How do you know when you should change your strings?
When do you know it’s time to change banjo strings
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Welcome to the forum, Fred!
When they start to hinder my playing is when I like to change them. For me, that’s when up-the-neck noting and slides become more difficult and cringe-y to play. Banjo strings will last me maybe a week of practicing every day, so I don’t practice every day anymore. But a lot of people don’t need to change them that often.
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I haven’t changed my banjo strings in about a year. I play banjo every day .I use medium heavies and since I am not a pro player I don’t feel the need to change my strings too often. When I was a beginner I used light gauge strings and I used to get a lot of breakages so I tended to change my strings fairly frequently about once a month. I use stainless steel pro picks and they seem to glide over the strings without much wear on the strings
I am not suggesting you should follow my example since others change their strings way more frequently than I do and you should definitely consider their advice and reasoning for changing strings more often.
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Corrosion, worn winding, lack of sustain, won’t play/stay in tune are all reasons for stringing up a new set.
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I do it every few weeks or once a month. The feel and tuning stability degrades after that amount of time for me.
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I think the above just about covers every opinion except for the guy or gal who has their banjo tech change them daily for a show 
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I’d say that every 1-2 month would be a pretty good standard for the average player.
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Thanks to everyone. Great advice!
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