How To Choose The Best Nylon Strings For Your Classical Guitar

Classical Guitar Strings

Apart from your guitar itself the strings that you put on your classical guitar will have the greatest impact on your sound and tone quality.

A great set of strings can make an average guitar sound much better and conversely a poor set of strings can make a great guitar sound worse.

Classical Guitar String Considerations

When purchasing nylon strings for your classical guitar you need to consider a few things:

• Price
• Availability
• Longevity
• Gauge
• Material

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Price. For most of us out there price is one the biggest considerations when choosing strings. Most of the time we just go for whatever is cheapest often at the expense of superior tone and longevity. For people like me that change strings every two week the cost can quickly escalate over the year. I personally use Augustine Regal Blue High Tension strings because they are a high-quality string that isn't too expensive and they can endure about 60 to 80 hours of playing before their tone is lost (at least to me anyway). 

Availability. The worst thing is heading to your local music store or searching online only to find that your brand is gone. Sticking to established brands with a reliable track record is really important. Brand such as Hannabach, Savarez, Augustine are all fantastic makers with a long and illustrious history of making strings favoured by the world's best classical guitarists.

Longevity. This is probably the most subjective point as when classical guitar strings or any guitar strings for that matter lose their tone is undefinable. For me that point is reached when the notes don't ring true. The sound is dull, sustain is compromised, and the clarity of the note is no longer apparent. Obviously, if you rarely play your guitar your strings will last a lot longer. If you're like me and you play and practice for several hours each day your strings will need to be replaced more frequently. 

Gauge. This is the thickness of your strings. In classical guitar terms this is usually measured as tension defined as high, medium, and low. It is generally understood that the higher the tension in the strings the more punch and volume your guitar will produce. The cost of this additional punch and volume is that greater effort is required to 'finger' the notes. I would say that high tension strings are more suited to experienced players or players that have exceptionally strong hands and grip strength. Beginners or people with smaller weaker hand and finger strength should choose low tension strings to begin with.

Material. Classical guitar strings are made using a wide variety of materials with bronze, silver plating, and brass being popular choices for the bass strings. Treble strings can be made from clear nylon, rectified nylon, and carbon fibre. Bear in mind that the very traditional gut strings are still available for those seeking the most traditional sound. They tend to be far more expensive than even the highest quality nylon strings and are probably worth trying if you are seeking a different sound from the majority of players on the scene.

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Mix N Match

Another popular method is to mix strings from different sets to come up with your own 'unique' sound and set that suits your playing style. Many players do this and there is no reason that you can't too!

Gut strings: https://www.stringsbymail.com/classical-guitar-strings-1/pyramid-970/gut-and-gut-nylon-974/

Another classical guitar string review: http://equipboard.com/posts/best-classical-guitar-strings

How I Learned To Play The Guitar

My First Ever Guitar Lesson!

I was excited. My dear friend Andrew Little was already a decent guitarist and yet for some reason he was too shy to go to lessons with the new guitar teacher without a mate so he asked yours truly. I was 14 years old at the time and in my first year at high school. I loved music but I'd never learned any instrument except the recorder and in that I had no interest whatsoever. However, for some reason I thought I could enjoy learning the guitar. I rang my parents to ask if it was ok and they agreed. I thought to myself "How can I possibly learn guitar? I don't even own a guitar!" That particular problem was solved pretty quickly when another friend that was learning told me that I could use his guitar until I had my own.

Guitar Lesson Day....

The day of reckoning arrived. Andrew and I excused ourselves from our respective classes and headed across to the music room. We gingerly knocked on the practice room doors where our lessons were being held. After a brief moment we heard a voice from inside beckoning us to enter. We went in and met our teacher - Mr. Peter Thwaites. He was awesome right from the get go. He had long hair because every guitarist in the 80s had to have long hair, he had a quirky accent and always said "Shuzzbutt" or "Schweppes" and he knew how to teach. 

My First Guitar Chord...

D! I was awful. To this day I'm still amazed that Peter didn't rise up and cast me into the gloomy pit of non-guitarists. My fingers were terrible. They disobeyed my every command and it seemed the sense of rhythm that I thought I had decided to forsake me during that brief 17 minute guitar lesson of doom. To make matters worse there was some black dots on paper that might has well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics written by Amun Ra himself. I later came to understand that that was classical guitar sheet music! My friend Andrew was already far too good for that page and he was learning from the next book...."Oh great" I though to myself. I'm stuck in here sharing a lesson with the best guitar player in our year. Andrew new all the basic chords and could even do a little solo with a pentatonic scale whilst I could scarcely recognise my own stubs flailing about on the fretboard like a fish flops around on a beach when you've landed it.

But I had Fun...

Despite the trauma of that initial guitar tutorial I understood that something inside me had been triggered. How little did I know that the first guitar lesson with Peter Thwaites and Andrew Little would shape and influence my life from that day to this. 

Final Words...

Learn guitar! Nowadays with the advent of the internet learning classical guitar or any style of guitar be it electric guitar or acoustic guitar is easier and more accessible than ever. After I finished at that school I couldn't find another teacher in the area that we moved to so I had to resort to teaching myself. If that scenario had taken place 15 years later I would have been able to use YouTube to learn or I could have found a teacher online. Do yourself a favour and check out my online guitar lessons and all of the free videos that I have up on YouTube. They're an incredible resource that enables you to learn anywhere that has a guitar and an internet connection with a device. 

Let your fingers fly!

Josh