How do I change the strings on my classical guitar?

Removing all the strings at once permits you to clean and wipe the fingerboard without lifting up the strings or having to work around them. Fingerboards accumulate a mix of skin oil, skin and dirt (which saps tone and acoustic sustain from the guitar). 2Remove the strings.

Loosen the strings until they are no longer under tension. Then, either clip them using nippers or continue to loosen them via the tuning machines until they can be pulled out of the tuning pegs. An inexpensive tool called a peg winder, available at any music/guitar shop, is very handy for this.

3Remove the bridge pins. These are the knob-looking things (usually white or black) that allow the strings to hook themselves onto the inside of the guitar. Use a bridge pin puller, which comes in a wide range of varieties and are sold at any music/guitar shop.

Bridge pins can be quite stubborn, especially if either they or the guitar is new. Occasionally you may be tempted to grab these from the outside with pliers. While this is acceptable if done with the utmost caution, it is generally not necessary.

Another method would be to push the pins out from inside the guitar, using a hard object such as a coin. Pushing the string further into the guitar as you do this sometimes helps since the end of the string is wound and "wedges" itself in with the peg. Once the pegs pop free you can pull them out of the peg holes.

4Remove the strings from the peg holes. 5Clean your guitar, if desired. This comprises cleaning the body, fingerboard, back of the neck, and headstock.

Use a decent cleaner from a guitar or music shop if possible. Never use furniture polish, glass spray or other common household cleaners. If nothing else, simply use a slightly dampened chamois cloth or lint-free cotton cloth.

Oils from your hands will build up on the fingerboard of the guitar with remarkable speed causing a thick gunk. If you must use water, you should apply such a minuscule amount of water to the cloth that you can barely tell it is damp. Excess water can ruin unsealed wood.

1Get your new strings ready. Some strings' ball ends are color-coded to indicate what note they are to be tuned to. 2Choose your own order.

There are many theories about what order strings should be applied. Some guitarists start at the thin end and work their way up, or start at the thick end and work their way down. The most preferred method is to first put in the thinnest string, then the thickest, then alternate to the next-thinnest, then the next-thickest and so on (1, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4).

Alternating in this fashion keeps a more even left-to-right pull on the neck of the guitar and makes later tuning less problematic, especially for older guitars. 3Insert the knob end of the string into the peg hole and re-insert the end peg. You should be holding in the string during this time.

It is helpful to pull a little tension on the string toward the head of the guitar because this tension is what keeps those pegs from falling out. 4Stretch each string. Once each string is in its peg hole, stretch it up to its appropriate tuning peg and insert the end through the hole in the peg.

Keep in mind that you will want to be turning the guitar tuning key ALWAYS TO THE RIGHT to tighten. If the tuning keys on your guitar are on opposite sides of the head (as is usual), you bring the string up between the two rows of key pegs and to the outside. 5Thread the string through the hole and pull tight.

You will want to leave just a little bit of slack to have some excess string to wind around the tuning pegs. If you do not, you will run out of string too quickly and the strings will loosen up when you are playing. This is, regrettably, a trial-and-error process and is different for each string.

Just remember, you can always cut off more if you leave too much.