Broke a string

[marnold]

I've been playing guitar or bass on and off since I was 13 or 14. I'm now 45. Today, I broke a string for the first time, and not on one of my guitars. I had been adjusting my son's acoustic's truss rod. It had been fretting out on the second fret if you played something on the first. Slight back-bow. This was my third and final tweak. I did the first two over the course of the past few days--1/4 turn at a time. Since the truss rod nut is in the sound hole, I had to loosen the middle strings so I could adjust it. As I was tuning the wound G string to pitch, it broke at the machine head. The strings are still relatively new and corrosion-free. Weird. First time for everything, I guess.

 

[Eric]

It's been a long time since I've broken one, probably since my acoustic days since I don't play very hard on anything else. I'm guessing that statement all but guarantees that I will now break one within the next few days.

 

[duhvoodooman]

At the other end of the string breakage spectrum, one of the regulars over at the BYOC forum posted that the broke the D, G, and A strings from the same brand-new set of Elixir Polywebs during a single gig on Saturday. :thwap I think the fact that he was playing outdoors with an air temp. of 30 F had something to do with it, though.

 

[Eric]

I think the fact that he was playing outdoors with an air temp. of 30 F had something to do with it, though.

Wow. I've gone Christmas caroling before with pretty cold weather, and it's not easy -- your fingers turn numb within one song.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

A few years ago, I watched The Wailers perform on an open outdoor stage in Ketchum, ID, in early February. The temp us under 5 degrees F. the poor rasta with the SG was having such a hard time playing. Didn't break a string though.

 

[deeaa]

Yeah it so depends. I have broken next to no strings in ages, but I too have broken four strings at once at best...on an acoustic Charvel at an outdoor gig. Outdoors are terrible always, hate 'em.

At some point I broke a lot of D strings when I used. 11 sets but since I've used tens and nines, almost never. At some point it also seemed I broke the high e every other time while putting strings ON already, actually got used to always buying an extra e with a set because of that. But that hasn't happened much at all any more.

Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

 

[sunvalleylaw]

I have only broke a string a couple times. Once while overwinding while changing strings. I broke a high E string a few months ago, and was so lazy, I just put the guitar away for a few months. That was one of the big motivating factors when I changed strings on three guitars the other day, so I could finally play that guitar again.

 

[Brian Krashpad]

I break strings all the time. The again I'm pretty hard on guitars onstage. In Crash Pad at least.

Over the last couple weeks I've broken two strings on my mandolin, of all things, so they've just reached the time that they all need to be changed. It's rare I change out a whole guitar though. Maybe before a big gig.