How to Properly Unstring a Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hey there! My name is Aaron Moon and I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com. Today I am discussing the acoustic steel string guitar. Earlier I described how to tell if your strings are getting old. If you are a beginner and you are not used to putting strings on and not being able to tell whether or not they are getting old, it is useful because you need to change them out depending on how much you play; I would say at least once every few months. Once you know that your guitar is in need of new strings, you are going to need to know how to de-string it. With your guitar, you have your head stock with your tuning pegs up here. As you come down, you have your fret board that brings you into the body of guitar, your sound hole and down here you have the bridge with the pegs that keep the strings in the bridge. So this guitar is in the need of new strings. What you want to not do is take all the strings off at once. You might think that you just get them all off and then you put a brand new set on them. What has happened is as you put strings on and you continue to tune your guitar there is a lot of tension that these strings have. They hold a lot of weight on them. So the body and the neck of the guitar and the head stock are accustomed to that. So if you take all the strings off, it is not good for the guitar. It is good to keep at least some pressure on the neck and on the body. We want to start with the high E and the low E. We will start just by tuning it down and with a tuning peg you are going to turn it towards ya’ll; lift it up so ya’ll can see. You are going to want to tune it towards the bottom of the guitar and that loosens it. Now on the other side of the head stock, these tuners you are going to want to turn it towards the top of the head stock. It’s not that difficult, you just reverse it. So those are loose."