Expository

Josh Parke Professor Ybarra Com 301 11/17/10 SLOW DOWN Changing a Guitar String To play the guitar, you don’t necessarily need a guitar pick, or for it to even be in tune. You just need a working guitar with six strings. Perhaps when you think of changing a guitar string you think of a boring and tedious little task. But when you think of music festivals like Woodstock, The Isle of Wight, The Monterey Pop Festival, Coachella, and Lollapalooza your thoughts are far from boring. Sometimes these little tasks people perform from day to day can in some cases contribute to something much larger, like when Jimi Hendrix Bust a string during his night closing set for Woodstock in the summer of 1969, did he set down his guitar' Did he quit early' Did he dare replace his one of a kind Stratocaster with another guitar' No! He continued to play with one hand improvising for the missing string and the other prepping a new string to be slid quickly into place mid song. You know what they always say, “the show must go on.” (Explain the guitar and its different pieces so audience can better understand demonstration. Body, Neck, Headstock, Frets, Tuning Head, Tuning pegs, Bridge.) Tuning heads loosen and tighten in the same fashion a screw does clockwise tighten the string, and counter clockwise loosens it. The first step to putting on a new string is of course getting rid of the old one, unless of course your putting a new one on due to the fact that you snapped the old one off while shredding a face melting guitar riff. So to remove the old string you loosen the tuning head that corresponds with the string you are replacing until you can pull up on the string and see about 2 inches of slack give or take. At this point you can either cut the string with some type of wire cutters or if you have no tool like myself tonight you can continue to loosen the string until your able to pull the string off the tuning peg. Finally slide the old string out the back of the bridge of the guitar. Next, you slide the string in the same hole of the bridge that you pulled the old one out of. Once you have the end of the string anchored in the bridge you pull the opposite end of the string through the hole in tuning peg until there is around 2 inches of slack. (Just like the first step when you were removing the strings.) After you have the appropriate slack in the string bend the end of the string in the opposite direction from which you will be tuning the string. Finally, you tighten the tuning head until the string is properly aligned and all the slack is removed from the string. This sounds like a simple enough last step but surprisingly this is the trickiest part. As you tighten and tune the string it will want to do everything it can to slip out of the tuning peg. To prevent this I usually keep a tight grip on the end of the string to make sure its not going anywhere. Remember if you do not make sure to tighten your strings properly and follow all these steps, you will find yourself fighting your strings trying to keep them in the tuning pegs. So, always bend the end of the string once its through the hole of the tuning peg and keep a firm grip on the end of the string until is completely tightened into place. In the end after your string has been properly tightened down and everything is aligned and in order its time to TUNE UP, PLUG IN, AND ROCK OUT! All in all this assignment had a simple enough task of explaining how to do something simple without letting the sin of knowledge prevent you from explaining the task your presenting before the class. However I found that as I wrote this speech it was difficult to expand on such a small and meaningless topic, but as I started typing I began to think about how man kind did not just jump to the moon, we took plenty of baby steps to finally get there. Just like how each one of our expository speeches and the little tasks and skills we taught in them are all just small parts of a bigger picture, baby steps on our road to graduation, and leading a happy successful life. Thank you.