Cigar Box Guitar – Goin to Brownsville

I’ve been playing, or should I say learning, the guitar for over thirty years but I’ve only recently discovered the fun that can be had with a simple cigar box guitar.

If you don’t know what a cigar box guitar is I shall explain. The clue is in the name, a cigar box guitar is a guitar made from a wooden cigar box. They tend to be home made instruments that use a cigar box as the resonator in the same way that an acoustic guitar uses its guitar body to amplify the sound from the strings.

Back in the 19th century cigar smoking was far more popular than it is today. They began to package cigars in wooden boxes from around the middle of the 19th century and people soon found a use for these boxes in various home made instruments.

It’s quite simple to turn a cigar box into a basic guitar using a length of wood and a few tuning pegs and this is why they became a popular form of folk instrument. The simplest of cigar box guitars can have only one string like a diddley bow, but they are commonly made with three strings. Fretting the steel strings would be achieved using a bottleneck or a piece of animal bone.

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. There has been something of an explosion in interest in these simple home made instruments, partly fuelled by the internet. And you don’t have to use a cigar box to make home made musical instruments. Many creative cigar box guitar builders use anything from oil drums to biscuit tins and lunch boxes to make some fine sounding instruments.

If you are struggling with your fancy six string why not get yourself a three string cigar box guitar and join the revolution.