More cigar box guitar music

Just added three more clips of my cigar box guitar music to my Multiply site. You can find it here:-

http://smojo.multiply.com/music/item/1

Cigar Box Amplifier

For some time I've been meaning to have a go at making a small portable amplifier, built into a cigar box to complement my guitars. Well at last I got around to it. It looks and sounds pretty cool. Pretty good volume too.

It's based on a Maplin kit amp which I've put into a Romeo Y Juliet cigar box. It's powered by battery just has a volume control but you could use effects pedals with it if you want distortion, reverb etc.

Trying to record some cigar box guitar music

Well I've been trying to get something down onto MP3 so I can put some clips of these little instruments on my site. It's proving to be more difficult than I thought. I bought a Korg PXR4 mini studio some time ago but never got to grips with it but I'm having another go. I'm nearly there with it. Just real basic yet though. I managed to save a single track to my PC but it's in MP2 format. You can play that on media player but this site doesn't support that. Trying to convert to MP3 but can't find an application on my PC to do that yet. Found a Korg thing that converts MP2 to WAV though but the files are too big to post but maybe I can convert that to MP3. There must be an easier way phew!

Update - I did it. Here it is http://smojo.multiply.com/music/item/1

Blues - The Devil's music? - maybe not

Where did that come from anyway? Well first there's the story about Robert Johnson supposedly selling his soul to the devil. If you haven't heard the story, he met the devil at the crossroads and sold his soul in return for the gift of playing guitar really well. Interestingly, he was not a particularly gifted guitarist at first then he disappeared for some time and came back later as an ace player. Maybe he just practised a lot and got better rather than take the risky route of selling his soul!

Also the old bluesmen were always singing about "mojo hands" etc which was a left-over from their African voodoo past. I guess Christians would consider that the work of the devil.

An interesting fact though is that the blues scales often use the "flat 5th" which gives it that distinctive melancholy unresolved sound. It gained a reputation in the Middle Ages as "the Devil's interval" or "Diabolus in Musica"- a note that sits midway along the chromatic scale. The churchmen of the time thought that anything which sits exactly half way along anything must be the work of God but this note sounded so terrible to their ears so must be the work of the Devil! It was actually banned form being used in any religious music.

Personally I think blues is far from the "work of the Devil". It has a definite healing quality. Certainly for the people who create and play it. Like most music it is an expression of the feelings and emotions of the composer/player. Those old slaves had more than enough emotion and built up angst to get off their chests. It's often what got them through their difficult lives. Many of them converted to Christianity and became devout followers - blues often turned to Gospel and it's not hard to spot the bluesy roots of this fantastic brand of music sung in churches all over America.

Devils' music? - I don't think so - but it's a cool title anyway ;)

Making cigar box guitar part 1

How easy is it? Relatively easy providing you have some basic woodworking skills and tools. You can probably knock something playable together without too much fuss but if you get "bitten" by the CBG bug, you'll want to refine your instruments and make something a bit more pleasing to the eye and to play. I'm going to describe the basics of what's involved in making my guitars, then you can modify it to your own methods and styles. I will break it down into several posts so please keep coming back here for the next part.

Part 1 - initial considerations:-

Although they are fairly simple instruments you need to give it some thought if you want to make one. Do you have the skills and tools and materials needed? These are the bare necessities:-
Tools -

• Some sort of workbench and ideally a vice to hold timber/lumber.
• A small handsaw
• measure
• drill and various bits
• couple of screwdrivers
• tri-square
• sandpaper
• craft knife
• small hammer

You'll struggle if that's all you've got though. Nice to have but - don't dash out and buy them all at once, you can get by without them:-

• coping saw or jig saw for cutting shapes
• circular or bandsaw to rip down wood for necks
• router
• smoothing plane
• rasp for smoothing rough corners of wood
• bradawl
• soldering iron (if you want to fit electrics or burn on fret markings)
• wood chisel
• couple of small G clamps
  

Skills - obviously you need basic skills at using these tools but you don't need to be an expert cabinet maker!

Materials -

• cigar box - wood not cardboard. It could be plain wood or the type that has paper covering it. A good size is about 10 x 6 x 2 inches roughly
• a piece of hardwood - oak, mahogany, maple, beech etc. approx 2 x 1 inch and about 40 inches long
• two screws about 2 inch long and washers to go with them
• woodworking (PVA) glue
• set of 12 guage acoustic guitar strings (cheapest will do)
• threaded bolt for the "nut"
• machine heads for tuning - you could improvise with wooden pegs or screw eyes but in the end it's worth buying some proper ones. I use "three in a line" types that fit at the back of the headstock. A full set will make two three string guitars so they are very economical. You don't need Kluson or Grovers either! - just something that does the job
• three small eye screws - more about them later

Part 2 to follow - preparing the neck.

Myspace

Just opened a Myspace account. I'm hoping to put some CBG sound clips on eventually. Nothing much in it yet, still trying to suss it but here it is if you want to have a look.

http://www.myspace.com/smojo_cigar_box_guitars

Hello to my visitors

Hello everyone. I'm getting a steady flow of visitors here which is quite exciting for such a minority subject. I can see from my sitemeter that they are coming from many different parts of the world. Mainly USA ,the UK and Belgium. I know there's a lot of interest in CBGs in the USA, but Belgium was a pleasant surprise. There's been visits from Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Alaska, Canada, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Mexico too.

I don't know who you all are but would love some feedback. How much interest in CBGs is there in your country? Are any of you making them? How long have you been interested in CBGs? Do you play guitar? Please leave me some comments or e-mail me. I'd like to know a bit about you all. Regards from David

P.S. I'm planning a series of posts on how to build a CBG so check me out occassionally here at
http://www.smojo-cigar-box-guitars.blogspot.com/

Not a cigar box - a salad bowl guitar

Mooching around the web for unusual guitars I found this site. They are made from wooden saladbowls, have eight strings and sound like Indian sitars. They're great. You can only access certain areas of the site if you register but you can hear a soundclip without registering. Click on the music tab to hear it. I'm thinking of making one.

5 more Tips for Playing Slide Cigar Box Guitar

OK so if you're a raw beginner and you read my first 5 tips you are ready to start making some decent bluesy sounds from your CBG. Don't try to walk before
you can run, take your time, master the basics and build on that.

1. 
   Hitting the note - You either took up golf because you're tone deaf and came back out of curiosity or to can hear a decent note and figured that
   playing a CBG is far more fun and cool than wearing a naff sweater and whacking a ball around a field. You can do all the usual guitar tricks of pull-offs,
   hammer-ons etc with the slide but for now concentrate on what the slide does best - err sliding! It helps you to hit the note at the right pitch and also
   gives it that swampy, delta blues sound. Try this - Pluck the 1st or thinnest string only just to get the root note into your head as a reference. Now hold
   the slide right over the second fret mark on same string (just angle it so it misses the other two strings but keeping the slide at right angles to the
   neck). Apply just the right amount of pressure to make a clean note. Gently pluck the string and immediatley slide up to the next (third) fret. You might go
   over or stop short but you'll know becasue it will sound wrong. Keep trying it till you can hit it sweet using the open string as your base reference again.
   When you get bored of that, try the same thing over the 4th fret sliding up to the 5th and the 6th fret sliding up to the 7th. Sounds good doesn't it, you
   just found the basis of a 12 bar blues. Practise and practise till it sounds good.
2. 
   More slipping and sliding - Now you've got the feel of it and can hit the note good try some more slides. Try going from 10th to 12th fret. Use your
   open string again first for reference. The 12th fret is one octave above the open fret so it should sound the same only higher. Now try sliding down the neck
   from 12th to 10th or from 7th to 5th and from 5th to 3rd. Wow - how about that? If that sounded good and you bought some golf clubs you wasted your money!
3. 
   Vibrato - Now this is what transforms a fairly boring note into something with dynamics. As you slide up to your chosen note, say from 3rd to 5th
   fret, when you hit the note "wobble" the slide up and down the string around that fret. Try to wobble it about one quarter of the distance above and below
   that fret. Try different "speeds" of "wobble" till it sounds right. The trick is to let your wrist go somewhat limp or loose and and do the wobble with the
   hand rather than the whole arm. It will sound too "stiff" and awkward otherwise. This takes some practise but you'll get there eventually. Apply this
   "wobble" or vibrato whenever you want to hold a note for any length of time. It increases the sustain of the note and makes it less important to hit the note
   bang on the fret. Also sounds great.
4. 
   Playing chords - Don't panic, the great thing about slide CBGs is you don't need to remember any chord/finger combinations. It's already tuned to an
   open chord. All you have to do is what you just did on one string but placing the slide over all three. Just make sure you keep it parallel to the fret line
   so they all hit the note spot on.
5. 
   Rhythm - It gets a bit trickier now so don't throw the golf clubs out yet. If you never played any guitar before you'll be finding this a bit of a
   challenge anyway but stay with it. Put the slide down for a while and try to develop your right hand rhythm technique by just playing all three open strings.
   If it's tuned up right it will make a pleasant chord on it's own. Try keeping a steady medium tempo rhythm by tapping a foot first or if necessary using a
   metronome. Gently strum the strings in time. Just practise keeping a regular rhythm going. You can use a pick or as I prefer just brushing the side of my
   thumb over them. Try doing just down strokes on the beat then introduce an upstroke between each beat.

Be sure to check out my other posts regularly here at :-http://www.smojo-cigar-box-guitars.blogspot.com/

Blogger Beta - new layout

Just upgraded my blogger to the new Beta version. You'll notice the new layout, hope you like it. It's a lot clearer and easier to navigate. You'll see a "label" list in the sidebar now. You can bring up a list of posts on each label subject by clicking on them. Feel free to leave a comment if you like.

20 top slide guitarists

If you want some inspiration for your slide playing, check out the playing of these guys:-

Mississippi Fred McDowell
Robert Johnson
Bukka White
Son House
Muddy Waters
Blind Willie Johnson
Elmore James
Hound Dog Taylor
Homesick James
Taj Mahal
Bonnie Rait
Johhny Winter
Ry Cooder
Rory Gallagher
Duane Allman
Chris Rea
Jeremy Spencer (early Fleetwood Mac)
George Thorogood
David Gilmour
Joe Walsh

Read about these and more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Slide_guitarists

Be sure to check out my other posts regularly here at :-
http://www.smojo-cigar-box-guitars.blogspot.com/

Cigar Box Guitars - How do they sound

Pretty damn good! Some have pick-ups fitted but I'm talking about acoustic instruments here. They don't have the volume of a conventional acoustic guitar but are still loud enough to hear in an average room. They obviously lack a good decent bass response but even so if strung with fairly heavy strings you can get some nice low notes - no problem.

The actual sound quality varies from one CBG to another. Some have a sort of banjo quality to their sound - hard to describe in words but a sort of "plunky" hollow sound when plucked. Sustain is quite good too considering. I guess it depends on a number of factors - type, guage and tension of strings; type of nut and saddle; size and material of box (soundboard); neck material density etc.

The thing is not to get too hung up on these things if you are making them. The fun of them is their simplicity and primitive nature. Make one out of whatever you've got and you'll still get a cool sound. The slide aspect of these things is mainly what gives them a distinctive bluesy sound. Different playing techniques will create different tone qualities too just as it does with conventional guitars. Palm muting and varying the position on the string where you pluck it, using fingers or picks, etc all affect the sounds you can get. They are amazingly versatile once you get familiar.

Cigar Box Guitars - why so addictive ?

They are incredibly addictive but why? It's partly to do with their simplicity. No fancy chord fingerings to remember and only three strings (on mine anyway). It pushes you to be more inventive with your playing and also to relish the purity of simple, uncomplicated music. I sometimes get down to the most minimalistic playing and love it. Getting into a simple groove is positively therapeutic.

It's also pretty cool playing an instrument you made mostly out of scrap or recycled materials. You don't need to be too precious about the instrument like you might be with your 2 grandsworth of Gibson or Paul Reid Smith. I can't stop looking at them and admiring them either. The fancy designs on some of the boxes excites my musical taste buds. Seeing one standing in the corner of the room just begs you to pick it up and play it. I absolutely love 'em!

5 Basic Tips for Playing Slide Cigar Box Guitar

These basic tips are for out and out beginners and relate to my own three-string fretless CBGs but equally relate to more conventional guitars that you intend to play slide on where you would normally tune to an open chord.

1. Tuning the guitar - Decide what tuning you are going to use. My preference for blues on CBGs is an open "A" tuned either A-E-A or A-D-A the two A's being an octave apart. It depends what guage strings have been supplied too as to whether an open "A" will result in a suitable tension for the guitars. CBG's supplied by me will have a help sheet telling you what has been fitted. A-E-A is a good starting point - try it and get familiar with it before experimenting with others. Make life easier when tuning by getting a decent electronic tuner like the Korg CA-30 which will show you exactly what note you are playing rather than the basic ones with just standard EADGBE tuning. It will be really handy when trying alternate tunings later.
2. Type of slide - There are many things you could use as a slide. Some prefer metal, some glass, some bone! I find metal gives a bit more volume with CBG's than glass and it doesn't break. Get a decent heavy one too - it helps when applying vibrato. I use a bought brass tube slide. Again you can experiment later with different types once you've got the basic techniques off.
   
3. Using/holding the slide - Again there are diferences of opinion and what suits one doesn't suit another. You can play the guitar on your lap and hold the slide in your left hand (if you're right handed) but most will hold the guitar in the conventional way across the chest. Which finger? I recommend the little "pinkie" finger. The reason being it leaves three of your best fingers free. Not important here but if you eventually apply your slide skills to a conventional fretted guitar, you might want to form some fretted notes or chords as well in which case you can leave the slide on the pinkie and still get by with three good fingers.
   
4. Applying the slide to the string - The slide acts as a "movable" fret, that's why there is no need for actual metal fret wires on the neck. The fret positions on mine are marked on purely for a visual guide as to where to place the slide for a given note. The first important rule is to place the middle of the slide right bang over the fret mark where the wire should have been - not over the dots. The second important thing is to just apply enough pressure to make a clear note without the string rattling against the slide. A common mistake is thinking you need to press down hard enough for the string to touch the neck. You definitely don't want that. Pluck an "open" string first without using the slide anywhere, then try the slide at the 5th fret, you should be able to hear when you have it in the right place unless you are tone deaf in which case take up golf instead!!
   
5. Plucking hand technique - once again there are preferences, plectrum (pick) or fingers. I used to be mainly a plectrum man till I started with CBG's. I find there is much more scope with fingers. You can use them to "dampen" strings you don't want to ring out and finger picking styles sound great on these guitars. I let the nails grow a little bit long on my right hand for this. If you are worried about looking a little bit "girlie" with them you can soon restore you're macho cred by giving a demo on your CBG. They are incredibly cool instruments.
   
   So that's the rudiments for a complete novice. Watch this blog for some more tips that will soon have you playing and grinning all over your self satisfied mug. Enjoy!
   
   Check out my other website too at www.smojomusic.co.uk

del.icio.us - a useful site for you

How would you like a favourites list you can access from any computer you use to connect to the internet? You know the problem, you're at work and in your lunch hour you want to check out that great cigar box guitar site you found last night. You saved it to your home PC favourites but you're using your works computer right now and you can't remember it's address.

well I Just discovered this useful site that lets you do that and created an account (free). It allows you to bookmark your favourites to the web to be accessed from anywhere and any computer. Also you can choose to share them with all members of the site or just your selected friends. They can see what useful favourites you have. You can also create a network of people linking to your favourites. To look at my favourites click the link - not much in it yet but I've put some great sites related to CBG's and unusual instruments and I'll keep adding to it. Also there's a button in my links section to the right of this page where you can go to my del.icio.us site. There's another button if you want to add yourself to my network. Feel free to try it.

see my new cigar box guitar web site

In a previous post I mentioned I bought a couple of domain names. I wanted to make a cigar box guitar site to show you my stuff as this blog has it's limits. Do you want to see it? It's very basic as I am using some free webspace from my ISP and diverting my bought domain to it. It's a starting point. I intend to design a much better one later but for now as time is in short supply this will have to do! I'd like to put some sound clips of the CBG's on it but don't think it will support it. I haven't got my head round what I need to do to record it to MP3 yet either. Here's the link, I have some more stuff to put on it yet though.

www.smojomusic.co.uk

unusual Christmas gift - cigar box guitar

How about giving someone an unusual gift for Christmas? Yes you guessed - a cigar box guitar - that's pretty unusual isn't it? O.K. granny might not know what to do with it - she could always use it to hold her spare set of dentures in but she'd be missing out on a helluva lot of fun. Instead give one to your blues loving, guitar loving, husband/wife/friend or better still yourself. Far better than a pair of socks or a set of crappy screwdrivers in a little plastic wallet. I have two for sale at the moment. If you are interested contact me for more details at smojoguitars@yahoo.co.uk sorry - UK shipment only

Cigar Box Guitar Dreams

They say that when you are learning a new language, you know you've cracked it when you start dreaming in that language. Well I had my first dream about playing a CBG ...... and it was good. I know I'm not ace at it yet but I can knock out some pretty mean sounding blues now. I just need to increase my repertoire. Anyone who plays guitar on their own knows how you tend to get stuck in a rut playing the same things over and over. Two reasons for that - you need to practise in order to improve. Then when you get it down pretty well, it's just easy and comfortable to keep playing that piece. I guess I need an amateur band of like minded people to play with.

I've added a picture here. The one on the left is the original I bought. The Quality Street tin was my second attempt. The first guitar I made I dismantled and gave the box to my duaghter's boyfriend who made his own neck for it. So I used the neck and tried it on this choccy tin. It's quite cool with a certain amount of reverb from the metal. Not much volume but I might put a pick-up in it eventually.

The green one was my first full effort of a CBG and was meant to be a keeper for me. I took it to work and a guy wanted one immediately so I let him have this one. It nearly broke my heart letting it go though. That's how it is with them - they are totally addictive and hard to let go of when you've made it yourself. I play it more than my Gibbson 335!! yikes and that cost a fortune.

Technorati

I've just signed up to Technorati and created my profile there - it's a site for bloggers and I'm hoping it will bring a few more visitors here. Still "playing" with it and not sure what it can do yet. I have added a special link but haven't got much in there yet. Check it out from time to time though.

Technorati Profile

new CBG blog

The old blog domain title "smojoguitars" wasn't decriptive enough for my Cigar Box Guitars so I started this new one. I've copied and modified most of the old posts from it into here and removed them from the original one. Any new stuff will be put on here only.

I need to add some more photos yet to some of the old posts and take a picture of my latest guitar. It's another Monte Christo box with a mahogany neck. No electrics just purely acoustic. I'm pleased with it, it has a nice mellow tone. I have it tuned to open A which is a nice mid range key.

bandsaw

Been busy with other projects but I've bought myself a bandsaw. This will be a fantastic help when wanting to rip down timber for necks. I've just built a new CBG. It's going to be a relative "quickie" - no electrics or strap. I am aiming to make a few fairly soon so I have a choice to offer people. Here's a photo of some in the making in my workshop. They've all found new homes now.

Dom Tomas CBG

A friend ordered a CBG for her son's birthday. It's a Dom Tomas box and the neck is made from an ice hockey stick I was given. The stick is just the right dimensions for a neck and is incredibly rigid. When I stripped back the paint I found it is a laminate. The strips of laminate run vertically up the neck and give it a stripey effect, very pale colour. Looks pretty cool. It will be a similar spec to the other Dom Tomas CBG's I already made - three strings tuned to open A, piezo pick-up and of course my "smojo" logo burnt into it. I have strung this one very light with 1,2,3 strings of a 12 guage set and tuned it to open DGD.

I got some great feedback. He was delighted with it and said it was the best present he ever got! He didn't even play guitar but his fingers are pretty sore now.

Monte Christo Cigar Box Guitar

My favourite so far and one I'm keeping. It's tuned to open E using the lower three strings of a 12 guage set. The tuning is EBE giving an open E tuning. The lower E string is same pitch as that of a standard tuned guitar. It works well as a sort of drone when playing and gives a nice bassy back fill to the sound. The low tuning seems to encourage slow, moody, swampy delta playing. I fitted two internal piezo pickups - one under the bridge area and one under the string area near the soundhole. There's a switch (not visible here) which will select one or other or both. There's no tone or volume control (keeping things simple - you can adjust it on the amp) but I thought the twin pick-up idea would give me a simple switchable tone control as the bridge pup will have a brighter tone than the one nearer the neck. It does work to a degree but not anything dramatic. I'm still experimenting with designs which is half the fun of making them.

This is the first one I have added a strap to. I saw this webbing on a car boot stall. A huge reel of it for about £1.50 and thought it would make great straps. It goes particularly well with this one color-wise picking up the red element in the box logo. On the same score notice how I echoed that logo with the fret markers as a novelty. The fret "dots" are triangular shapes burned in with the centres painted red and the headstock looks similar to that on a Fender telecaster and the face is painted a similar shade of warm yellow as the box. These bits of colour echo the colours and design on the box front. I just love those colours, this one's a keeper for me. Photo to follow soon.

weird instruments - inersouster

Found this great blog site and it's got me inspired to make some weird stuff. Haven't got time yet as I need to make more CBG's but I started collecting items for possible instruments. We went round a car boot sale and I bought a steel bowl and some cheap bongos. Thinking I might cut the two bongo drums apart and use each one as the body for a small banjo like instrument. Have a look at this guys stuff - it's brilliant.

http://inersouster.blogspot.com/

website domains registered

This blogs have their restrictions for promoting my CBG's so I'm planning a proper website to run alongside it. Time is in short supply at the moment so it will be some time before it gets done. In fact CBG building itself is slow as most of my time is being spent renovating my daughter's new home. I have registered two domain names for future plans and redirected them to this blog site for the time being until I get around to building them. I'll keep you posted on any developments. Initially one of them will be used to promote my CBG's and other possible hand crafted instruments. Maybe put pictures of cigar boxes I have in stock so someone could order a guitar to be made from it. I'd like to put sound clips of my guitars on too. The other is for a blues related site pivoting around my CBG building. It's part of my long term plans for retirement. Eventually offering other blues related goods for sale online.

About My Cigar Box Guitars

General information:-

These are 3 stringed, hand made cigar box guitars. They’re a well made but basic instrument perfect for blues. Being small and light (and inexpensive) they are great for travelling or busking. They have a very high action and no fret wires so are designed specifically for slide work and notes cannot be played in the usual way with the left hand fingers on the fretboard. Fret markings are burnt into the wood as a guide when playing but you will need to develop a good ear for pitch and a fair degree of accuracy when hitting your notes. It’s not as difficult as it might sound as you mostly slide up or down to the note and can hear when it’s right. They may look like toys but believe me they can kick out some pretty mean sounds. They are loud enough to play acoustically, though nowhere near as loud as a conventional guitar.

They have a distinctive Delta blues sound, almost banjo like but capable of producing some cool harmonics and overtones which you can’t seem to get from a standard guitar and they’re so much fun you can’t put them down! Having only three strings can be an advantage too. It pushes you to be more inventive and make more of your technique.Plug ‘em into an amp and they can really scream some mean and dirty blues. The pick-up is a sensitive ceramic piezo disc which will also pick up any taps and bangs you make on the body but I haven’t found it to be a problem. In fact you can turn it to advantage at times, knocking out a basic drum type rhythm as a fill in. Those shown in the picture are examples only. Each guitar is unique depending on availability of boxes and type of wood for the necks (which are all made of hardwood), I have produced a useful fact sheet to go with the guitars showing tunings, playing tips, techniques etc.

What are Cigar Box Guitars and what is "Smojo"

I first saw one on an auction site and bought it and am now making them. Here's three I made. They have only three strings and are played with a "slide" or "bottleneck". The guitars have a great old time bluesy sound and are fantastic fun.

The History of CBG's :- Back in the USA late 1800's in the deep South among the black African Americans, money was too tight to buy instruments. The first primitive stringed instrument and a forerunner of the slide guitar was called a Diddley Bow. It was made from a piece of baling wire tacked across the wall of the wooden shack. You plucked it and changed the pitch by sliding something hard along it, like a knife, piece of bone or glass. Moving on from that some people attempted to make a crude guitar out of whatever they could find suitable. Before long the cigar box which was usually made from cedar, (actually a great wood for guitars) was incorporated with maybe an old broom handle for the neck and strung with some wire. Usually played with a slide too. Some notable people who started out on a CBG include Jimi Hendrix, Carl Perkins, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf. Early cartoons show Micky Mouse playing one!

"Smojo" is the trade name I have given my cigar box guitars. The old black American blues songs often mentioned mojos - a sort of good luck charm, so I have called my little enterprise "smojo guitars". The name being an amalgamation of smoking and mojo. Watch this site for much more about these incredible little instruments.