What Are the Guitar Strings on a Guitar Made of?

What Are Guitar Strings?

Have you ever wanted to know what guitar strings are? People are always talking about how guitar strings sound like this and guitar strings feel like that. If you’re new to the guitar, it can be confusing — and that’s before deciding which strings to get for your first axe.

As one of the most important items that goes into making music, it’s important to know about the strings on a guitar. We put together this introduction to guitar strings so anyone who’s just getting started on their musical journey knows what they need to.

A Quick History of Guitar Strings

Guitar strings have been around for quite some time. The first guitar strings were made from gut and installed on a guitar around 1265. The first guitars contained four pairs of strings until around 1551 when the fifth pair of strings was added. In 1770, the pairs were replaced by single strings and changed to six strings in total.

The early guitarists used catgut as their guitar string material until 1946 when nylon guitar strings were introduced. Finally, steel guitar strings were introduced and the rest is history. Rock was born with the introduction of steel guitar strings and the Fender and Gibson electric guitar. Guitar tablatures were written and guitarists were learning chords to their favorite songs by their favorite bands.

Defining Guitar Strings

So, back to the original question: "What are guitar strings?" A guitar string is a string made of a particular material(s) that is spanned over a wooden instrument or an instrument that has magnetic or piezoelectric pickups. The purpose of the string is to vibrate and produce a particular musical note. A standard guitar has six strings and is tuned in the following configuration: E-A-D-G-B-E. The lower the guitar string notes are meant to be played, the larger the guitar string gauges are. This refers to the thickness of the string.

The sound on a guitar is produced by the vibration of the strings. How the sound is amplified depends on the guitar’s design. For wooden or acoustic guitars, the sound is amplified by the hollow wooden body of the guitar. For electric guitars, the string vibrations are converted to an electric signal using piezo-electric pickups or magnetic pickups; this is then amplified using basic signal amplification techniques. There are also hollow-body electric guitars and acoustic-electric guitars which amplify the sound using both methods.

 

What Are Guitar Strings Made of?

Guitar strings can be made of numerous materials. As we mentioned, most early guitar strings were made of catgut, and you can still find some catgut strings today. Steel and nylon are the most common modern guitar string materials, and there are many variations of them. For example, steel strings can be 80/20 bronze, phosphor bronze, nickel-plated steel, stainless steel or Monel. You might also find strings made using silk and titanium.

Where to Learn More About Guitar Strings

We hope this lesson was fun and informative. If you want to know more about guitar strings, visit the Strings and Beyond blog. You’ll discover a huge assortment of resources, including guides about how to change guitar strings, what maintenance they require and how each guitar string material affects the sound and feel. Make sure to read this before selecting your first set of strings.

Once you’re ready to buy guitar strings, we have high-quality strings from nearly 40 major brands. Whether it’s basic acoustic and electric guitar strings or classical guitar, 12-string guitar and bass strings, we have the strings you need.