Musician Puts Piano Strings on His Guitar and Guitar Strings on His Piano

Swedish musician Mattias Krantz decided to find out what his guitar would sound like with the strings of a piano. He cut the strings from his piano, reinforced his guitar with strong tape, and wound the strings onto his instrument. Due to the heaviness of the piano strings, Krantz had to wait several days before they were fully stretched.

So I first spent 25 minutes trying to tune my guitar here because I still had hope but then I realized that it just didn’t work. So I had to spend a total of four days until the strings just stayed in tune.

Once they were ready, Krantz attempted to perform a slap harmonic song that he was easily able to play on his unmodified guitar. Krantz found it far more difficult to play.

Since one good turn deserves another, Krantz then put guitar strings on his piano. The guitar strings proved too short, so Krantz had to tie them together. The resulting tone was sounded more like a guitar albeit very thin and slightly discordant. Additionally, several songs were interrupted with string breaks.

Piano strings are so strong that together they can literally 18 tons of tension compare this to the
guitar strings, which can only handle 90 kilos. So what does it mean? Probably that most of the guitar strings will break when I put them on…The guitar strings are too short. I will have to tie the strings together.

via Born in Space

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.