Cigar Box Guitar – Goin to Brownsville

Although I’ve been playing guitar for many years it is only recently that I have discovered the fun that can be had with a cigar box guitar.

If you have never heard of cigar box guitars I shall explain what they are. A cigar box guitar is simply a basic guitar made using a wooden cigar box as the resonant body. These tend to be home made folk instruments that use a cigar box as the resonator body in the same way that an acoustic guitar uses its resonant body to make the guitar sound.

Way back in the 19th century many more people regularly smoked cigars. They began to be packaged in wooden boxes from around the middle of the 19th century and there are etchings of civil war soldiers sitting at a campsite where one of them is playing a fiddle made from a cigar box.

It’s quite easy to turn a cigar box into a basic guitar using a length of wood and a few guitar tuners and this is why they became a popular folk instrument. The simplest of cigar box guitars might have only one string, but they are commonly made with three strings and no frets. The steel strings would be fretted using a slide or a bottleneck.

Cigar box based musical instruments are a traditional form of folk instrument that could easily be made using items that would otherwise have been thrown away. In recent years there has been increased interest in these simple instruments with people sharing their building expertise, tips and advice on the internet. And its not essential that you use a cigar box to make home made musical instruments. Many builders of cigar box guitars use other boxes for the resonator including biscuit tins oil drums and childrens lunch boxes.

So if you are struggling with complex chords on your six string guitar why not put it to one side and get yourself a three string cigar box guitar and get back to some roots music.