Acoustic Guitar 101

with Scott Law

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Acoustic Guitar 101 - Section 1

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Acoustic Guitar 101 - Section 4

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Acoustic Guitar 101 Lessons: Lesson 4: Caring For Your Guitar

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[MUSIC]
Let's talk about the care and

feeding of your instrument.

Few principles,
really important principles,

first of all avoid extreme
changes in temperature and

extreme and/or sudden
changes in temperature

and/or humidity, and
those sort of go together.

Heat, heat will actually start
to break down the glues,

like do not keep your guitar in the trunk.

Do not keep your guitar in
the car on a hot sunny day.

I don't recommend keeping the guitar any
longer than you are actually in the car

yourself, for other reasons.

[LAUGH] Security.

But really, this thing is,
is they're fragile in that respect.

They're very, very sensitive.

You'll run into all kinds of things
like the top will sink in one area,

like the upper bout will [LAUGH] stay
the same but the lower bout will sink.

And then,
you could warp in all kinds of ways.

The neck can warp.

Extreme heat and humidity like I've
taken guitars to the tropics and

it's just weak at it.

When you're in an extraordinarily hot
environment that's really, really humid.

Not saying don't do it, but
the case is your refuge and

I think for me I like to,
I put the guitar away at night,

and the case also will slow down any
kind of temperature if humidity changes.

So, let's say I go,

I live in the Northwest where it's
almost like perfect for instruments.

It's never too extreme heat.

There's always enough humidity.

Like, they actually do like some moisture.

They're wood, you know?

Moisture is moving in and
out of these things all the time.

Not so much from the top,

because it's got a finish on it,
but inside it's all bare wood.

So I If I go to Colorado or
Alaska or anywhere in the Southwest.

Anywhere where it's going to be dry and
hot, I'll keep my guitar in

the case a lot and I'll take it out to
play but then I'll put it right back.

And I also shut my case
when the guitar is out.

Because I don't want any moisture or
anything that's like home for

the guitar in terms of
its humidity coefficient.

I just wanna keep things steady.

So, it's just stuff to think about.

It's kind of like you don't really think
about it but it kind of makes sense.

You just kind of try to keep
things stable for your instrument.

As I mentioned, when I go to bed at night,
I don't like really leaving my guitar out

because then there's a lot of
exchange going on over time.

And also,
if someone doesn't know it's there,

they might hit it and knock it over,
or there's some kind of

other thing that can happen,
you never know.

Anyway, my point is,
I think I heard this saying once,

it's like, put your guitar away and
give it some water.

It's just like a person or an animal.

Just take care of it in
a way that makes sense and

try to slow down the drastic changes.

And as I mentioned really
like with the car thing,

you want to keep it out of the sun.

Even in your home it's like if you set
it by a sunny window or a heater or

furnace outlet or anything, it's like,
you've gotta think about that.

You go to a new person's house and
you set your instrument down.

Where are you setting it down.

You don't want to put it by the heat
register and have that come into play.

So anyway, consistent environmental
conditions are best for

if you do move drastically into
a environment, just slow things down.

But with your case, another thing, in
the winter time, like I've done a lot of

traveling where it's, okay, we've got,
there's nowhere really to put these things

except to stick them in the back of the
truck, and the back of the truck is cold.

And what I would do is come inside, and

I let the whole thing warm up for
an hour in the case before I pull it out.

Just let it slowly come
back up to temperature.

So if you can think ahead a little
bit about stuff like that,

you'll save yourself some grief and
prolong the life of your guitar and

you'll be seeing the repair
person a lot less often.

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