Why do guitarists switch guitars

These can include:. Many professional guitarists travel with a virtual armada of guitars. You may see them lined up in racks known in the business as guitar boats at the side or rear of the stage. One of the most common reasons a guitar player will switch to a different guitar during a performance is if they break a string or some sort of other malfunction occurs.

Guitar strings are very thin strands of steel, some as thin a seven thousands of an inch approximately the width of 3 human hairs and are tuned to extremely high tension. Other common forms of malfunctions include issues with electronics and guitar straps breaking or coming undone.

For this reason, it is good practice for guitarists to have at least 2 guitars on hand at any given time. You never know when unforeseen circumstances will arise and nothing puts the brakes on a performance like a guitar player changing strings and tuning up while the singer tries to stall with bad jokes.

There are several pitches a guitar may be tuned to. However, not all songs or styles of music adhere to this standard. Some types of music such as hard rock and heavy metal traditionally tune to lower pitches for a heavier, more ominous sound. Blues players often use what is known as open tuning to facilitate playing chord shapes with a single finger or a glass or metal tube that slides over the finger.

This is a method known as slide playing. Anyone who has played on more than one guitar can tell you that, even in identical tunings, no two guitars sound exactly alike. For instance, some guitars have a low and warm timbre while others are nasally and bright.

This can be due to a number of factors such as the type of material used in manufacturing, the style of pickups, string thickness and many more. Traditionally, a typical guitar has six strings. However, in recent years the use of expanded range instruments has become more common. In heavy metal music, for instance, it is not unusual to see guitars with seven, eight or even nine strings being used to broaden the available sonic palette.

Some believe that this trend has gone to absurd levels now with some boutique guitar makers in a virtual arms race to add m ore and more strings. It was a veritable guitar show, and I loved every minute.

Feb 4, I think it may be a bit of sales psychology, you're giving the audience something new and fresh each song. Age: 45 Posts: 16, Having done the touring circuit for many years I can tell you that there's EVERY reason you can think of for a guitar switch to happen.

Stevie breaks a string, luckily for him, his tech had gotten VERY good at switching guitars without the band having to stop. This is Brian May's famous "Red Special" he still uses this as his main live guitar but he has two custom built copies as backups in case a string breaks or his guitar needs a re-tune.

This is a custom built copy of his Red Special, used for songs in Dropped D tuning, likewise, it has a back up. But sometimes, having back ups and a competent crew simply isn't enough, this band's guitarist had one disaster after another happen.

Note around the first verse, the guy nodding to his crew that he has a problem, his signal is cutting out. Probably his cable got bad but when you're busy playing a show, there's no way of checking on the fly, so the crew give him his back up guitar. You can actually see him throw his hands up in defeat. Yes, take it from me when you do the touring circuit, you'll be VERY thankful to see your back up ready to save your ass if you go through a calamity.

Which you WILL. Age: 25 Posts: 1, Posts: 17, Age: 64 Posts: , This was WAY before there were any reissues. Conversely, when I saw the Eagles for the first time in , Frey and Leadon used the same electric guitars and Martin acoustics for the entire show.

Dismalhead likes this. Posts: 5, I'm not a pro. So it's one guitar, with a tuner, rag, and extra strings close by, and a prayer I don't break a string.

Whilst you might not know it, there are actually a whole host of reasons why guitarists do this. Guitarists change guitars on stage to either use a different tuning, obtain a different tone or compensate for a technical issue. Occasionally, guitarists will also change guitars purely for show.

Keep reading for an in-depth explanation of each of the above points. This is one of the most common reasons a guitarist will change guitars on stage. The tuning refers to the pitch of the guitar strings. Guitarists may make use of a range of different tunings for the following two reasons:.

Here are a few common tunings that guitarists may employ throughout a set:. Tone refers to the way a guitar sounds. There are a wide variety of factors that affect the tone of a guitar, including:. Therefore, different types of guitars will have very different tones.

Here are a few examples:. To leverage this, guitarists will use different types of guitars for different songs. A heavier song might call for a Les Paul, whilst a more blues-tinged song might require a telecaster. Here are a few common examples:. As all of the above technical issues are unable to be resolved mid-song, a guitarist will simply switch to a backup guitar.

The backup guitar will often be a similar model to the one experiencing a technical issue. This is a form of influencer marketing; it allows manufacturers to associate a particular guitarist with their product, then subsequently promote it to hundreds of thousands of people.