Changing Strings Take II, there was blood.

I did it all by myself! [more on the blood later] At first I tried just winding the strings without cutting them but they were too long and popped off. I cut off about four to five inches, but it will depend on the style of head stock you have to say how much you should take off.

First thing I learned was not to chew gum while changing strings. It will [under the law of God's alter ego Murphy] die when you are in the middle of changing strings.


I had just finished coaxing the A string on [need I say why?] when I looked at my hand and saw three fingers covered in red, my thought process was as follows:
What's that?
It looks like Red M&M dye came off on my hand, but I killed the M&Ms days ago.
It doesn't taste like blood.
Why isn't there blood everywhere and not just my fingers?
Okay that finger tastes like blood, but where is is coming from?
There's some under my thumbnail, is that from cutting my nails two hours ago?
Unlikely, did I bite a hangnail absentmindedly?
That's a possibility, oh look, there's a red hole in my finger that wasn't there before.
I could just hunt down the source of the blood and suck on it, but that'll take too long; where are the band aids?

After doing the beautiful bandage job you see above I seat down and as I was unstringing the D string from the bridge the pad of my thumb snagged on a unnoticed hangnail on my finger causing pain and more blood. Giving in I sat there with my finger in my mouth for five minutes. After that all went well, there was one moment of panic when I discovered part of the bridge was free standing and can be moved.

It's to the point that the strings sit in the nut but I'm waiting to tune it because I promised myself that I'd send in my college apps before I'd play again. [And I'm alittle scared.]