How to Clip the Excess Off the Guitar Strings

Video Transcript

MATT GRAHAM: Like I said before, you really don't need any tools at all to change the strings on your acoustic guitar. With all these excess string that's hanging off the ends, rattling around and possibly disrupting my playing of chords with my left hand, if you don't have tools handy, you can simply wrap them in a loop, like so, and that will just get them out of the way. Be careful with these sharp pointy ends. But if you do have a pair of needle-nose pliers with the wire cutter in it or just a set of wire cutters, you want to clip away those excess strings just because they do create noise and tend to get in the way. Now when you trim these strings, it's important that you come at the string at a 90-degree angle, because if you cut them at a diagonal, like this, you're basically creating a needle. You're sharpening the end of that string and if you brush up against it or if you're tuning and you hit it with your finger and even when you're changing strings the next time, if you've got it at an angle like this, there's a lot better chance that when some--when you're tune--changing the strings you can--they'll snap back and cut you or stab you. So again, come in at 90 degrees so you're cutting it off flat and just snip the string, and I'm just going to come around and carefully do that to all of them. When you trim your strings, you'll want to leave an eighth to a quarter of an inch of extra and, really, all of that's doing for you, leaving that extra on there, is creating something to grab with your pliers when you remove these strings after they've worn out or broken.

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