Make: Editing The Diddley Bow Intro

Guide Steps

What type of guide is this?

We organize guides by the type of procedure they explain.

Choose your category

What category does your guide belong to? Choose the category that most closely defines the subject matter of your guide.

Optional secondary category

Describe the specific part or component of this category you're working on. Ex: Battery

Title

This is the title that will be displayed on your guide.

Summary

Summarize in a sentence or two what this guide will accomplish.

Introduction

Build the elemental slide guitar, from just a board, a wire, and a jar. Maybe you saw Jack White playing one in ''It Might Get Loud''; now make your own for pennies.

== About the Diddley Bow ==

After reading Alan Lomax’s excellent book ''The Land Where the Blues Began'', I developed an interest in the diddley bow, a primitive one-string guitar rarely heard outside the rural South. Shane Speal, founder of the current cigar box guitar movement, suggested that I get the CD ''One String Blues'', which featured nine cuts by diddley bow master Eddie “One String” Jones. The performances were stunning — raw, percussive, and deeply compelling.

After just one listen, I knew I needed to build and learn to play this instrument. On the first track of the CD, Jones described how he had built his diddley bow; a drawing of his instrument and two photos were included in the CD insert. With this information, I built my first traditional diddley bow.

In the South, the diddley bow is considered an informal practice instrument, built from found or recycled materials. Here's how to  build a stable, good-sounding instrument in about 10 minutes.

Traditionally, the string is struck in a rhythmic manner with a finger or a stick or some other implement, and the pitch of the string is altered by using a slide made of glass, metal, or some other hard substance. The diddley bow is slide guitar stripped down to its most elemental level.

WARNING: If you build a diddley bow, be aware that the wire is of unknown tensile strength and is being brought to unknown tension; in addition, the board and the glass jar bridge are both under compression. Use face and hand protection when tensioning up the diddley bow. Please use good sense when building, tuning, and playing these instruments.

== Materials and Tools ==

'''Wire''' for the string. Get a couple of pieces.

'''Board, about 3' long''' for the body

'''Short piece of pipe, or a sturdy, straight-sided glass jar''' or some other fairly rigid object, for the bridge. ''Do not'' use a baby food jar — they’re too fragile.

'''Scrap of wood''' for the nut

'''16-penny common nails (2)'''

'''6-penny finishing nails (2)'''

'''Flat glass bottle, half pint''' for a slide

'''½" stick about 6"–7" long''' to beat out a rhythm on the string

'''Saw'''

'''Hammer'''

'''Side-cutting pliers'''

'''Combination (half-round) rasp''' These are round on one side.

'''Permanent marker'''

Communicate background information before the reader dives into the guide.

Flags

Guide Steps »

Editing Introduction

Your contributions are licensed under the open source Creative Commons license.

Guide Steps

Create a New Category

Request Guide Deletion

Unpublished