more cigar box guitar basics - slide playing

This is aimed at beginners who may have never played slide guitar or a three-stringed CBG. Now you have your guitar tuned up correctly you need to get the feel of playing slide.

It's amazing how many beginners think you have to press the strings down onto the fretboard with the slide. No no no, think about it. The slide is taking the place of the fret wires. The pitch or note played on a string gets higher as it gets shorter. The normal fret wires act in the same way as the nut at the top of the neck. They create a solid point on the string, along with the bridge, to allow the string to vibrate. The slide is simply a movable nut allowing you to shorten the string length in variable degrees rather than fixed ones like the fretwires. You only need to put enough pressure on the string to get a clear note when plucked. You also need to place the slide smack over the fret mark - not between frets or on the dots.

So first practise doing that on just the top (first) string. I prefer the slide on my little (pinky) finger as it leaves the best three fingers free. If you want to play slide on a conventional guitar, you'll appreciate having them free for occasional fretted notes. So just try placing the slide over the third fret position on the first string and pluck it. Does it rattle? Not enough pressure, put slightly more on until it rings out clear.

The most important thing you need to develop is hitting the note accurately when sliding up or down to it. You can only tell by using your ears. Unless you are tone-deaf you will know when it's right. So try putting your slide over the third fret, pluck the string and while it's still ringing, slide smoothly up to the fifth fret. Does it sound right? Yep - you just learned your first lick. Now try adding some vibrato when you reach the fifth fret. Using movement in the wrist, simply 'wobble' the slide back and forth slightly above and below the fret position. That sounds much better doesn't it. Try these exercises, sliding from frets 2-3, 3-5, 5-7, 7-10, 10-12 then try them in reverse. Don't forget to practise the vibrato on the targeted frets.

More tips to follow soon.

some cigar box guitar basics - tuning

I Just thought it was time to go back to a few basics. I've probably said these things before in older posts but it's worth mentioning again for any newbie CBGers. All my guitars so far, have been made specifically for slide playing so they don't have fretwires. They just have markings as a guide, so all these comments relate specifiaclly to slide guitars and playing them.

First let's look at tuning. The bridges on most of my guitars are 'floating'. In other words they aren't glued or fixed to the body. That allows them to have fine adjustments made to the 'intonation', which is the first thing we need to check. Play a note on an open string (I usually start with the 1st). Listen to it carefully then place your slide directly over the 12th fret position and play that string again. It should be exactly an octave above the open note. You'll find it easier to get this accurate if you use a narrow metal rod such as the shaft of a screwdriver. If it's not correct, then move the bridge back or forward slightly until it is. De-tensioning the strings a little will take pressure off it and make it easier to move. If you have to change the strings, it's easier if you do one at a time. That way the bridge will stay where it is and avoid you having to do this each time.

Now to tune up - I normally tune to an open chord such as E, A or D. You can't change the tunings very far by winding the machine heads up or down so if it's currently in low open E and you want it in A, you need lighter strings. You need to make sure the tension on them is right. So how do you know what to use, this is how I do it and it works well. Think about standard tunings EADGBE. Now think about the popular open D tuning on a six-string - DADF#AD. Now if I wanted the guitar in low open E and only have three strings I would tune it to (low)EBE. Look at the standard tuning on the bottom three strings - its E(low)AD. So it makes sense to me that if I use the 6th, 5th and 4th strings from a standard set (I usually use 12s for CBGs), the tensions are going to about be right to give me my low open E chord. Tune the 6th as standard to E and the 5th and 4th can comfortably be tensioned up two semi tones to give me the B and higher E.

So using this principle I would use the 5th 4th and 3rd strings (ADG) from a 12 guage set to give me an open A which would be AEA. I just need to tune up two semi tones on the 4th(D) and 3rd(G) to get me there. This tuning up on some strings is the main reason I make my guitars with a short scale. Using standard strings on a short scale guitar means they need slightly lower tension to put them in true concert pitch, so that gives me some scope for over tensioning them slightly to get my open chords.

Lastly, a word about the necks. If you were buying a standard guitar, one of your main priorities would be making sure the neck was dead straight. These CBGs don't have anything as sophisticated as struss rods and so you will see there is often a substantial bend in the necks. Also that the action is incredibly high. This is perfectly fine for slide playing, in fact it's an advantage so don't be concerned about it. I use hard woods such as oak, mahogany, beech etc so there is no danger of them snapping under normal use.

Hope you found this helpful. Next post will be slide playing basics.

another UK cigar box guitar builder

This is one of the rewarding bonuses I get from doing this stuff. A few weeks ago I had an email from a guy named Rich. He'd seen the blog and felt inspired to build a CBG himself and asked for some advice. Here's an extract of his email -

'Just found your website after trawling the net to buy a cbg. Could only come up with Hawaiian type guitars then I found your blog - wow that blew me away......... then I discovered seasick steve and decided I needed a cbg in my life'

He had a good look at my older posts about building, and set to straight away. He kept me informed of his progress and has sent me these two pictures of his first CBG. What a great job he's done. Look at the neat construction work - he's an engineer. He ends by saying he just needs to learn to play it now.

Nice to know he's in the England too - another CBG nut to add to our growing UK tribe. Keep at it Rich and we look forward to seeing you play this baby on Youtube one day.

two new CBGs on the way

I've been busy building again. I've got two new ones half finished. I'm developing the distressed theme I started with the last one. One box (Sun Dried) has a lacquer which tends to chip easily. So I capitalised on it and rubbed down the edges and corners to give it that nice 'worn in' look. It has a dark stained neck with a red headstock to echo the colour of the label which is scarlet red. It's looking great and it will be hard to let this one go too. The other box is a white paper covered Hoyo de Monterrey. It has green ends so I'm painting the neck green with a white fretboard. I'll rub it down to give it the worn in look too. I'll post photos later when they are done.

Update - they're done and I'm pretty damn pleased with the. Photos soon

which one of us is crazy

The other day I called at an old fashioned tobacconist to see if they had any cigar boxes. I always feel slightly embarassed for some reason. The usual customers are often connoisseurs of fine tobacco. They are there to buy some of it, and me - I want empty boxes. I usually tell the assistant what I want them for. I think it gives me a bit more street cred and lessens the embarassment. On the other hand, I wonder if they think I'm some kind of crazy nut.

There was a customer already in there, closely examining some Monte Christos. He was taking each one out of it's aluminium tube and carefully squeezing and sniffing at it. The assistant was a friendly young man and started dealing with me whilst the other guy continued with his minute examination. These cigars were obviously something special.

I was looking at various empties and commented that I liked the Bolivar one because it had 'a nice design' on the front. This brought a reaction from the other customer that I could only describe as a snigger. Maybe he hadn't heard my first conversation and thought I was choosing cigars based on the box design. Either way it made me feel a little stupid. He closed the deal agreeing to buy four Montes, handed the assistant £60 and seemed very happy with his purchase. I bought five empty boxes for £5 and walked out of the shop, also happy.

Now the question is this. Which of us is the crazy one and who deserved the snigger? He spent £60 and will stick some rolled up leaves between his lips and set fire to them. I spent £5 and will make five guitars.

I want to add that I don't wish to offend cigar smokers, but you have to admit, it's a weird thing to be doing if you think about it. The young man who served me, was really friendly and helpful and I did promise to add the link to his shop so here it is http://www.thebackyshop.co.uk/

distressed cigar box guitar

Here it is, the latest creation - my artificially distressed CBG. It's tuned to open A. The volume is low when played acoustically but when amplified it's a little belter! I used the bowl part of an old spoon to make a jack socket plate.

smojo logo stamp

I've been trying to find a better way of adding my smojo logo to the headstocks. In the past I hand wrote it with a woodburning tool. Not easy to get it looking professional, not easy to control.

I'd been discussing it with my CBG buddy Mark and the idea of using some sort of stamp. So he has kindly made me a small rubber stamp, based on the new logo type I am using now. It's a little beauty. I tried it on my latest build using some white undercoat. I probably applied a little too much pressure and the paint bled out around the typeface - but I like it. Take a look.

distressing a cigar box guitar

I've started building a new CBG and wanted to have a go at making a distressed one out of a new box. I stripped the labels of this plain looking Monte Christo box, then sanded all the corners and edges to round them off to look worn.

I added some marks by wacking the surfaces with various metal items to produce a random marked effect that would make it look like it had been used a while. Some coarse grit sandpaper scratched across the grain in a few places added to the effect. Lastly I gave it a couple of coats of stainer which gave it a mellow golden colour and picked out the distress marks.

Next stage is to make a neck to look equally old. Probably use some mahogany and paint the fretboard. I'm thinking of white, then dulling it down somehow. Compare the before and after photos - I think it worked quite well. I may add an old label or two later.

pinched harmonics on a cigar box guitar

You'll probably already know that if you pluck a string on a standard guitar and quickly touch it at the 12 fret, you get the harmonic and octave higher. You can also find harmonics on the 5th and 7th frets easily too. Well heavy metal players make use of this phenomena to get those high pitched squeals common to that genre using method know as "pinched harmonics". It's a bit of a dark art to me so excuse my ignorance on just exactly how they produce it. There is a definite techinique which I'm noy 100% sure on.

Anyway, I was just messing about with my CBG and found a way of getting an unusual harmonic which I think is similar to pinched harmonics. It sounds unusual because you can get it to sing out whilst sliding. It involved using thumb and forefinger at the same time to pluck the string. Sort of plucking it in two places with these digits but in opposite directions. I posted a short vid on my Youtube site using it. Have look and take note of what my right hand thumb and forefinger are doing when I'm getting the harmonics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTIcHCVSzyA

cigar box guitar playing - tabs or not

I've been asked a number of times where I got the tabs for my playing on Youtube. The answer is I don't use tabs. I find them hard to translate into real playing. I prefer to listen and find it for myself. I have never tried much to learn specific numbers and copy them in the way the masters played them. What's the point, they all do it better than me? Besides it's boring and requires too much discipline. I prefer to experiment, improvise and find my own music, maybe using some well known tracks as a basis but putting my own stamp on it. So basically I just listen to the originals, and try to play it till it sounds something like recognisable. In the process of getting there, you tend to pick up other ideas and learn something about your instrument. I guess that's what the old players did anyway before they got famous. If you think about it, the version we hear on an album and get very familiar with, is just one performance. In reality the player will play it slightly different every time anyway, improvising and changing licks and tempo. It's what keeps things fresh and exciting. So don't try to copy anything too much lick for lick. Get the basics down but then find your own music, your own style and your own way of doing things. Far more satisfying.