1. Which way do you have to turn tuning keys to tighten or loosen strings?

2. How are strings aligned from nut to bridge?

3. Which is heaviest string (6)?

Taking mental notes will probably save you some frustration and make job much easier.

Below you will find some helpful steps to follow for changing your strings. Once you've changed your guitar strings a couple of times your confidence should begin to grow and you won't need to refer to these steps any longer. I like to remove all of guitar strings in order to give my guitar a thorough cleaning, but you can remove and replace them one at a time if you prefer.

Guitar Care and Maintenance Tools:

- Needle-nose Plyers (to cut string ends) - String Winder - Soft Cotton Cloth - Guitar Cleaning Polish (do not use furniture polish, oils, or wax)

REMOVING THE STRINGS

Acoustic Steel String Guitar-

1. Using string winder , begin slowly loosening string(s) until completely slack.

2. With needle-nose plyers, carefully grab string from capstan (the part it winds around) and pull through hole until it is free.

3. Taking string winder again, use cut-out at end of it to grab pin at bridge. Gently pull pin until it comes out of hole.

4. Continue this process until all strings are removed.

5. Clean guitar surface thoroughly.

Classic Nylon String Guitar-

Follow steps one and two above. When you come to step three, take your needle-nose plyers and carefully loosen figure eight knot at bridge. Pull string free.

Electric Guitar-

Follow same procedure as described for an acoustic steel string guitar. However, if you have an electric guitar with a movable bridge you may want to take it to your local music store and have them show you how to do it safely. If bridge is moved from it's correct position you will not be able to tune your guitar after restringing it.

RE-STRINGING YOUR GUITAR

Acoustic Steel String Guitar-

Why Do You Have a Website?

The number one reason magicians have websites is ego. They want to be able to say to people, "You can visit my website at www.bite-me-hard.com." When person visits website they usually see one of two scenarios:

• Brochure Site
• Typical Magician's Site - See Part 2 of this series for an example.

The brochure site is nicely designed with contact information and a few pictures. These sites usually look nice and clean. The issue is visitor conversion. Many people view site and move on to another site. They may never return. You have missed out on opportunity to build a relationship with them. The key element often missing with this kind of site is ability to capturing visitor's name and email address so that follow up direct marketing can be done. The direct marketing closes sale. It is rare for people to hire magicians as an impulse buy.

The typical magician's site is wonder to behold. How can one person find so many different ways to use free animated graphics on home page? It is clear that magician designing his site learned how to color text, change fonts, and increase font size. All done in same paragraph! Check out my prior article listed above for a detailed discussion of this topic.

Your website exists to get people to give you their permission. That's right, their permission. The goal of website is to get visitors to give you their name and email. Believe it or not this is valuable information that is not given away freely. The website must be structured to induce people to trust you enough to give this information to you.

This is why brochure sites and typical magician's sites don't usually work well. If you haven't built a relationship with potential client, then it is unlikely they will book your magic show. It is like it was in high school. You can walk up to prettiest girl in school and say "Do me!" Chances are it won't be effective. Your website must establish a relationship with potential client and gain her permission. After that you can approach her and say, "Book me!"

Purpose of Permission Marketing

This approach to marketing is called Permission Marketing. It has always been practiced but Seth Godin coined term with his book by same name. Buy a copy and Amazon or your local bookstore. The purpose of Permission Marketing is to turn strangers into friends, and friends into clients.

I am not recommending spamming people to get more magic shows. The key elements of Permission Marketing are communications from you are expected, individualized, and interesting to person. Let,s look at elements in context of emails:

1. Expected - People are expecting emails from you because they asked you to send them emails through your subscription form on your website. Always use a double opt in subscription system.
2. Individualized - Every email sent by you should be personalized to person getting it. I don't care if you are sending out ten or one thousand emails. Every person should get an email that looks like it was written just for them.
3. Interesting - The subject of every email must be related and relevant to reason person gave you're his permission in first place. If you entice a person to give his name and email to learn how to use a magic show to create perfect birthday party, then don't send emails about a great business opportunity called Amway.