EVERYTHING has to be "sustainable" nowadays. Energy, industry, environment and guitar strings.
Now, guitarists around the world can join the throng, thanks to the dayinthelifeofaguitar string conservation and recycling plan.
This would save heaps of Red House (sorry, greenhouse) gases, if pluckers and strummers everywhere adopted the policy, Never Throw Out An Old String.
This writer has followed this policy for decades. See the picture showing simple string recycling techniques.
Some will smile, others laugh and others show their fangs in disgust.
But whatever emotions the shocking vision invokes, let one thing be clear.
The guitar plays well. Kept clean and free of ingrained grime and corrosion, old strings can keep serving long after they end their first term.
The Policy dates from the 1980s when I had a bit of a guitar collection. Updating the strings on one guitar is fair enough but try paying out for a dozen sets and tying up hundreds of dollars on instruments that are played only occasionally.
When I bought a secondhand guitar that missed a string or five, I simply reached for the String Recycle Box.
This allowed me to fully string up the guitar and test it for faults, action and intonation before starting any repairs and adjustments, and without risking good strings on the temporary task.
An essential part of the policy is, Never Cut A String End For Aesthetic Purpose, because you never know when you may need the practicality of those few spare centimetres.
The best way to join strings is to connect the anchor, as supplied by the manufacturer, on String 1 with the free end of String 2, which is passed through the hole on the anchor and twisted back around itself until it has no chance of slipping free.
In the mid-80s, my mate, Pat Hussey, a professional muso and a string fanatic, gave me a box of a few dozen of his old sets.
The "throwaways" that Pat replaced after a gig or two lasted me two decades.
I have only just started buying new strings. Over the years, many of my jamming mates have rolled around in hysteria after noticing the conglomeration of twisted wire on my headstocks.
But the saving gives the last laugh.
If you are addicted to the sound of new strings, you would not adopt my methods in a million strums, unless you were geographically disadvantaged or fiscally challenged.
However, if you use your strings for more than a few outings, you won’t notice any difference. Most of the jammers who at first collapse in mirth later say my guitars sound sweet, despite any string joins.
Even I take off a string when the winding breaks down.
When I bought new strings recently after so long out of the market, I had to admit they sounded good but a serial string recycler is unlikely to repent.
Now, guitarists around the world can join the throng, thanks to the dayinthelifeofaguitar string conservation and recycling plan.
This would save heaps of Red House (sorry, greenhouse) gases, if pluckers and strummers everywhere adopted the policy, Never Throw Out An Old String.
This writer has followed this policy for decades. See the picture showing simple string recycling techniques.
Some will smile, others laugh and others show their fangs in disgust.
But whatever emotions the shocking vision invokes, let one thing be clear.
The guitar plays well. Kept clean and free of ingrained grime and corrosion, old strings can keep serving long after they end their first term.
The Policy dates from the 1980s when I had a bit of a guitar collection. Updating the strings on one guitar is fair enough but try paying out for a dozen sets and tying up hundreds of dollars on instruments that are played only occasionally.
When I bought a secondhand guitar that missed a string or five, I simply reached for the String Recycle Box.
This allowed me to fully string up the guitar and test it for faults, action and intonation before starting any repairs and adjustments, and without risking good strings on the temporary task.
An essential part of the policy is, Never Cut A String End For Aesthetic Purpose, because you never know when you may need the practicality of those few spare centimetres.
The best way to join strings is to connect the anchor, as supplied by the manufacturer, on String 1 with the free end of String 2, which is passed through the hole on the anchor and twisted back around itself until it has no chance of slipping free.
In the mid-80s, my mate, Pat Hussey, a professional muso and a string fanatic, gave me a box of a few dozen of his old sets.
The "throwaways" that Pat replaced after a gig or two lasted me two decades.
I have only just started buying new strings. Over the years, many of my jamming mates have rolled around in hysteria after noticing the conglomeration of twisted wire on my headstocks.
But the saving gives the last laugh.
If you are addicted to the sound of new strings, you would not adopt my methods in a million strums, unless you were geographically disadvantaged or fiscally challenged.
However, if you use your strings for more than a few outings, you won’t notice any difference. Most of the jammers who at first collapse in mirth later say my guitars sound sweet, despite any string joins.
Even I take off a string when the winding breaks down.
When I bought new strings recently after so long out of the market, I had to admit they sounded good but a serial string recycler is unlikely to repent.
No comments:
Post a Comment