by Rod Cow » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:45 pm
Hi,
Well the lowest three strings on an electric and the lowest four on an acoustic are termed "wound" because they have more wire wound around and around them - almost top to almost bottom.
Although a standard pack of acoustic strings will have a 'wound' G in them,it's quite acceptable (though still unusual)to replace it with heavy gauge electric G (unwound) string for country blues fingerpicking and acoustic solo-ing.
In the 50's and before that you'd get a wound G in your electric strings even,which hampered soloing for those early guitar players a lot.
Players like Scotty Moore who's technique would have been quite different if he didn't have a wound G.
Some players realised the benefits of an unwound G (ease of note bending,hammering on and off,etc)quite early on and would use a banjo string as their G.Buddy Holly coppped it from Eddie Cochran when they toured and pretty soon all 'G's for use with an electric guitar were plain,unwound ones.
Anyway,hopt that's all been of use ti ya Phil,
Cheers,
Paul