Singing Potatoes
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Wednesday, 10 March 2004
I suspected as much.

Once upon a time, someone told me one should never take off all the strings from a twelve-string guitar at the same time, because they were built to handle extremely high tension; in fact, they needed that tension, and taking it all away would shatter the guitar.

Personally, I thought that was a load of bovine excrement. If it were true, how could they build the guitar in the first place, since the strings have to go on after the neck is set? Now, I could see how cutting all twelve strings at once might be a problem, much as cutting a bowstring can shatter the bow, but a gradual release? Still, in my youth, I was a bit more cautious, and always changed the strings one at a time just in case it was true.

Well, I pulled the old girl out yesterday after nearly a decade of disuse, dusted her off, and said to Hell with it. One by one I unwound the strings, and the guitar stayed whole. Ha. So I went through the tedium of winding the new strings on (fortunately, I had the foresight to buy a string winder), and the even greater tedium of retuning over and over again as the strings stretched out.

But damn, that mother pumps out the sound. Accustomed as I am to a fairly quiet classical guitar, and the even quieter lutes, I'd forgotten just how loud a dreadnought twelve-string can be.

Posted by godfrey (link)
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