Make Some Noise with a Cigar Box Guitar

I’ve been playing guitar for well over thirty years but I’ve only recently discovered the fun that can be had with easily made cigar box guitars.

If you have never heard of cigar box guitars I shall explain what they are. A cigar box guitar is, as the name suggests, a guitar made from a 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.

Way back in the 19th century many more people regularly smoked cigars. 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.

Turning a cigar box into a guitar like instrument is relatively easy to achieve with a length of wood for the neck and a few tuning pegs. 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 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.

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