Cleaning Your Guitar Strings - A Safe Method

You may be intrigued by chemical sprays promising safe and effective cleaning of your strings and guitar fretboard. There have been sprays to "make your strings last longer", sprays "to make you play faster". Don't play around with any of these. There's a better way:

1) Get yourself a brand-new, still-in-the-package pair of white tube socks from the clothing store, all-cotton. They often come in giant super-packs. That will last you a while. Give some of the extras to your friends.

2) After each time you play the guitar, gently wipe the strings with one of the clean socks. Keep the other sock around as a spare.

3) Do not grind the dirt and oil from the strings into the guitar neck. Rather, grab each string and form something like a "sock tunnel". Have at least some part of the cotton underneath the strings at all times. Move the sock up and down the strings the long-way, like a subway car going up and down a train track. You can even pull the string up a few millimeters from the guitar neck while you are doing this. The main idea is to travel the stock over the strings, not grind the dirt into the fingerboard.

4) Gently wipe off any residual dirt on the fingerboard with the sock, using a clean part of the sock. Try not to grind the dirt into the edges where the frets joint the fingerboard. You can pull the sock between the strings and the fingerboard. You can also gently move the strings out of the way to carefully access different parts of the fretboard. Again: lightly.

This simple procedure can extend the life of your strings to a surprising extent. Even if your hands are as clean as you can make them before playing, still make a point to give your guitar the "sock treatment." Every once in a long while, you can think about a formal fretboard cleaning. This should preferably be done under the blessing of an experienced guitar tech. Not the company trying to sell you chemical sprays- the friendly guitar tech guy at your local music store. But for day-to-day, month-to-month care and maintenance, the sock treatment can be just what the doctor ordered.

There is one final point to this: getting out of the habit of being cheap. Repeat to yourself ten times out loud: "Strings wear out, they don't last forever." Strings are a disposable asset, they are part of the cost of business of playing guitar. Changing your strings is measured in weeks/months.. not months/years. If you are playing like crazy on an electric guitar, it's not unreasonable to change the strings twice per week. That's not a misprint...twice per week. An acoustic with a few hours of weekly playing activity can probably go about 4-8 weeks before the strings start looking/sounding like they may need to be retired. Even with regular cleaning, your strings will die. It's O.K. It's not as bad as a pet hamster dying! Pay attention to the super sales at the music stores, and stock up your strings in bulk.

In summary: regular, careful chemical-free cleaning and frequent string changing will help keep your guitar in fine playing condition. And it will keep those horrible sprays from ever entering your mind.