One really underrated aspect of guitar maintenance for newbies is the importance of good strings. Like tires on a car, people mistakenly believe that their presence is sufficient-the car will drive and the guitar will play. This is true, but the tires are the thing on your car that make contact with the road, and the strings are what you play and thus have a significant bearing on your sound. They’re seriously important and there are a few things you must know.
The right strings for you depend on a few things. The lighter the string the easier it’ll be to play-to push down, to bend, hammer ons and pull offs, etc. But you’ll also get a thinner tone. Light gauge strings are standard, and they offer a happy medium. And yes, light is actually a standard gauge, and regular gauge strings are actually heavier. Medium gauge strings are worth a try-it’ll make your instrument sound better and you’ll appreciate how much easier it is to manipulate light gauge strings. It’s like working on your wrist shot in hockey by using a heavier training puck. If you can play on medium strings, light strings will be a world of difference. Seriously!
What happens so often is people play and play on their guitar without realizing how gradually the quality of their sound diminishes. It doesn’t happen overnight and the player might forget what it once sounded like. Once the strings are replaced after months of leaving on the same ones, it sounds obviously better even to the novice musician! “Wow” is a very standard response. It’s hard to overstate the importance of changing strings every couple of months, or even every month if you’re playing a lot. When you do play a lot, dead skin (…a little gross) and oxidization effects the tone quickly. When the guitar is left in a closet for an extended period of time the strings are still affected. So long as they’re under tension (IE strung on the neck at all) the pressure on them is reduced and the tone diminishes as a result.
You can buy fancier strings with coatings if you like. There are players who love the feel of them, and they also last longer and sound really good. They’re twice as expensive usually, making them around twenty dollars, but they’re not prohibitively expensive and people swear by them. There are different kinds of coatings available. Once you determine what thickness you like, and whether or not you like a standard steel feel or a coating, try different brands and see which works best. Also, don’t forget that fresh strings are given to going out of tune. Give them some time to settle as they’re not used to being under pressure (there’s no pressure on them in the packaging!).
It’s a good idea to experiment with all kinds of strings during guitar lessons and decide what you prefer most. Hopefully now you’ll give more thought into the role strings have on your sound.
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