Hey people I'll be leaving home for two months. Should I slacken the strings of my guitar or not? I have heard different opinions in different places. So?
No. Imagine that you are Paco De Lucia or Yngwie Malmsteen. And you do play guitar for 12 hours a day. Do you slacken the strings off everyday for the remaining 12 hours that you don't play? Now imagine you are Salman Khan and you play "Oh Oh Jane Jaana" everyday for 12 minutes in the company of your friends. Do you slacken off the strings for the remaining 23 hours 48 minutes everyday? Lets imagine you play a few cliched rock songs every weekend with a slacker band. Do you go home after your "practice" and slacken off the strings for the remaining week? No one ever slackens the string during storage - so why special treatment when you are off to seas for two months? Anything special gonna happen to your guitar? The guitar has a truss rod for a reason. The truss rod is supposed to oppose the string tension. ALL THE TIME. Whether the guitar is being played, OR whether the guitar is kept in a subterranean bank vault. Of course you need to keep in mind that the humidity of Indian air usually decreases drastically and especially in Jan-Feb period (and stays this way till the pre-monsoon-May). Which means wood gets shorter and thus presses back on the truss rod. (equivalent to you tightening the truss rod). Consequently you will find that the action gets very low. The strings also get tighter a bit leading to higher tuning. The frets start coming out of the fret board sides. However, has all this ever made you queasy when you cradled your beloved guitar in your arms last Jan-Feb-Mar?
