Fortissimo

This is GHS's brightest-toned set of strings in the acoustic category. If you want to buy it, make sure you aren't confused with Bright Bronze. The one with the words Contact Core Bright Bronze is the brightest of the brightest tones. Although I actually think any decent guitarist should at least examine his options before making a purchase, and not just mantra-ise Contact Core Contact Core Contact Core and zoom in for them when there well may be 5 other strings sets that own Contact Core flat.

So these were the strings I bought yesterday. Now, I have had bad bad experience with restringing... I don't do it often enough simply because there isn't a need to. And well I'm not as charitable as Graham to help his friends restring. Well sure present me with the guitar, the new strings, the peg winder, the tuner, the wire-cutting plier and a pair of tweezers just in case, and yeah I'll readily help you restring. If I have the time. But I'm not buying new strings and bringing guitars back to my house to restring on the comfort of my bed. That's reserved for my guitar and me.

BUT ANYWAY... big digression... anyway, I'd actually restringed my guitar successfully. Seems that I went overboard with Contact Core. It's really super bright, the tone. Maybe I'll just get Bright Bronze without the Contact Core next time, that's just one step up. I dunno whether buying Ultra Light (Gauge 10 13 20 26 36 46) added to the problem.

Then there was a ping sound, and my hands totally flew away from the guitar. Because a ping usually means that the machine head didn't catch the string properly and like a clockwork timebomb it was slowly unravelling. And your hands do not want to be anywhere near a .013" guitar string when it snaps.

And actually, so it was. In a matter of minutes, the last of the string unwound from the peg hole and it snapped out with a twang. Ohh I felt like screaming. There goes my complete set what the hell! And I wasn't about to buy myself a new set just for one string. Then I tried to replace the old string back in, and this time I used the plier to tauten it while I tightened the peg.

The fucking string gave way to rust.

You know what they say about familiarity? Doesn't really breed contempt, but does give you major take-for-granted issues at times. My guitar was farrr more useless than I thought without the second string.

So today I went to Davis Guitars at Peninsula Plaza. Earlier in breaktime I had called Yamaha, Swee Lee, and Davis to check on whether they sold individual strings, whether they had GHS, and whether they had .013. Yamaha sold GHS, but they only had fecking .015. Your head ah 15. Davis had 13, but over the phone they told me they didn't have GHS and it was a brand called SIT.

SIT??

After visiting the surrounding guitar shops in Peninsula and then finally giving in and going to Davis, I found out it was indeed SIT - Stay-in-Tune.

Ohhhkayy...... I suppose Shitty-Inadequate-Terrible works as well too. I think my guitar is giving way though. I believe it's starting to warp a little, and also the second-string peg hole can't catch properly. I hope not. Even though these can be easily repaired, it would be a matter of time.

Incidentally I can't believe that I just got Russell Peter's joke about HKers correcting your English with their own atrocious English.

"When I said 'Me and my friend will come back', he goes, 'Yo' friend and I.'...... Well that's fine too, whatever makes you happy, y'know?"

How did I take so long to figure that one out?