You’re in a pawn shop when you see a vintage guitar missing its high E string, and, inspired by stories of Delta bluesmen past, you snatch it up. But how do you deal with chords or riffs when you’re a string short? In short, can you play a guitar with one string missing? You absolutely …
If you’ve ever picked up a guitar and had trouble getting it to tune up, or found awful rattling and buzzing when you started playing, you’ve probably experienced string slippage. One important step in fixing the problem is learning how to keep guitar strings from slipping. The best way to keep guitar strings from slipping …
If you’re just starting to play guitar, you might notice something when you put new strings on — the strings are often much longer than they need to be, with sometimes as much as 8 inches or more. That might lead you to wonder: why are guitar strings so long? Guitar strings are often longer …
There are hundreds of fantastic guitar players worldwide, but even players like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Nancy Wilson of Heart, or B.B. King need their guitars to stay in tune to sound their best. Regardless if you are playing songs in standard tuning or looking for something more unique musically, the strings need to …
If you’ve ever struggled to play a guitar with action that’s too high or too low, you definitely know it’s important to keep your strings at the correct height. But maybe you’ve also wondered, whether guitar strings should all be the same height. Guitar strings should all be about the same height from the frets, …
You pull out your acoustic guitar on Jan. 1, ready to start your New Year’s Resolution of practicing every day, when, while tuning up, you break a string. You search your case, but you don’t have any extras, and no stores are open. You have to keep your resolution! Can you make your own guitar …
Any player knows that string choice, especially string gauge, is a key part of the tone equation. That raises the question: Do thicker guitar strings sound better? In general, a lot more goes into the sound of a guitar string than its thickness, but thicker guitar strings will sound louder than thinner ones. In some …
It’s hard to imagine a guitarist more influential than B.B. King, who used his iconic guitar, Lucille, to spread the love of the blues into the mainstream of music. Everyone knows B.B. King played Lucille, but what guitar strings did B.B. King use? B.B. King’s famous blues style came in part from the lighter gauge …
If you’ve ever picked up a guitar that hasn’t been played in a while and been surprised at how difficult it was to play, you might have wondered what was going on. Do guitar strings get stiff with age? In general, guitar strings that are played regularly tend to get looser, rather than stiffer, over …
If you’ve ever seen a guitar string snap (or, worse yet, been hit by one as it snaps — ouch!), you know that there is a lot of tension stored in a string. Maybe that led you to wonder: How much pressure do guitar strings put on the neck of a guitar? The amount of …
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