Have you ever experienced the dreaded “snap” of a broken guitar string while playing on stage or jamming with your buddies?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
It’s an inevitable part of life for every guitar player, and knowing the common reasons behind breaking a string can help you prevent it from happening too often.
Whether it’s due to excessive playing, over-tightening, or simple wear and tear, the fact remains that broken strings are a nuisance we must all face.
Now, it’s often easier to just replace a broken string with a new one, rather than attempt to fix it. You can buy individual strings at most music stores.
But what do you do when you’re in the middle of a performance or recording session, and you don’t have any extra strings? You need to know how to fix a broken guitar string on the spot (or learn how to “fake it”, as you’ll see in a moment).
Today’s article features a few different videos to help you fix that broken string like a pro. For each video, we provide a summary along with the transcript, so you can quickly find the most important parts in the video. We included videos for both electric guitar and acoustic guitar strings, too.
Tools Needed to Fix a Broken Guitar String
- Some sort of cutting tool (wire cutters, string cutters, nail clippers, etc preferably something that won’t leave a sharp edge)
- String winder (some types let you pull out bridge pins, too)
- Pliers
- Replacement strings (if the entire string is unuseable)
- Guitar tuner
OK we’ll get to the fixing videos in a moment, but first…
How to Fake Your Way Through a Broken String
What happens when some of the world’s most legendary guitarists face this nightmare? They find creative ways to recover smoothly, making it look like a piece of cake!
In the first video below, you’ll see how some of the world’s best guitarists have handled this situation and what strategies you can adopt to continue your performance seamlessly.
Here’s a quick overview:
1. Use a slide
Guthrie Govan is known for his intelligent way to recover from a string break. When a string breaks, there is the possibility that the rest of your guitar strings go slightly out of tune. To overcome this, Govan grabs a slide, which allows him to slide between microtones and continue playing without any noticeable difference.
2. Rely on the whammy bar
When Steve Vai breaks a string on his guitar with a Floyd Rose bridge, which causes all the strings to go out of tune, he immediately turns to the whammy bar. By slightly bending the whammy bar, Vai maintains the correct pitch and tension on the remaining strings and continues playing without skipping a beat.
3. Smooth guitar switch
When Stevie Ray Vaughan broke a string during a live performance, he managed to switch guitars with the help of his guitar tech so smoothly that it was hardly noticeable. The key here is to remain calm and continue playing while signaling to your guitar tech to prepare for the switch.
4. Turn it into a performance
Sometimes, breaking a string can become a part of the show itself, adding an element of surprise and excitement for the audience. Embrace the situation and continue playing, even if it means breaking all your strings.
5. Rely on your vocals
When B.B. King broke a string during a performance, he didn’t let it stop him. Instead, he relied on his iconic vocals and continued to engage the audience while changing the broken string on stage.
Check out the following video for more detail. Then head to the next one to see how to fix a classical guitar string.
Summary
Breaking a string while playing guitar on stage can be a nightmare, but some of the best guitarists have found ways to recover smoothly.
Guthrie Govan, for example, grabs a slide to continue playing after a string breaks, allowing him to slide between microtones and maintain the melody. Steve Vai relies on his whammy bar to manipulate the pitch of his remaining strings to stay in tune with the rest of the band. Stevie Ray Vaughan executed a smooth guitar switch mid-song, barely missing a beat. BB King, when faced with a broken string, relied on his iconic vocals to keep the audience engaged while changing the string on stage.
The main takeaway from these examples is to stay calm, have fun, and keep engaging with the audience even when things go wrong.
Transcript
Have you ever broken a string while playing guitar on stage? It can be quite horrifying. If you have a horror story, why don’t you leave a comment down below? I’d love to live vicariously through your pain. If you haven’t broken a string on stage, if you ever happen to do so, this video should give you some options as far as what to do if that terrible thing happens to you.
So what better strategy to adopt than that of the best guitar player in the world, Guthrie Govan? Let’s see what he would do if he broke a string on stage mid-song. We got some string breakage, so immediately he continues the melody and grabs something. Let’s see what it is. Hans Zimmer is looking on, “What the hell are you doing, man? You’re ruining the show!” Guthrie is pointing at the string flailing in the wind. A very sound strategy, and why I went to Guthrie first. This is a very intelligent way to recover from a string break. He grabs a slide, what better tool to use than one that allows you to slide between microtones? Because we all know when you break a string, there is the possibility that the rest of your guitar strings go slightly out of tune, especially if you have a certain kind of bridge, which we’ll get to later. You saw Hans Zimmer go, “Okay, seems like yeah, that’s why I hired you because you’re the best.” We’ve got a guitar tech coming in, it looks like preparing. I was ready to pounce. Right now, he’s ready to switch that guitar out like a good guitar tech, and he sees his spot. Guthrie indicates with the huge dive-bomb and rips off his strap, not wasting any time. Everyone cheers because they see what’s going on. That’s a really cool thing, the best possible reaction that you can hope for when you break a string. And notice he’s not panicking. When he puts his guitar back on after he feeds his cable through, “Hold on before I start playing, let me adjust my mane.” This is a proper strategy for maybe a slide guitar solo or some sort of ballad like this. Maybe the slide isn’t an option for you, in which case you may opt to simply panic. “Loser!” Probably not the best idea to panic if you break a string while on stage. It doesn’t end well for anybody. I mean, I guess maybe for the audience, just for laughing at you and getting some humor in that way, but avoid if you can.
Now let’s see what happens if another one of the best guitar players ever, Steve Vai, what happens when he breaks the string? Because as we know, he uses guitars with Floyd Rose systems. If you don’t know what happens when you break a string on a Floyd Rose bridge, all the strings kind of go out of tune. And that is because the bridge is locked, and it relies on a certain amount of tension for all the strings to stay in tune. And when that tension is changed, then, well, all the strings become basically worthless. So without a slide like Guthrie may have used, you sort of have to rely on other ways to manipulate the pitch precisely on to the pitch of the rest of the band to stay in that standard tuning or whatever tuning you may be in. In other words, it’s really, really difficult, and you’re pretty much screwed if you break a string while you’re playing a song and you have a Floyd Rose, unless you’re Steve Vai. Let’s find out what he does. Oh, and the string breaks. Uh-oh. Find your equilibrium and immediately to the whammy bar. So you can’t really tell, but he’s slightly bending the whammy bar because the string itself is slightly sharp or flat. I can’t tell, but the point is he’s playing and pushing on the whammy bar, pulling on the whammy bar. I think he’s pushing on the whammy bar and playing in order to keep the tension on his string a little bit less in order to make up for that broken string. This is the highest degree of difficulty that’s going on right now, and most of the audience probably didn’t even realize it happens. You can see the string hanging.
Moving on to perhaps the most famous string break on YouTube, this is Stevie Ray Vaughan breaking a string, and this one I literally can’t even hear different. I don’t even know when the string breaks. I mean, I can see when it happens, but as far as the playing goes, this might be the smoothest guitar switch ever, and that is actually the title of a video that I found on YouTube, “String Break Couldn’t Even Tell.” We’re seeing a little harping on a note, just kind of getting your bearings straight. This is important. I’ve seen each guitar player do this so far when the string breaks. All of a sudden, they’re like zapped out of their musical Nirvana and back to reality like, “Oh,” and so they all kind of hang on a note and they look around for maybe their guitar tech, like, “Hey, something happened here,” but they’re still continuing on with the performance. “Hey, buddy, help me out.” So if you notice here, he flips of