Mission Accomplished: Brand Spankin’ New Guitar Strings!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!  I did it!!  I changed my guitar strings!!

To a seasoned guitarist, this is no big wup-dee-doo.  But let me just preface this post by saying that when I got my first guitar, I was only 13 years old.  I didn’t know the first thing about guitars.  That explains why my first guitar was a 3/4 guitar instead of a full size one, and why it did not break the bank, as some brand name guitars are capable of doing.

Along with not knowing how to spot a quality guitar (no offense to my beloved first guitar), I also did not know anything about taking care of a guitar – which includes how often I have to change the strings.  I’ve had my guitars since I was 13, and I’m a young adult now, so you can imagine that’s quite a number of years.  And all these years, I honestly thought the only time you change guitar strings is when they break; and since mine have never broken, I haven’t changed the strings on my guitar since I first brought her home.  Yeah…I know.  Disgrace to guitar players everywhere.

BEFORE:

A year or two ago, a co-worker of mine/fellow guitar player and I were talking about this common hobby of ours, and when we got to the topic of changing strings, he was completely flabbergasted that I had let my strings get that old.  But even after learning from him that guitar strings have to be changed often, I kept putting it off because I hesitated to tamper with something I had never done before.  (He did offer to string them for me twice when he realized I had never changed strings in my life, but I wasn’t too fond of the idea of lugging my guitars for an hour on the train to get them to him.)

So now, after years and years and years of playing old strings, I finally sat down this weekend to change them.  And OMG – my strings are disgusting!  I never realized how badly oxidized my strings had become because it happened gradually over time.  But when I put the new strings on, my first thought was: OMG THE STRINGS ARE GOLD?!?!  =O  I can’t even remember the last time my strings weren’t a dark dark shade of brown!

AFTER:

Considering I had the old strings for so long, changing them and cleaning the body of the guitar itself oddly felt like purging a closet or a room in the house.  You know, like one of those spaces in your house that you know you should clean but you keep putting it off?  And then when you do finally clean it, it feels so so good?  Yeah, something like that.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!