hello everyone I had a request a while ago to talk about how to change the lower gut strings and I'm in the process of changing all my strings so I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to just talk about what I do so like one of the problems is you get to these larger gut strings is they become a little bit unwieldy and of course with a gut string they're not infinitely flexible at a certain point if you flex it and flex it and flex it it will crease actually these particular strings these are the premier brand which is a topic for another time but I'm not seeing a ton of whitening oftentimes what you'll see is whitening in the in the gut as hopefully as its focusing on this as it creases but it's not ideal so for example if you were to increase the string and the string at that you can see a little bit more of that there see that that whiteness there and then strain it and how that be the middle of a string I don't that's not particularly ideal so one of the things we want to do is we're tying the knot is trying to not have too much creasing past where the knot is in other words as it extends up and just simply tying the knot itself can be a little bit challenging so anyway just got your watch as I say change time I'm down here to this is the last fourth octave fourth often now in general I like to if I'm changing my sister string as I like to start from the top and go down because then I can always easily check so I'm the string against the one beneath - I can put this e and E natural and check to see if there there's another one not bring up the pitch is in tune or not that just makes it easier I guess they'd have a good tune tuner on all the time all right and some of these of course will sometimes be hard to get out of the pin because the fibers of the gut may have widened as they've been in there got flattened just careful that you don't hurt your hands pull the hard work and there we go so this one at this point I'm not putting any sort of a string anchor I'm just tying a single knot at the bottom so first I'm gonna take a little cloth and I'm gonna just dust down here at the where it comes with the string comes through the soundboard polish and dust the action up here I could use a q-tip as well if there's something that I want to get into the account with this cloth that's just worthwhile thing to do when you have a string off the harp doesn't hurt so I'll do that and then I'm ready to put the new string on so now this of course is an F so it's it's coated right it's got the color coating on it oftentimes that makes them a little bit easier to work with so I'll do a couple more as well when we get down to these lower strings typically no matter the string manufacturer there will be only enough length for one stringing so in that case I know I'll have some left over I often just like to kind of run my fingers along the string and see if there are so right here there was a little bit of a a little bit of an imperfection that I could feel probably not a big deal but if one side feels smoother than the other that's the side that I'll use wide as well I'm gonna go ahead and put the string in first or maybe not because then you won't be able to see okay I might put it in first and then tighten up but I think I will actually tie the knot first so I can bring it up here and you can see it so the knot as I think I demonstrated in another episode I guess it's actually this is not a bad background cuz this is a black string so I'm going to essentially create a little T by bending this at 180 degrees so straight up and down ideally and then creating another Bend halfway through and here is where we were happy to crease them in fact so it makes can make working with a smaller gut strings better than your easier than working with nylon because they will crease so I want to create this kind of a t-shape again I'm hoping this is focusing on this to some extent create that T shape and then I want to create this loop going over the top of the T so rather than try to create a small loop at the beginning again this idea that if we stress the string too much it's gonna crease so I'm gonna create a nice big loop this kind of flip it over he doesn't really want to and hopefully try and just gradually tighten that while maintaining is round a point so again sharp lines are gonna crease the sharp angles whereas if I can kind of keep this around and again I feel that the coated string is less likely to crease at least we won't be seeing crease um we can see a little bit of creasing now I don't know if you can see this but right right here and I'm not sure where the minimum focal length here is so right here there's a little bit of creasing now we don't have to tie this not particularly tight we just have to make sure that it's not going to it's not haha it's that it's gonna stay intact and then we'll let the is we tune it up to pitch that will and for us so I think this is fine how well you can see that there it is again not particularly tight so then I'm gonna thread that through this is where if I thread it from the top maybe it's potentially easier but I'll pretty easy to just write it through as well trying to keep it fairly tight again we're gonna get a lot of slack as it tightens and you certainly don't want the string to get to to wind up so many turns that is particularly near the harp itself if that happens loosen it all the way take it out pull it through not completely tight as you're gonna have all this it's been already stretched but pull it through so that you got some extra string length on top and tighten it up again so that you're further away from the harp so anyway in this case even if we pull this fairly tight we're going to get a fair amount of slack and I think at this point we don't really need to do that tuck under thing it'll stay in place one last thing if you find that it won't go through the pin you may want to cut the top you see this was kind of flattened and so it's a little bit wider at one point so hopefully if you find the gauge won't get through the hole in the pin try cutting the top and that will tighten this up not my yang particularly hard up but I'm gonna get it fairly taut and then just start tuning this tuning is up so again because these strings are still the old strings I can put money to a natural gradually to the top you see we already have like three wines here maybe probably not from that angle I took a little bit sharp it's gonna go flat very quickly so there were both that was that was fairly painless this off is again as these get bigger this becomes a little bit should probably it some better scissors or cutting mechanism but I just want make sure you don't hit the harp is you're using the force to cut it so let's check out tuning again so let me do the EC get to see one with us not the color coded this down and you can see again you can really see on this the the sort of theme creased or distressed the portion of the fibers here on the gut where it's been wound around here again depending on the gauge and the size of the pinhole may be easy or not this one looks like nice Yanks on alright take that off if if you're finding that the top is so so like tightly wound up here that you can't pull it through the hole just oops just uh just cut it in the middle somewhere just like wire strings right when you take a wire string off you wanna cut the wire in the middle because you're not gonna be able to get this portion very easily through the through the soundboard all right there we go let's uh let's bring out the fifth octaves so fifth octave you I guess first I'm gonna clean there so you can't see that clean the discs interesting to note right here on line you know the line he'll at least the the size changes from the previous size of the discs yeah dust this off dust I tell you so much dust where does it all come from some people will put the dust cover on their harp I do that with my labor harp sometimes but I don't its it also I think I mentioned this at one point it creates a disincentive for you to play because it's one extra thing you have to do plus I'm just like looking at the heart right you know you're seeing there remember sitting and reading and looking at the harp and just well I think I'd better go practice cuz there it is this beautiful instrument I want to go play so you have to balance balance yes sure maybe it protects it from some dust versus the white actually make it as easy as possible to to play up and to enjoy looking at it right so again I'm just gonna I'm just gonna kind of feel along this and I feel like this is the side that I want to use again you might notice maybe if it's wound is there a little bit of like not creasing but just a slight Bend that maybe this looks like rounder or something maybe you want to stick with that not a big deal I don't think but might as well we have this extra room on either side so again I'm gonna crease create the top of the tee I'm gonna crease again yeah if I do this against my shirt but that's not the focused point let's bring that down here and see what that does um there we go so I've created this and again I feel as if these premiere strings maybe because of the coding they're easier than my memory of Bowl Graham strings sometimes are but totally subjective I could be completely wrong maybe I've gotten stronger over the years that's that's a nice not let's let's go with that um so now Himalayan way let's see if how easy this is again I feel the the non-coding ones these clear ones so I can kind of feel where it starts to resist right so like I'm happy with a big loop like this such as this is it gets smaller I might feel like I'm worried about creasing so I'm gonna go ahead and do a nice big loop as large as that over there and and then see whether I can I can and god I'd rather crease on this side rather than the side that's getting pulled through I want to crease on the side that's gonna stay as part of this knot so I'll kind of adjust for that I'll you know I'll just wind it this way and leave leave this part that's going through leave that hopefully as an angled as as possible so and again you sometimes it's just impossible to avoid certain amount of creasing down on the bottom I don't know if it actually affects the sound but we'll try our best not to so and again you don't have to tie a perfect knot so it's pretty hard you can see this is not very tight it's not particularly tight and to try and pull it through further is by hand is fairly difficult I just want to make sure that's not gonna slip out this looks pretty good to me it's it's it's gonna stay there and then as I tighten it with a harp that using the UM so you're taking advantage of that will tighten it for me rather than trying to do nicely again I'm really gonna try an on smaller strings I certainly wouldn't try to pull it through quite as taut as this but because we have a lot of extra leeway down at the bottom and I try to put this fairly tight here it really making sure it's winding in on the inside so we go and I'll play the D too sharp and tune it up check with this half and I will this off yeah it could have been a little bit tighter cut but should be okay and there we go so what I think I want to do because it's very hot on these lights that I have on are even hotter is I'm going to go ahead and replace these next three and then I'll bring you back for the lowest one the very largest one the a see you soon and we're back so down to the final was last a can we try and it's funny because you saw me yanking way to get the string through the pin well the ones you didn't see off-camera actually just slipped through quite easily so again it has to do partly with a gauge of the string right so let's let's see what happens with this one and again just the tensile strength of these big gut strings makes them play challenging to maneuver them to manipulate so yeah this one slides too pretty nicely um I mentioned about you know you if you can't get this through and not you can cut off the string which is actually what I've been doing these last couple ones but I all wanted to mention that if you don't have any backup strings so especially you know these fifth and fourth octave typically they don't come with enough length you know the new string is just good for one one string and they're pretty expensive right so if the string is in reasonable shape is worth and you don't have any backups is worth saving it just as an emergency backup right in case in case you should need it there are also organizations that will take your use strings and supply them to harvests who perhaps are in countries who can't afford them for example I think Patrice Fischer and I want to say Guatemala but look into that too is an option just did something to do with you strings obviously sometimes maybe they're just in such bad shape they're not worth saving but sometimes it it can they can provide a use even after you take them off okay so we'll clean this and here we go I put new wires on a couple weeks ago I guess if you if you follow me on instagram you'll have seen Josh Lane harp and so just about this is the last of the new strings now I'm gonna have 47 new strings and really looking forward to that these gut strings in particular he's really sort of hearing the they're getting kind of dead so I'm hoping hoping to it's gonna sound great and here's this big fifth octave a again I'll kind of check any imperfections that I feel or see that make me want to start from one side or the other I hadn't noticed anything on the ones you didn't see and here I just feel maybe this size is is bent a little bit more from the from the round this maybe not I don't know anyway I'm gonna go with with this side so try create that's not and yeah these are getting pretty big do that twist it over and you can try warming this string up potentially it's a way to make it a little bit more flexible just with fiction there so and again there's not enough blanks for a double string but there's enough length that if you really muck up your knot at the bottom you could just like cut it off and start again you obviously won't want to make a habit of it but you need to just be aware that there is some leeway in case you really feel it that you've you've messed up so here and again you can see I feel these again more than my memory of Bob Rand these are not creasing they're they're actually fairly flexible and able to flex even in a fairly small circle here I don't know if you can see so yeah which is good and then yeah it just requires some strength to get it to the point where it's gonna stay in place as we as we put it underneath and start tightening up again I don't need to get it super tight right that's gonna be created by winding it and again if we find that we end up having so much slack that it gets really close against the heart maybe in a couple months you know as you keep tightening it up just unstraight it pull some extra through and tighten it up again okay so let's put this on through ah you can see interesting oh this we don't have actually a ton of extra room extra slack on this on this string so we might we have enough length if we messed up ours not me not me not me me up so I don't know maybe I'll not fifth octave a hopefully by this point you've got it down and you're not and everything is gonna go smoothly but earlier ones you would have had nice again I'll try to get this fairly that's the not tightening itself again we weren't able to tighten it ourselves just with our bare hands but now just by applying this pen to the length of the string we're able to you can always look in underneath you know check in sound board and make sure that the knot is behaving the way you hope it will but it's not somehow going to slip apart but you should be should be fine so of course it's gonna take some time I changed a bunch of these last night and already this first and second octave is is sting into to some extent but it's gonna take some times gonna take a few days for sure before everything sells in so obviously it's not something you want to do right before okay but the two weeks before you sure like a big concert or something and again if you have optional C playing forbidden tuning and playing forbidden to knee probably couple days I would mind taking this out so there you have it let's see I guess we'll do the last step so again these ones this is these scissors and you get really get something something better probably a little bit more force but I have to almost kind of saw this or not I'm not just cutting pushing straight through and then gradually applying and releasing a little bit of pressure here just to gradually cut through here being aware of my surroundings there well god so there you have it changing changing these pig huge gut strings hope that was helpful and I'll see you in a couple weeks time Cheers