5 Tips to Being an Earth-Friendly Guitarist Video Lecture | Guitar: Become a Pro (English) - Music

as guitar players we owe a lot to the
original musician sweet mother earth so
here are five things that you can do to
becoming more eco-friendly guitar player
number one extend the life of your
strings now this is different from
something you might be already doing
which is never changing your strings but
we're going to learn how you can
preserve this life and make them last
longer so you don't have as much waste
now if you buy coated strings such as
elixirs you're going to find they last a
lot longer on the box that advertises
that they last three to five times
longer in my experience that's actually
true and coated strings a lot of people
will tell you sound better feel better
last longer now there are a lot of
shootouts online you can check out to
kind of see how they sound because
that's an objective thing but I found
that ever since I changed the elixir
phosphor bronze ones I have to change
them a lot less therefore I have less
waste they might be a little bit more
expensive at the beginning but they pay
for themselves over time now another
thing that you can do is wash your hands
before playing no matter who you are
you're going to build up oils and dirt
and stuff on your fingers and after and
while you're playing that stuff is going
to get into your strings and degrade the
actual string so really even if you look
at your strings you'll probably see like
a bunch of dirt and stuff like that if
you wash your hands before playing it
that's not going to be as prevalent and
another thing is even if it doesn't feel
like your hands are sweating there's a
little bit of sweat that kind of gets on
the strings and for steel strings that
becomes corrosive so when you're done
playing just use a washcloth or like a
cloth or something just to wipe them
down and keep them dry and you'll find
that your strings are lasting a lot
longer now if you're may be a drummer
who's just starting to play guitar
here's a quick tutorial on how to wash
your hands get your hands wet use some
soap dry your hands
number two buy from sustainably
responsible manufacturers the wood that
is used to make guitars has always been
big business so back in the day there
weren't a lot of regulations on this and
what you could do is you could just go
into like a nice for us just plow
everything down don't worry about
replanting and then just taking all the
wood you wanted to without having to
worry about the repercussions of that
and because of that really musical tone
woods like Brazilian rosewood at around
X Bruce actually one essentially is
extinct so since then regulations and
stuff have been placed on guitar
manufacturers to try to responsibly
source would better but some guitar
manufacturers have actually gone above
and beyond just the base level
regulations now just doing a Google
search of maybe a guitar manufacturer
you're interested in buying from and
sustainability will yield a lot of
different results as to what they're
doing like Martin for example has an
entire sustainable wood series and
Taylor has really been at the forefront
of this they've even like set up
different places in Cameroon and
Honduras I think where they actually
kind of train local villages and stuff
to responsibly source the wood and they
regrow everything they cut and they do
it in quadrants and they do a lot of
cool stuff so really supporting these
manufacturers is a really good thing to
do you might find that some of these
guitars might be more expensive but
really the way I look at it is if a
guitar manufacturers going through all
this trouble to responsibly do the right
thing no matter what you buy from them
you're going to get a more thoughtful
well designed product and over time it's
really going to pay off and you're
probably going to be more happy with
your purchase number three use more
digital media now if your guitar or gig
bag looks like this then it's probably
time to stop printing learning material
there's a ton of different ebooks on
everything from core building music
theory different tabs and stuff like
that and really when you print out a tab
or a chord chart or something like that
it might be cool to have in your hands
for a little bit but eventually it's
going to be cast to the side anyways
it's going to be shoved deep into pocket
something like that just having it any
of those learning materials and
resources available on either a tablet
or a phone is it going to be better it's
going to save paper and better for the
environment number four buy second-hand
gear getting used year is really like
the recycling of the music world you're
going to save money you're going to
eliminate a lot of ways
because you cut out all the shipping and
manufacturing of getting something new a
lot of times the older stuff even sounds
better because certain woods the tone of
it will be better as it ages all sorts
of stuff now going to a pawn shop or
something like that can be a risky thing
or Craigslist or anything like that if
you really know what you're looking for
that's fine but I know a lot of people
who have kind of been scammed or maybe
you've ended up with something that they
couldn't tell right away what was broken
so what I like doing is going to like an
ebay preferred seller or reverb com also
has prefer so we can kind of see the
back history of someone who sells a lot
of used gear and honestly again that's
something that's going to save you a lot
of money and it's also better for the
environment number five using
rechargeable batteries battery disposal
is pretty messy business and if you just
pick one of these things up on Amazon or
whatever they're cheap enough for like
20 25 bucks and they're used with double
a triple a 9-volt batteries so any kind
of like pedal that you have that just
sucks the life out of a 9-volt battery
really quick or maybe like a guitar with
active pickups if you have an acoustic
electric guitar that you need to like
stick a 9 volt or sometimes even like
double a batteries in really these
things are going to pay for themselves
really really quickly so that's just
another thing you can do to alleviate
some of the stress on your pocketbook
and also help the environment