In the course of a guitar's life, few things play as crucial a part in its happiness as the strings that axe wears. Strings can make a good guitar sound bad and a bad guitar sound good. They can help develop or destroy your sense of correct pitch and have the potential to make a guitar sing sweetly or barf excruciatingly, and thus, may add or subtract to your interest in the instrument.

When you play your guitar with worn out strings which won't fret-true or tune to pitch, your ear, knowing no tune to pitch, your ear, knowing no better, begins to pick up this sense of incorrect pitch, and thus, totals your sense of what's on and off key. While this is an extreme, it does happen. But strings can go "dead" for other reasons than just being worn down. The string may have collected particles of wax (if you wax your guitar) or dirt (if you take your guitar out of a case) which become implanted in the grooves of a wound string. This little collection, however slight, may cause the string to go dead because the dirt adds mass to the string's properties. Some go because of fatigue some because of stretching fatigue (usually caused by tightening a string over its recommended pitch as in tuning your instrument to an open tuning), and others, because of the amount of acid (not that kind) in your hand's sweat (or perspiration as we say at the club). A good cure of the latter (perspiration) and in prolonging a string's life is to give it the old one-two with a lint-free cloth after each playing session. This takes off the surface perspiration and can add days, even weeks to your string's life and health.

In talking the "dead string blues," some music dealers have found that guitar strings which were strung on new instruments which hadn't even been played, have gone dead. This is usually due to just the moisture in the air, especially in humid areas.

At any rate, the way to check your strings is to produce what is commonly called a "harmonic" (touching the string lightly without depressing it, directly over a designated fret, and then pluck the string close to the bridge with the other hand) directly over the twelfth fret and then compare that tone to the tone sounded by fretting the string at the twelfth fret. If the two tones are the Same, your strings are good and your guitar is intonating correctly. If they aren't, it doesn't necessarily mean your strings are worn. It could mean that the instrument's bridge is not positioned correctly (the distance from the nut to the 12th fret should be equal to the distance from the 12th fret to the bridge saddle). But, if the guitar is in good adjustment, the fretted and harmonic tones should signal if the strings are good or bad.

When you are changing strings from the old to the new, it is always advisable to replace them one at a time so as not to tamper with the stress of strings on the instrument. That is, it's best not to take off all the old strings and then put on the new. But a lotta people do it anyway.

Another little tip which David Bromberg and Richie Havens often do is to take off their old steel-strings and wash them in boiljng water & soap (David recommends Dr. Bronner's pastille soap). This, they claim, adds new life to the string and makes it almost better than new (not recommended for nylon strings).

Here's a listing of some of the major string manufacturers and their addresses (and don't be shy about asking them questions, "cause that's why they are in the business):

Aranjuez Strings, c/o Orozco Corp., 156 W. 56th St., New York, NY 10019

Albert .Augustine, Ltd., 248 Central Park West, New York, NY 10019

D'Aquisto Strings, DAQ Musical Dist., 523 E. Jericho Turnpike, Huntington Station, NY 11746

Darco Strings, 35-35 35th Street, Long Island City, NY 11106

D'Angelico Strings, D'Merle Guitars, Inc. P.O. Box 29, Huntington Station, NY 11746

Emmons Guitar (Pedal steel strings), P.O, Box 1366, 1771 E. Webb Ave., Burlington, NC 27215

Ernie Ball Strings, P.O. Box 2117, Newport Beach, CA 92663

Fender Strings, c/o Fender Musical Instruments, 1300 E. Valencia, Fullerton, CA 92631

G.H.S. Corp., 2813 Wilber Ave., Battle Creek, MI 49015

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Gibson Strings, c/o Chicago Musical Instruments, 7373 N. Cicero Ave., Lincolnwood, IL 60646

Guild Strings, c/o Guild Musical Instruments, 225 W. Grand St., Elizabeth, NJ 07202

Martin Strings, c/o C.F. Martin Organization, Nazareth, PA 18064

E & O Mari (makes La Bella), 38-01 23rd Ave., Long Island City, NY 11106

Mel Bay Strings, c/o G & G Music, P.O. Box 35434, Houston, TX 77035

National Musical String Co. (makes Raves, Black Diamond, etc.), 120 Georges Rd., New Brunswick, NJ 08903

Savarez Strings, Impecco Ltd., .310 Cedar Ln., Teaneck, NJ 07666

The best advice in selection is to experiment until you get the tone and playing properties you desire.

(How would you like to be Michael Brooks for a day? Well he wouldn't mind... Tell us what you'd like to see covered in future Extension Chords *4 c/o Extension Chords, CREEM, P.O. Box P-1064, Birmingham, MI 48012. -Ed.)