Guitar Strings

When beginners decide to change the strings on their guitar, they are often overwhelmed by the many different brands and types of guitar strings. There’s Acoustic strings, Electric strings, Classical strings, 7-string Acoustic or Electric strings, even bass guitar strings. It can be tough for a beginner to make the best choice when purchasing strings.

The process would be that much easier if these string types were covered in some detail in an article. That’s just what we’ll be doing in this article.

How Do I Know Which Type Of Strings to Buy?

Well, the first step to narrowing down your choices is to look at what type of guitar the strings are for. So if they are “x gauge Acoustic strings”, they’re for the Acoustic guitar. Or if they’re “x gauge Electric strings”, they’re for any type of Electric guitar. The same applies to the other types of strings. It will say on the package what type of guitar they are for.

Next, you’ll see the brand of the string. There are many different brands available for any type of guitar. Some popular brands include Fender, Martin (for Acoustic guitars only), D’Addario, Ernie Ball and Elixir. All are fine strings for your guitar, although the Elixirs are probably the best choice out of those mentioned. Keep in mind that each brand varies in cost. Some are as cheap as $2.99 a set, while others are as expensive as $9.99 a set (in the case of the Elixirs).

After you’ve chosen a brand of strings, it’s time to further narrow down your choices. This is where it gets a bit complicated. You see, there are many different varieties of strings, even those made for a specific type of guitar and made by a specific company. There are some which are known as “Jazz” strings, while others simply have titles like “nickel, phosphor etc.” The beginner shouldn’t really pay as much attention to what the strings are made out of as they should to what gauge the strings are.

For those who don’t know, gauge represents how thick or thin a string is. Sets of strings that are the thickest are known as “heavy” gauge strings. Those that are slightly thinner than heavy strings are known as “medium” gauge strings. Finally, those that are the thinnest are known as “light” gauge strings.

What gauge you should buy ultimately depends on the type of guitar you are playing and the style of music. For those who are beginners on the Acoustic, it is advisable to buy the light gauge Acoustic strings. This is because the heavier strings are harder to push down on the fretboard. Thus, they require lots of finger strength and calluses, both of which most beginners do not have. Once you’ve gotten both the finger strength and calluses, you can feel free to move up to medium gauge strings.

If you’re not an Acoustic guitarist but instead play Electric guitar, you’ll want to let which gauge of string you buy be influenced by what music you are playing. Let’s assume you’re a rock guitarist and love to play modern rock. Well, it’s pretty much a fact that most modern rock bands like to play down tuned. That is, they like to play in tunings lower than standard tuning, like drop D and drop C. If this is the case, you’ll want to pick medium strings because they are better able to be detuned than are light gauge strings. The disadvantage, of course, is that these strings are a bit harder to push down on, which makes it harder to play solos.

If you don’t intend on going lower than drop D, you can safely pick light gauge strings. They’re excellent for most guitarists (blues, jazz, rock, pop, country etc.), easy to play on and easy to solo on. D’Addario (duh-dar-e-oh) makes the EXL 110s, which are highly regarded by many guitarists.

To make your first string shopping experience as quick and painless as possible, here are some string recommendations for you.

Acoustic Guitar String Recommendations:
Martin MSP4100 Phosphor Bronze Light Acoustic Guitar Strings
Elixir Medium Polyweb Acoustic Guitar Strings
D'Addario EXP16 Coated Phosphor Bronze Light Acoustic Guitar Strings

Electric Guitar String Recommendations:
D'Addario EXL110 XL Nickel Regular Light Electric Guitar Strings
D'Addario EXL120 Electric Guitar Strings
Ernie Ball 2220 Power Slinky Nickel Round Wound Electric Guitar Strings