Highly Strung

Since I was wandering past the guitar shop in Falkirk on Saturday I decided to buy myself some new guitar strings. I should have bought new ones ages ago but I never managed to get around to it and I am both tight fisted and very lazy. I’m usually forced into this when one of the things snap but they had remained resolutely intact – even if they were fraying a little at the ends. I’ve seen guides that say that nylon strings are best changed every 5 or 6 weeks. I’m rather of the opinion that such advice is put out by string manufacturers as I am sure it’s been 5 or 6 years since I’ve swapped them – and I think I’ve remembered the reason why.

Changing guitar strings is a fiddly pain-in-the-neck job but after they are swapped over the tone of the instrument is warm and bright. It took me about 40 minutes to swap them (it’s a while since I last did it) and tried out playing Led Zeppelin’s Babe, I’m going to leave you which always sounds fantastic on a classical instrument. At least it did for the first couple of minutes, after which it started sounding a bit off. I did wonder if it was my playing but the top strings had actually dropped a whole tone. After some quick retuning I tried again and it rapidly dropped a semitone. In fact, I couldn’t get the way through anything without the damned thing retuning itself. I tried the old trick of stretching the strings but it still refused to hold a note – a bit like my singing voice, in fact.

After a while, the guitar did seem to be capable of keeping a tuning. However, it was only after picking it up again in the morning that I noticed it was completely out again. In fact it still played harmoniously but the whole thing had dropped by over a tone. I tuned it up again and even checked it against an online guitar tuner which rather pointed out that I don’t have quite as perfect pitch as I was led to believe. I think it’s started to level out now so hopefully I won’t have to constantly fiddle with the thing. I’m also not going to go messing about with alternate tunings – which is how I usually break the things in the first place.

Anyway, to relax I thought I’d have a go at playing Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage. I also tried singing it. Good grief, I wish someone could tune me.