True or False?

There are countless statements and opinions about guitars and guitar playing. Below are some I found on the Internet. But are all these statements correct? Here is what I think, both as a guitarist and a physicist.

"On electric guitars you will often find an unwound G-string, because guitarists bend this string sideways during solos."  Not true. Whether a guitar string has windings or not has no direct effect on the string tension and the force you need to bend the string sideways. As a matter of fact, a wound string of the same diamater will typically be a little easier to bend, because of its lower mass and consequently its lower string tension. The lower mass is caused bu the air between the windings (of course the specific mass of the windings is also important here).

"Due to the shorter scale the string tension is a little higher." Not true. It is exactly the other way around. Guitars with a shorter scale (shorter strings) have a lower string tension, and therefore are a little easier to play. The difference is only small: about 3% less tension for 62 cm in stead of 63 cm scale length.

"The kind of wood used for the back and sides of a guitar has no effect on its tone." True. Or better: almost true. In theory there will always be a small influence, but in practice the effect of the chosen wood species for back and sides can hardly be heard or is completely negligible (despite many claiming the opposite). Other aspects, such as the thickness of the back and sides have much more impact on tone, and even that effect is modest. Overall dimensions, shape and construction of the guitar, and particularly its top construction (wood, shape, thickness and bracing pattern) are by far the most important elements that shape a guitar's tone. So if you don't know what to choose, simply select the back and sides by their looks, or otherwise select the cheapest.

"Bending a wound string takes more effort than bending a plain string, because you have to move more material." Not true. The force required to bend a string only depends on the string tension, which is about the same for every string on a guitar. Because wound strings have a larger diameter, it is actually easier to bend them, because the forces acting on your finger will be distribute over a larger area. This reduces the pressure on your finger tip.

"This pickup accurately reproduces a natural acoustic guitar sound." Not true. I do not know one single acoustic pickup system that reproduces a natural acoustic guitar sound. There is a very simple reason for this: every pick up system locally captures only a small part of the total acoustic sound a guitar produces in all directions. Some systems sound better than others, and some even sound pleasant, but they never reproduce the unplugged tone of the acoustic guitar, by design.

"New strings have to be pre-stretched when you mount them, because they have been stored in a paper envelope for a long time without tension." It is true that when stored in its packaging, a guitar string is not under tension. But it is not true that a string needs to be pre-stretched. Yes, after you put new strings on your guitar it helps to firmly pull them sideways a few times before you tune up. However the reason that new strings quickly go out of tune is because there is still 'slack' in the windings around the tuner pegs and underneath the bridge pins. But the strings themselves are perfectly elastic and cannot be 'pre-streched'.

"Nylon strings are easier to play than steel strings." Not entirely true. The tension of nylon strings is indeed considerably lower than steel strings, but as a result they also have a larger vibration amplitude, and therefore require a higher action than a steel string guitar. When a steel string is perfectly adjusted for the lowest action, it will require hardly any force at all to fret the strings.

"My guitar gets out of tune all the time because the tuners are bad." In practice this almost never happens. Nearly all guitar tuning machines work with a worm gear, and if you take a look at how this works, you will understand that the string tension cannot possibly make the tuning knobs turn back. Bad tuning machines may be heavy or clunky to adjust, but if your guitar spontaneously gets out of tune it probably has another reason.

"Bridge pins made of hard materials will give your guitar more definition and sustain, because there is less absorption of vibrations.." Not true. The hardness of a bridge pin has nothing to do with sustain or definition. In addition, a bridge pin will not absorb vibrations, because the strings are in full direct contact with the bridge, and the bridge pins are only sitting next to them.

"Madagascar Rosewood is characterised by its freshness, openness and better projection. Disadvantage is that the openness comes at the cost of tonal character". When people tell you these kind of stories, take my advice and ignore them. The choice of tonewood for back and sides has a negligible effect on the tone of an acoustic guitar in comparison with the design of the top and many other aspects. This is exactly what Antonio de Torres already stated in the 19th century. If anyone tells you something else, they are either trying to impress you with self-acclaimed expertise or they are talking marketing yada-yada.

"Wound strings with a thin core wire are more flexible and therefore easier to play."

Not true. A thin core wire does make a string more flexible, but this does not mean that it will be easier to play because the string tension does not change. You can expect that such a string sounds brighter (with more overtones), has a better intonation and breaks more easily, but there is no difference in terms of playability.

"Vintage guitars sound better than new guitars." This is often the case. The most important reason for this is very simple: good and expensive guitars were treated with care by the owners and as a result have become vintage guitars, whereas cheap and/or bad guitars were not treated as well, broke down and were simply thrown away. In addition, a guitar becomes more flexible over the years if it is played often. This will cause more frequencies in the strings to be transferred into acoustic sound, which many people think is a better tone.

"The saddle’s natural range of movement as the guitar is being played is actually back and forth like a pendulum. That revelation led Taylor’s design team to relocate the crystals from under the saddle to behind it. " This excerpt is taken from the Taylor website where the Expression System 2 is introduced. Taylor makes great guitars, but this statement does not make any sense at all. There is nothing wrong with the ES2, but Taylor's marketing manager really ought to read a book about elementary physics.

"It's a given fact that acoustic guitars are harder to play than electric guitars. it's just a matter of growing calluses…" Not true. An acoustic guitar that is hard to play simply needs to be adjusted for lower action. It is indeed a given fact that 99% of all acoustic guitars are too hard to play, and therefore would need to be adjusted. However, this is not the case for my guitars and as a result I have no calluses in my finger tips!

"Acoustic guitars sound better when they are tuned to a lower frequency than the usual 440 Hertz'" I think this is actually true, at least in my experience. Every guitar sounds best at a certain specific tuning frequency, which does not necessarily have to be 440 Hz. Indeed, I find that a little lower usually sounds better on most guitars. A possible explanation is that over the last 100 years or so guitars have got larger, whereas their tuning has always stayed the same.