How to change guitar strings

Changing strings is the first real maintenance job a guitarist learns, and it is one of very few things on this site you can genuinely get wrong in a way that damages the instrument. It is also easy once you have done it once.

Have the new set ready before you start — our strings guide covers which gauge to buy, which matters more than the brand.

What you need

A fresh set of the right gauge. Wire cutters. A string winder, which turns a ten-minute job into a two-minute one and costs very little. For an acoustic, something to lift the bridge pins — most string winders have a notch cut for exactly this, and it is far safer than pliers.

The sequence

1. Loosen and remove the old strings

Slacken each string with the tuner until it is completely loose, then cut it near the middle and remove both halves. Cutting a string under tension is the most common way people get hurt doing this — slacken first, every time.

On an acoustic, the ball end is held by a bridge pin. Lift the pin gently with the notch on a string winder. If it resists, push the string slightly further into the hole first to unseat the ball, then lift again. Never lever with metal pliers; the bridge is soft wood and it chips.

On an electric, the string either passes through the bridge or through the body from the back. Push the old one out the way it came.

2. Clean while it is empty

Two minutes, once every few months, and this is the only opportunity you get. Wipe the fretboard and around the frets with a dry cloth. Wipe the bridge and the area under where the strings sit, where dust and skin collect.

If the fretboard is rosewood or laurel and looks dry and gray, a very small amount of fretboard conditioner is worth doing at this point. A maple fretboard with a lacquer finish needs nothing but a wipe.

3. Fit the new string at the bridge

Acoustic: drop the ball end into the hole, insert the pin with its groove facing the nut, and pull gently up on the string until the ball seats against the underside of the bridge plate. You will feel it stop. Hold the pin down while you take up the slack, or it will pop out.

Electric: thread it through the bridge or the body until the ball end seats.

4. Wind it onto the post

The part people get wrong. Pull the string up to its tuning post, then pull back about two to three inches of slack — roughly the distance to the next post up. That slack becomes your wraps.

Thread it through the hole, kink it, and wind so that each wrap sits below the one before, working down the post toward the headstock. Aim for two to three neat wraps. Downward wraps increase the angle the string breaks over the nut, and a good break angle is part of what keeps a guitar in tune.

5. Tune up, stretch, repeat

Bring each string roughly to pitch. Then gently pull each one away from the fretboard at the twelfth fret — firmly, not violently — and retune. It will have gone flat. Repeat three or four times per string until it stops dropping.

This is the step that separates a guitar that settles in twenty minutes from one that drifts for three days. Skipping it is the most common beginner mistake.

6. Trim

Cut the excess close to the post. Leave a few millimeters rather than cutting flush; the cut ends are sharp and a stub you can see is a stub you will not catch a finger on.

The three mistakes

Cutting a string under tension. It whips. Slacken first.

Too much slack at the post, producing eight overlapping wraps that slip against each other and never hold pitch. Two to three neat wraps is the target.

Not stretching them, then concluding the guitar has a fault when it will not hold tune for two days.

Why they sound wrong at first

Brand-new strings are noticeably brighter than what you were playing an hour ago, and for the first day they can sound almost harsh. That settles within a few hours of playing as the very top end comes off.

The bigger surprise is usually the opposite direction: how dull the old ones had become. String wear is gradual enough that nobody notices it happening, which is exactly why so many beginners are playing on strings that have been dead for a year.