and in general get the most out of your guitar. With that, here’s the first in the series. The topic: changing the strings on your acoustic guitar. (No snickering.)
