Dear Readers,

I have been away from my help desk for a couple of days and...well, I am overwhelmed by all of your questions!

However, I will try to answer them all individually as the care and owning of a guitar is a responsibility that must not be taken lightly. Like a wife or a puppy, remember a guitar is for life.

By the way, I prefer to be called Dr. Guitar if you all wouldn't mind! I didn't do all this training for nothing you know!

Let's start with Mr ReTentiff's problem.

Dear Alan,

You are quite correct...there are lots of sharp and flat things on your guitar. I think the problem here is that you have connected the strings to your knob rather than the guitar, possibly several peoples' knobs since you use the plural.

Tightening the string around your or others' knobs will definitely increase the pitch and frequently has an effect on loudness as well. It is quite likely that some people may become a little sharp while others may go flat. This is a physiologically-related problem related to the infinite variability of knobs and other biological factors.

I would suggest that, instead of attaching the strings to your knob, you use that part of the machine head called the string post. This should solve your particular problem. In fact I would recommend that you keep your knob away from all sharp parts of the guitar. You may however, rest it on any of the flat parts althought this may cause dampening of the sound whilst playing. Also, if you wish to play slide guitar, I would recommend the purchase of a bottleneck or steel slide accessory from any reputable musical purveyor rather than using your knob. If you must do the latter then use of a flatwound string or coated strinf such as Elixir Polywebs will give a more pleasurable result.

It does not really matter which way your knob points...again this is an anatomical matter. I would, however, recommend not pointed it at the audience while performing lest unintentional offence should be caused.

Good luck and careful with the placement of the bridge pins!

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Guitar