Your Classical Guitar Input Here

What's wrong with my classical guitar?

by Mauricio
(Miramar, Fl)

Hi, about 2 months ago I bought a very cheap set of strings, but everything was going swell til about 3 weeks ago.

The first fret of every string was muted, and as time went on the 2nd and 3rd fret became muted too. I went to Costa Rica for a week (left my guitar here) and when I came back the muting went on to the 5th fret, so I bought new strings, top quality, cause I thought that all that muting was the real price to pay for those cheap ass strings,

I started to change them, and the muting is still there! Everything sounds the same from open string to the fourth fret! What the hell? Did the price on those god damned strings just went far higher? Did I really mess up my guitar by buying those strings? I've had this guitar for about 8 or 9 years and it has never ever given me any problem at all, its a hand made costarican guitar.

Thanks

Hope you can help me out

Hi Mauricio,

It sounds like, from a distance, you have a problem with your guitar itself but it's hard to know without physically looking at it. Check the "heel", the part where the guitar joins the fret to the body of the guitar, and make sure it hasn't started to come away from the body. Similarly, check the "bridge" and see if that hasn't also started coming loose.

If these steps don't reveal any problems I'd take the guitar to a repair shop for closer inspection.

I hope this was of help.

Kind regards,
Trevor M.