Playing Characteristics of Guitar String Gauges

Video Transcript

"In this clip we're going to discuss the gauges of strings. A gauge of a string is nothing more than the thickness of the string, the size of the string. Now, each of the strings on a guitar are different sizes, different gauges. The lowest strings have a very high gauge, you can see, these are very much thicker than the higher sounding strings on the guitar. These have a higher pitch, these have a lower pitch. So the thicker the string, the lower the pitch you're going to get. Now you can tune down a thinner gauge string, but it will become floppy, and you won't have as good a tone, so you want a thicker string to get a lower note to still have some tension on it. Now, when you go to the store, and you want to pick up some strings for your instrument, you'll see a lot of choices. Now other than just brands, you'll have different gauge sizes. So, for example, this would be sizes 9 through 46, meaning that the highest string on the guitar is .009 inches around and the larger string is .046 inches around, that's the low "E" and the high "E". Now, depending on how much flexibility you want in the strings, you would get a lower gauge if you want to be able to bend the strings very easily, or you would get a higher gauge if you want to keep the tension real high."