Sometimes stringing, tuning, or fixing the intonation on my guitar can feel like a pain in the ass, especially when I’m just in the mood to pick it up and make some music.  However, it’s something that has to be done to keep the instrument in playing condition, and of course to keep it sounding appealing to the ear (we’ll make exceptions for bands that make their music sound crappy on purpose).

I’ve been fortunate enough to receive the gift of an orphaned instrument from a friend who found it, but doesn’t play it and doesn’t have room for it.  It’s a beautiful instrument.  It needs some cleaning up and a little bit of repair, but it’s in remarkably good condition as far as I can tell.

It also needs new strings.  Lots of them.

After I go through the exercise of getting this guitar/chord zither up and running I swear I am going to put it in a funk song (along with some toy piano, tinwhistle, home-built ukelele and possibly kazoo).