Diddly Bo – Seasick Steve (LWJH S35E05)

Music should be fun. Anybody with an inclination to make music should be able to. Unfortunately we are taught that, in order to make music, you need to study music tablature, learn scales and chords, spend money on expensive musical instruments and practice loads. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Have you ever see any African tribes people dancing to drums? The drummers have never studied at music college. Obviously they aren’t familiar with scales, chords or paradiddles. But they’re having a good time. Making music with the simplest of instruments, often nothing more than a hollow log or a an empty gourd with some lose seeds used as a rattle, is great fun and that is what music is all about.

There is a one stringed Brazilian instrument with African roots called a Berimbau. Its not surprising to note that the instrument looks like a bow that might be used for hunting. Now this simple instrument is the precursor to pretty much all forms of stringed instrument including guitars, harps and even pianos.

You may have heard of the Diddley Bow. This is a very simple and easily made African American one stringed folk instrument. These might be made from nothing more than a plank of wood with a length of wire stretched from end to end. The string is tensioned with something uses as a bridge and the pitch is varied by fretting the string with a piece of bone, glass or maybe a knife or some other form of slide.

One notable Diddley bow player, Lonnie Pitchford, would make his Diddley Bows by attaching a wire to a vertical support beam on the front porch of his house. Diddley bows were commonly made by poor field workers and share croppers in the Mississippi Delta region.

The sound of the Diddley Bow is very much the sound of the blues. Many of the early blues orginators from the 1920s and 1930s got their start by twanging Diddley Bows. One modern day exponent of this simple instrument is Seasick Steve. So if you want a bit of fun with a simple one string folk instrument why not make yourself a Diddley Bow today.