Restringing My Guitars: A Necessary Evil (And Why I Still Hate It)

My Fender Stratocaster is all restrung (waiting for my Epiphone SG to come back from repairs as well), got my new bass guitar, plus my updated recording/mixing equipment, all ready to start recording.

With a bit of luck, I’ll be working on some new material sometime this year.

But let’s be real for a second: I absolutely despise restringing guitars.

Every single time, I convince myself, ā€œThis time will be different.ā€
This time I’ll be organized. This time I won’t lose three allen keys and a string winder under the couch.
This time, the high E won’t snap at the tuner and whip me in the eyeball like an angry viper.

Spoiler: it never works out that way.
I’ve watched all the videos. I’ve read the tutorials.

And yet, somehow, I still manage to make it a two-hour ordeal filled with swearing, dropped picks, and at least one moment where I consider switching to ukulele permanently.

There’s something deeply humbling about it.
You can play reasonably complicated stuff, understand theory, dial in killer tones… and then spend forty minutes trying to wrap a piece of metal around a post without it looking like abstract expressionism.

My strings always look like raccoons with a grudge installed them.

Still, the moment you strum that first open chord with brand new strings?
Pure bliss. All is forgiven.

The guitar sings again, the bass growls, and ideas start flowing.
Worth every curse word.
So here’s to fresh strings, functioning gear, and the faint hope that one day I’ll finally ā€œget the knackā€ of restringing without wanting to yeet the headstock into the next postcode.
New music coming (hopefully) soon.
Until then, keep your action low and your strings… well, eventually fresh.