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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | So my neighbor comes up to me a while back in the alley and asks my opinion about a new guitar. When I asked what he wanted to do with it, he said he just played by himself and was looking to replace his 20 year old Yamaha because it just didn’t sound as good as it once did. After a few more questions, he said that for maybe the past 10 years, it was increasingly losing its sound and while he didn’t mind the mellow tone, he really preferred something more crisp, to use his word. He agreed to bring it over some day for me to take a look. He showed up last evening. The guitar was decent enough, rosewood sides and back, natural spruce top, acceptable action, nothing glaringly wrong, but the strings looked like hell. The wounds were unraveling in some areas, looked almost black in color, and were significantly indented on the bottom where they came in contact with the frets. I asked when he last changed the strings. He replied, “What?” He went on to say that because he had Martin strings put on when he bought the guitar, he thought he was using the best stings available and had never changed them. Twenty years! It was also interesting that he has no tuner nor piano and, therefore, no gauge against which to tune it properly. Over twenty years, with fret tuning only, it had eventually worked its way down to somewhere close to a C#, although he thought he was still in standard E tuning. When I pointed this out to him, he laughed because he had wrongly assumed that his voice was improving with age because he was hitting high notes much more easily than in his younger days. I gave him a pair of Adamas 12s and installed them on the spot. The guitar came alive like a 20 year old guitar should. Now my point . . . changing strings never stopped me from buying another guitar. |
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March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | I once had a lady come into the shop wanting to sell her old guitar. She told me with pride that it still had the original strings!I explained that strings were like oil in your car, and that they needed to be changed frequently. I have also had people come in to buy guitars and complain when I mention that you should change strings at least once every three months. They looked at the packages of strings, thinking there was only one string in the package, and were outraged at how much it would cost to change all six strings. When I told them there were six strings in each package, and that I would put them on for free, they were somewhat mollified. |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I'll give the newbies to instruments a break but, after 20 years of playing, I find it near impossible to believe he never came across the idea of changing the strings...
I'm afraid to raise the "Fruit Of The Loom" question. . .
"Boy's about as sharp as a wet sack of mash." |
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February 2005
Posts: 11840
Location: closely held secret | He either doesn't play much or doesn't play very hard, if he hasn't broken one in 20 years... |
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December 2001
Posts: 10581
Location: NJ | guess you never played one of my guitars..... |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | y'mean the ones strung with the Tetanus Nanowebs?? . . . |
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Joined:
November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I have, Al . . .
. . . which was followed by several weeks of quarantine at a Level5 CDC containment lab and an inoculation regime akin to travel in Sudan |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | He fancies himself as a folk singer and doesn't own a pick, so I understand why the strings are still intact. He also drives a car that still reads Datsun across the back decklid. |
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January 2002
Posts: 14127
Location: 6 String Ranch | Well, THAT explains some of it. |
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September 2006
Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | My buddy, Tom, proudly tells me that the strings on his Seagull 12 were "pretty fresh" cuz he had changed them Two Years Ago!
I went to his house last Thanksgiving and brought him new strings for his 12...
I am going again this Thanksgiving to see if he changed them yet. (I will bring a Tuner!)
Originally posted by CanterburyStrings:
When I told them there were six strings in each package, and that I would put them on for free, they were somewhat mollified. Gee, I wish I lived in Hot Springs... I'd be at your store at least twice a month. :D |
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March 2008
Posts: 2683
Location: Hot Springs, S.D. | One of my regulars likes dead strings. He was at a jam in Nebraska four years ago and one of the strings on his mandolin started to unwind. A guy there had an extra set, and after noticing how black and dead Jays strings were, instead of just giving him one to replace the broken one, he gave him the whole set. Jay saw him a few weeks ago, and the guy asked if he liked those strings he had given him. Jay said, "Yeah, the one I changed." |
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April 2006
Posts: 1017
Location: Budd Lake, NJ | There's that stuff people swoop up and down their strings to prolong string life; I have a friend who uses it and told me with great satisfaction that he could get ten years out of a set of strings (the guitar sounded like it, too--but I didn't have the heart to tell him that.)
Jack got a perfectly good Yamaha guitar once from a job he was working on; the guitar was in the garage, sitting to go out in the trash--the homeowner was going to throw it away. Jack offered him $25.00 for it, figuring that if it bombed he wouldn't be out much. Brought it home, and the poor thing was two whole steps flat; the strings were flapping against the frets. New strings, brought it up to tune, and he was very happy with it. (If the thing had had an on-board tuner, that never would have happened.)
--Karen |
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March 2005
Posts: 5563
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | The Patriot arrived with a 20+ year old set of D'addario's on it...after cutting them off, cleaning the frets and board and installing a new set of D's, what a difference...he said it had sat in the case and he was right!
The strings on the '48 Martin were the worst though...they were from 1963 and had two older sets in the case pocket...the '63 Black Diamond strings were completely black....no pun intended! |
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Joined:
January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Originally posted by MusicMishka:
the '63 Black Diamond strings were completely black....no pun intended! They come that way.
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March 2005
Posts: 5563
Location: Blue Ridge Mountains | I used them as a kid...didn't remember the strings themselves being black...the strings on the Martin were just completely oxidated and tarnished...I still have them: everything extra that came with the guitar is still in the original soft "Geib Econnomo" case...
Ok, I solved the problem: I went and got the string sets that were in the case pocket: one set of Black Diamond Plectrum banjo (the one wound string was silver in color)..
The other set box said Milton G. Wolf Lectro-Magnetic Electric Spanish Guitar...inside were Gibson strings which matched the set that came off the Martin...they were oxidized black as well...so it looks like the strings that came off the '48 Martin (which had been on a shelf since '63) were Gibsin Sonomatic Mona-Steel strings... |
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Strings? I don't need no stinkin' new strings...
