Guitars, like cars, need regular maintenance otherwise they simply wouldn’t be fit for work. Exactly how we guitar players let our instruments get in such a state always surprises me, but I’ll put my hands up and say, ‘Guilty as charged!’ We don’t have well-paid techs to look after our guitars so it’s something that can be easily forgotten.
I pulled out my main guitar when I was setting up for a gig recently, only to realise I’d not wiped it down after the previous gig; the strings felt horrible and the action eemed to be considerably higher than before. Had I given the guitar a simple maintenance check before the gig I’d have spotted the problems. Instead, the two-hour show was less fun than it should have been. I was struggling and it was all my fault.
