All Strung Out

And I want to play my guitar, but my guitar is out of tune.
—Antsy Pants

Tuning a guitar is the first lesson any novice player learns. In college, I was taught to tune by ear, but I'm still not very good at it. Lately, I've been even worse. My B string (second from the bottom) just won't cooperate. It's as if the only tone I need has been erased from its memory.

So I called my mom for an over-the-phone consult. Is the knot unraveled at the tuning peg? No. Is it frayed at the bridge? Huh. Yes, a bit. Just beside the tuning peg, the outer coating of the string looks loose, like it is unwinding.

Next stop: YouTube, which gave me the 411 on guitar stringing. Apparently I need one of these to pop the bridge pin. I suppose I could find something else in the house—a bottle opener, a staple remover, a nail file—to do it, but chances are I'd just make a nice big hole in my bridge.

So, I guess I need this thingamajig. Instead of ordering it online, I might brave the local guitar store for a demo. This project will likely have to wait until the weekend, which means a couple of days without the strains—and I mean strains—of "Walk or Ride" and "I Heard a Voice in Dresden." Perhaps the birds will start singing again?