I'm curious about the causes of aging in guitar strings.
Guitarists, and the rest of us as well, can easily distinguish
quality of an old string from a new one. Some pros change their
strings weekly.
With nylon, I can see that there is a definite physical change in the
string, since nylon will stretch quite a bit with use. In fact, my friend who is an
expert flamenco guitarist will fine tune strings which are a bit
sharp by stretching them, and this seems to be a rather permanent
deformation. I don't believe that anyone does this with steel
strings. So if the permanent deformation of a steel string is
considerably less than that of nylon, then why do they seem to go
sour just as fast?
An additional question is, why do piano strings last so long? To my
knowledge they are rarely changed.
I'm wonedering what the mechanosm could be here, and the only other
thought I have is that oil and dirt from the fingers may have an
effect. I have read that one should wipe down steel strings after
use, and of course piano strings aren't ever touched. Any
thoughts?
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Gary Hemminger
Dwight-Engelwood School
315 E. Palisade Ave.
Englewood, New Jersey
07631
e-mail: hemmig@d-e.pvt.k12.nj.us
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