I am amazed, that there are too many guitarists and bass players who don’t bother to cut their strings after changing them. You know, the type of guitarists that will just leave their guitar strings hanging way out of the tuning pegs. They walk around on stage with their guitars, the end of the strings that hang out will bounce around as you move around, not good. I understand why some of them don’t cut strings, because at a gig, if they trim the end of the string to make it shorter, it ruins the tuning, and it takes them even longer to tune if they trim the string.
Why is it a bad idea to leave your strings hanging out at the headstock of your guitar?
1) It looks silly as hell with the strings moving around, and bouncing back & forth 2) It’s very dangerous, the end of your strings can be pretty sharp, as they can easily poke someone in the eye or cut someone, or you could hurt yourself.
They don’t trim the strings ’cause they’re too lazy to tune. It is also evidence that they are not good at tuning their guitars if they don’t trim. That’s why you should bring a pair of wire cutters to your gigs. It only takes a few minutes to cut the end of your strings off so they won’t be hanging out. This is also the reason why you need to get good at tuning your guitars, so that you don’t waste so much time tuning.
I always trim the strings. It’s a good thing to do.
Tuning the guitar is not so hard and it can be quick to do with a lot of practice. These days, I’ve been learning to tune the guitar standard tuning by ear, without an electronic tuner. It’s a good thing to do to train your ear.
Kev
K'Brocking 
Trimming the excess has absolutely nothing to do with the tuning, Kev.
I know that, but that’s not what I was saying. Guitar players either regular guitar or bass, should always trim the strings on the headstock, so you won’t look silly or goofy on the stage. Guitar players of any kind shouldn’t leave strings dangling or curled up on the headstock, and you see this quite a lot.
Once you cut the strings off the headstock, it ruins your tuning, and it would take even longer to tune it in perfect standard tuning. That’s why a lot of them don’t trim so they can avoid spending so much time tuning.
Either that or musicians has their ego so high up in their head, that want their strings to hang out, ’cause they think they look like a rock n’ roll badass that way. Try to look cool on stage.
I see too many live band photos in facebook and youtube videos, where guitar players perform with their guitars not trimmed, and it’s just annoying to see.
Kev
Right, you’re saying that if you cut the strings off the headstock afterwards it ruins your tuning. That’s not true – it’s just excess hanging off. It doesn’t impact the string/tuning at all.
After you change the strings, and tune the guitar to standard tuning, then you trim the strings with wire cutters, the tuning will go back down some. Then you would have to tune it back up to standard tuning. Happens with all guitars and all instruments with strings.
Kev
No it doesn’t. Trimming the ends off AFTER you have them tuned has absolutely NOTHING to do with the tuning, Kev.
Bone is right. Kev, you’re talking about having to stretch new strings, which you have to do regardless of whether you clip the ends or not…..but I agree, people should clip their strings because it looks fucking stupid. Wang Chung.
Well, thanks for being nice though guys. That’s kind of what I want to see. If you be nice, I’ll be nice in return. Talk to me like a real person like a real conversation, we’ll get along just fine.
Kev