"The Fretboard wood and the arch of the fret board do have a say in fretles playing to ! maybee you need to mention that to John ! Thanks for the In putt !"
"Hi, good stuff John. Here is a fretless guitar story.
I recently had a guy complaining about his guitars intonation being out, so I set it in the usual way and it was perfect. But he said it was still not right. When I discussed it with him I found…"
There's so much more to playing a fretless guitar than just using a slide. With a good low action you can play it like a regular guitar, but with unique ton...
"Unfortunately it isn't as simple as soundhole shape and size to create a loud acoustic instrument. The size of the resonating chamber (ie the box) and the responsiveness of the box (most importantly the top) are very important. The top needs to…"
What do you find most interesting about cigar box guitars? (If you do not enter something meaningful here (at least one sentence long), your membership may be rejected as a spam/bot fake account).
It's a refreshing alternative to the mainstream modern guitar scene.
HI..ChickenboneJohn here...in Birmingham, UK. I've been making and fixing guitars of all sorts for a while...but love making and playing cigar box guitars. I run the Crossroads Blues Club in Birmingham
Glastonbury had a "fallow" year in 2018 to allow the land to recover, so we had a year off (we did WOMAD instead...but we'll not talk about that...). So, we submitted our application to trade in October last year, and heard late February 2019 that we'd been accepted. That was the starting gun for our preparation. My daughter Anne Zilpha made an analysis of the previous two years sales figures and we drew up a schedule of the stuff we had to make and buy-in. The daunting prospect was that we…
So...summer's well on, and it's been an amazingly warm one...and for me an exhausting one. I know people think that being a professional musician is one long round of cool gigs, adulation, alcohol and drugs...but there's more...and less to it than that. Finding the cash for many tanks of diesel, worrying about whether there's a parking place near the gig, figuring out the logistics of loading out 500kg of gear every night and keeping it safe, and not getting busted by the German Autobahn…
It had been a while, but it was time for me and Hollowbelly to go back on he road again…the Van Thom Weekender and the German Cigar Box Guitar Festival were happening on two consecutive weekends, so that was the cue to arrange a little tour. We had a contact from a new promoter offering a midweek date between the two weekends, and I managed to arrange some more dates on the way out and back, so we had a viable tour organised. Getting gigs is one thing, but getting shows that pay and work…
Since getting into this area of Guitar playing, I watch endless videos trying to gain as much knowlege as I can. Lately, I.ve run into diatonic, pentatonic, fretting with only about 8 fretts, like a dulcimer. In one, the guy had it his 3 strings tuned in such a way as to make playing blues like falling off a log. I think Justin Johnson had one. Problem is, I can never find them on line again. Wish I could be more help. What is a good size router bit for shaping the back of necks? I just bought nice router. Hmm, now what?? good talking to you, sorry I couldn't be more help. I go into computer stores and they look at me and say, "what's the point." Gordon
Good to know you Chickenbone. Just been checking out your "Jitterbug Swing" , liked Bukka White for eons and your version is ace. How did you come to buy The Works entire UK stock of BBG's? How much are you selling them for?
Definitely not your fault mate. Postie put a missed delivery slip through the door without bothering to knock. Then when I tried to collect it from the post office they looked for 20 minutes then said they'd lost it. Then after I rode to work they called to say they'd found it...
Hi John, after a bit of a nightmare with the Post Office (long story) I finally received the fretboard blanks from you this morning. They're wonderful, thanks very much! Cheers for the offcuts too!