Guitar SetUp Tuning Maintenance

In this video, we talk about how to approach the job of putting a strap button on the guitar. We use an example guitar to show how the guitar may want to roll away from you, if the strap button is positioned in a not-so-good place… We talk about finding the balancing point, where the guitar just wants to stay where you put it, and not want to tip either away from you, or toward you. We talked about erring on the side of having the top of the guitar roll back toward you, because it will probably be resting against your body anyway… Having the top of the guitar roll AWAY from you is what we want to avoid! We talked about using a piece of tape, and a pencil, to mark where your finger is, when the guitar is at its balancing point. We talked about dry fitting your guitar strap end AND a strap lock, to make sure your button position leaves enough space for the strap end AND strap lock to lay flat. For those of you who may be wondering if this strap button location gets in the way of your left hand thumb, the answer is YES! BUT, these guitars don’t even bother having a cut-away in the body for finger access, so apparently that wasnt a top priority… Furthermore, if you are still insisting on trying to use the upper frets, thats fine… you just have to move your left-hand thumb, out of the so-called “hamburger hand” position, and into a position where your thumb is tucked back, and is flat with the rest of your hand. If you can already move your hand into this position, to reach the upper-most frets, then its just a matter of moving your thumb into that new position one hand-position sooner, to avoid touching the strap and strap button.

This is a Yamaha G-55-1 Nylon String Classical Guitar. Came in for service mostly because of a broken string… We noticed a tuning peg that was turning hard, and determined that the peg itself was bent, probably due to mishandling… So we will probably send this guitar back with a gig bag or a hard case, to protect the guitar… Was able to take apart peg and gear, and straighten peg… turns good now. Lubed all the tuners; and they all turn smooth now. The guitar also has several screw holes along the back of the neck, probably where someone was trying to attatch a strap. This guitar has a strap that is mounted to the headstock, but i am not a fan of this set-up, especially because these classical guitars dont have a truss rod, so any extra tension on the headstock is going to pull the strings out of tune. The guitar has a large section of wood thats been splintered out. Theres two chunks of wood missing from the sound hole. Will be thinking of the best way to approach these repairs over the next 7 days as the guitar is hydrated…

The guitar strap is the second most important guitar accessory, and its important to get it adjusted just right for your own unique body. There is no right or wrong way to adjust your guitar strap length, there are only some lengths that work better for you than others To adjust your guitar strap length, start with a medium length that puts the sound hole (or middle pickup) right over your belly button. This position is the position that I’ve settled on that works best for me. From this position, adjust your strap longer / down an inch and play it that way for a while, maybe for an hour, or even a whole day. Then adjust it down another inch, and play it that way for a while. Keep adjusting the strap longer and longer until the strap runs out of adjustment. There are extra-long straps available if you think you need one. Once your strap is extended to its full length, reverse the process and shorten the strap by an inch per hour or day, until the strap is as short as it will go. Once the strap is as short as it will go, reverse the process yet again, and lengthen the strap by an inch per hour or day, but this time do not keep adjusting it to its full length, but instead just adjust it until it FEELS just a little lower than you would like. Then reverse the process yet again, and keep shortening the strap until it FEELS a little higher than you would like. Keep adjusting your strap slightly longer and shorter than where it FEELS right, until you dial it in to the perfect sweet spot where it feels perfect. You probably do not want to adjust the strap so short that either of your elbows are bent more than 90°. And you probably do not want to adjust the strap extra long, just because you like the way that LOOKS on someone else. Just keep experimenting with the rough adjustment until it gets pretty close to feeling right, and then fine adjust by 1/2” or 1/4” at a time. Once you develop a feel for a properly adjusted strap, any other adjustment will not feel right at all. Having your strap adjusted properly will help keep both of your hands, and arms, in their optimum playing position, where strumming and picking feel right, and chords and scales feel right, all over the fingerboard. Learning how do do this one simple strap adjustment can make a world of difference in your playing. Not only will you be on your feet dancing, but your arms and hands will ergonomically correct, too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics next video 1: Guitar Strap Fastened To Headstock Pulls On Neck https://rumble.com/vc3ut3-guitar-strap-fastened-to-headstock-pulls-on-neck.html next video 2: ALWAYS Verify Your Guitar Strap Ends Are NOT Twisted, And Use Strap Locks Just In Case https://rumble.com/vc4lxh-always-verify-your-guitar-strap-ends-are-not-twisted-and-use-strap-locks-ju.html

Rule 1: never touch your tuning pegs, or let anyone else touch your tuning pegs, especially young children... And especially if your guitar is tuned E standard, and it has a Floyd Rose tremolo, and your friend wants to tune it Drop C so he can show you this riff he’s been working on, and he will only play your guitar for 5 minutes before his ADHD kicks in, he gets bored, and leaves... because it will take you a very long time to get it back in tune, and even longer if he helpfully adjusts your tremolo springs for you. Yeah... Rule 2: if you decide to break Rule 1, know WHY you are touching the tuning pegs, and know WHAT you expect to happen if you touch the tuning pegs. Rule 3: Always, Always, Always pluck the string *before* turning the peg, and be actively LISTENING to the string as you turn the peg. A possible exception to this rule of plucking and listening to the string is when you are changing strings, in which case you will want to either listen to the plucked string, OR have your other-hand fingers on the string, FEELING for the anticipated change in string tension. One way or the other, be actively MONITORING the string tension as you turn the peg. WHY are you turning the peg? Because you *think* you have a flat G string? Ok, good! WHAT do you *expect* to happen when you turn the G peg? You will HEAR the pitch of the G string go UP as you turn the G peg? Ok, good! Now, if you *want* to do something with the peg, and you *expect* something to happen when you turn the peg, and that something doesn’t immediately *happen*, STOP!!! Something is very wrong! Check yourself, before you wreck yourself! Your fingers are on the WRONG peg, or you are turning the peg the WRONG way. Either way, by the time your slow brain catches up to your fast fingers, you will have broken a string! I broke so many strings this way, smh... I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, and made some rules for myself to obey, to stop it from happening again. And I’m happy to report to you that ever since implementing Rule 1, 2 and 3, I have never broken another string since! Also, if you ever break a string, INSPECT the part of the guitar where the break occurred. If the string broke by the tuning peg, theres a good chance theres a sharp burr around the peg hole. De-burr the hole before installing new strings, or else you’ll keep breaking new strings. Also, inspect and de-burr the other peg holes as long as you have to change your strings anyway. This can be a very tedious, time-consuming project, so kiss your practice time goodbye. You can use a tiny rat tail hand file, and a bright light to see fine details. Or you can use a Dremel power tool and cut the project time. Once you invest in a Dremel tool, you’ll find many other uses for it to help justify the investment. next video: How To Fine Tune Your Guitar With Snark Tuner https://rumble.com/vbwys7-how-to-fine-tune-your-guitar-with-snark-tuner.html

#Guitar #GuitarStrap #GuitarTips #BeginnerGuitar #StrapLocks Have you seen a guitar strap mounted to a headstock like this? Its probably not a good idea, because the strap pulls the neck backward, which will pull your strings out of tune. Instead, research how several other guitarists, or the factory, have mounted the strap to the body of (your model of) guitar, and copy what seems like the best ideas. You can get a strap peg, and strap locks, from your local music shop. Its also a good idea to use strap locking devices to retain the strap on the peg. Otherwise the strap will tend to rotate on the peg, and as soon as you put weigh on the strap, it will pop off the peg and your guitar will hit the floor, and probably cause serious damage to your guitar. Guitar Rote Exercises https://rumble.com/c/c-462327 Beginner Guitar https://rumble.com/c/BeginnerGuitar Intermediate Guitar https://rumble.com/c/c-433397

There are TWO distinct skills you must develop to advance your guitar playing, and you must develop BOTH skills at the same time! FIRST, you must be able to tune your guitar, SECOND, you must be able to play the notes you want to hear. It can be a frustrating paradox because you can’t develop either skill without the developing the other skill first! Therefore you should plan on spending a lot of time developing both skills every day. Your guitar is a precision instrument, and will require daily, highly skilled maintenance in order for it to play right. Temperature and humidity are constantly changing, and therefore your guitar is constantly changing, especially in climates with 4 distinct seasons. The wood parts and the metal parts of your guitar react differently to changing climates, creating constantly changing (what i call “weird”) tensions in all parts of your guitar. These weird tensions must be relaxed, released, removed, and re-tensioned every day, or else you’ll have endless problems with weird noises and tuning stability as you play. Even if your guitar is perfectly in tune the night before, it will develop weird tension over-night. Even if your guitar tuner shows you are still in tune the next day, it will be in a state of (what i call) “false tuned”. There will be weird tension in the wood, in the strings, where the strings cross the bridge saddles and nut, in the tremolo system, and especially around the tuning pegs. Therefore, to relieve all this weird tension, you must loosen every string a little bit, which in turn releases the weird tension in the wood of the neck, and everywhere else. Once the weird tension is released from the strings and neck, you can re-apply string tension to strings and neck and you’ll have good, clean normal tensions. You may have heard you always want to “tune UP” a string to pitch, but you really need to take that a few steps further and tune up ALL strings at the same time in a deliberate, systematic way. If you try to tune just ONE string down and back up, it just shifts the weird tension from one string to the strings and guitar parts, and you’ll wind up chasing your own tail trying to get rid of the weird tensions. So follows these steps for a perfectly tuned guitar. 1) Wash and dry your hands. Set your guitar in the exact place you plan to play at least 30 minutes before playing, to acclimate guitar to ambient temperature. Don’t set guitar near a vent, or in sunlight, especially around dawn or dusk when temperatures are changing quickly 2) Guitar will also need to acclimate to your body temperature as you hold it, so just rough-tune it to start and then begin your warm-up routine, for about 30 minutes. You’ll know your guitar is acclimated to your body temperature once the guitar stops feeling cold on your belly. Once your guitar is acclimated to room temperature AND your body temperature, its time to fine-tune. 3) loosen all of the strings just a little bit. 4) tighten each tuning peg slightly until the gears positively engage and there is no sloppy gear lash. 5) The Snark tuner indicator needle will point left when the string is flat, and point right when the string is sharp, and point straight up when the string is in tune. Gently turn (I call it squeeze) each tuning peg slightly tighter until your tuner indicator needle starts to move toward the right. Do not try to tune up to pitch on the first squeeze. Leave each string just a few clicks flat. 6) As you tighten one string, the neck will move forward just a hair, you’ll notice the other strings go slightly loose/flat. While this can be very frustrating, just try to understand the mechanics of what is happening, and come to expect it, and just consider it a normal part of your warm-up routine, and your guitar tuning skill development. 7) Follow a torque-sequence type pattern. This means start with one string, and then tighten it a little bit, and then go to the next string, etc and tighten each string just a little bit. 8) Then return to the first string again, and tighten each string a little more, without ever going up to pitch, and definitely without going over pitch, or sharp! If you go sharp on any string, you may as well start over! On a good day, you should be able to get the guitar in tune by going over each string 3 times. 9) On your final pass, squeeze each string up to perfect pitch. Verify pitch of each string one last time. I like to say theres no feeling in the world quite like that of a fresh squeezed guitar... 10) turn OFF your Snark tuner to save battery. 11) remove Snark from guitar if you are concerned about your guitar finish and/or the extra weight on your headstock. next video: Rule 1, Rule 2, Rule 3 For Guitar Tuning Pegs, To Prevent Breaking Strings https://rumble.com/vc4zu1-rule-1-rule-2-rule-3-for-guitar-tuning-pegs-to-prevent-breaking-strings.html