How to change ukulele strings

Changing ukulele strings is the one piece of maintenance every owner eventually needs and it is different enough from a guitar to catch people out. There is no ball end and no bridge pin: the string is tied, and if it is tied wrong it slips out under tension.

What you need

A new set of strings, a tuner and something to cut with. That is the entire list.

The Aquila Super Nylgut ukulele strings#ad set is the default and the reason is straightforward: it is what a large share of decent ukuleles ship with from the factory, including our standard soprano recommendation. If you are replacing tired factory strings on a cheap instrument, this is also the single cheapest upgrade available to a ukulele and it changes the tone more than anything else you could spend the same money on.

A Snark clip-on chromatic tuner#ad matters more than usual during a string change, because you will be tuning repeatedly over the following days and reading vibration through the headstock works in a room with other noise in it.

Match the set to the size. Soprano, concert and tenor take different sets because the scale lengths differ, and a soprano set on a tenor ends up at the wrong tension. Which size you have is settled in soprano versus concert versus tenor.

Step one: identify the bridge

Ukuleles use one of two bridge types and the procedure differs at that end only.

A tie-bar bridge has a bar with four holes drilled through it. The string passes through and is knotted so the knot jams against the back of the bar. This is the most common type and the one that requires an actual technique.

A slotted or bead bridge has slots that a knotted or beaded string end drops into. Much simpler: tie a knot big enough not to pull through, seat it, done.

Look before you remove the old strings. It is considerably easier to copy what was there than to work it out from a bare bridge.

Step two: off with the old

Slacken each string at the tuner until it is loose, unwind it from the post, and free the bridge end. Nylon under low tension is harmless when it lets go, unlike a steel string.

With the strings off, wipe the fretboard. This is the only time it is properly accessible, and the grime that accumulates between the frets is exactly what people later buy specialist products to remove. A dry cloth handles it. If the board is unfinished rosewood and looks gray and dry, a very small amount of fretboard conditioner once a year is reasonable — and no more than that, because over-oiling swells the wood around the fret slots.

Step three: tie at the bridge

For a tie-bar bridge:

Pass the string through the hole from the front, leaving two or three inches spare on the far side. Bring that tail back over the top of the bar toward the soundhole, then tuck it under itself to form a loop, and pass the tail through that loop — twice for the two thin strings, which are the ones that slip.

Pull the long end while holding the tail so the knot draws tight against the back edge of the bar. Check that the knot has seated behind the bar rather than on top of it, and that the tail is not lying under the saddle where it would lift the string off its correct height.

For a slotted bridge: tie a simple overhand knot near the end of the string, or use the molded bead if the set has one, and seat it in the slot. That is the whole job.

Step four: wind at the tuner

Thread the string through the hole in the tuner post, leaving enough slack that you can get two or three winds around the post — roughly one to two inches of extra string. Too little slack and the string slips; too much and you build an untidy stack that slowly compresses and reads as the instrument going flat.

Wind so the string goes down the post, with each turn below the last. That increases the break angle over the nut, which keeps the string seated properly in its slot.

Keep tension on the string with your other hand while winding, and guide the coils so they sit neatly side by side. A tidy wind is most of what separates a ukulele that settles in two days from one that seems to drift for two weeks.

Bring it up to roughly the right pitch, then move to the next string.

Step five: stretch them, then keep tuning

This is the part that is skipped and then complained about.

Nylon and fluorocarbon strings stretch substantially when first brought to tension, and they keep stretching for days. A freshly strung ukulele will go flat within minutes of being tuned, repeatedly.

You can force most of that to happen immediately. With the string at pitch, hook a finger under it near the twelfth fret and pull it gently away from the fretboard — firmly enough to feel it give, not hard enough to worry you. The pitch will drop sharply. Retune, repeat three or four times per string, and the string will hold noticeably better.

After that, expect two to four days of retuning every time you pick it up. That is the strings settling, not a fault. The tuning itself, including which tuning your ukulele is actually in, is covered in how to tune a ukulele.

Trim the ends, and one warning

Once everything holds pitch, cut the excess at the tuners, leaving a few millimeters. Long tails buzz against the headstock and are surprisingly effective at finding eyes.

The warning: never fit steel guitar strings. It gets suggested online occasionally and it destroys ukuleles. A ukulele top and bridge are built for the tension of four nylon strings; steel strings sit at several times that, and the result is a lifted bridge or a bellied top. Use strings made for the instrument and the size.

When strings are not the problem

If a ukulele still will not hold pitch on fresh, settled, correctly fitted strings, the strings were never the issue. The usual culprits are friction tuners that need their tension screw tightening, or a nut whose slots pinch the string so it releases in jumps rather than moving smoothly.

On very cheap instruments it can also be a molded plastic nut and saddle, which is a hardware limit rather than something maintenance fixes — the distinction we draw in are cheap ukuleles worth it. The rest of the kit worth owning is in ukulele accessories you actually need.