Slide – Page 2 – Beginner Cigar Box Guitar

If you've seen a 3 string guitar being played and wondered what it is, chances are it's a cigar box guitar. A cigar box guitar is traditionally handmade from a cigar box with a wooden through neck and 3 steel strings attached to tuning pegs. The neck may be fretted but fretless instruments are very popular and are played with a guitar slide. An added pickup allows it to be played through an amplifier. Why Is A Cigar Box Used To Make A Guitar? Cigar box guitars were originally made by those who couldn't afford to buy a traditional guitar and wanted to make their own. Cigar boxes were fairly easy to get hold of, not too expensive and nicely resonant if you tap the outside of the box. It's very difficult to make a hollow bodied guitar with the well known guitar body shape. Inside these instruments there is a fairly complicated array of wooden bracing. This needs to be strong enough to support the thin wood but light enough so as not to affect the resonance or the guitar will sound flat and dead. Nowadays many builders still use cigar boxes but there are many other options available: cigar boxhandmade boxwine boxwooden jewelry boxmetal tinlicense platehubcaptambourinesolidshovel If you are interested in how these different bodies are used read more in my article: Different Types Of Body For A Cigar Box Guitar What Is A Wooden Through Neck? The easiest way to make a neck for a cigar box guitar is to take a straight piece of wood and fit it through the box which is the body of the guitar. This ensures that the box and the neck are secured together and also allows the strings to be attached to the bottom of the neck or tailpiece rather than the box: It's surprisingly hard to attach strings to the box if you don't use this method. I have tried and failed and eventually got the strings attached to a bridge that stayed on the box, but I used nylon strings. The force of steel strings tends to: pull the bridge off the boxwarp the neck The through neck helps to avoid both of these problems. Some builders use an adjustable hardtail bridge such as those used on electric guitars with a lot of bracing inside the box and this seems to work well although I haven't tried building one yet. If you would like to read more about through necks including information on suitable woods and why builders often use scarf joints read my article Why Does A Cigar Box Guitar Have A Through Neck? What Kind Of Strings Are Used On a Cigar Box Guitar? A cigar box guitar nearly always has steel strings. These are nickel if the guitar has a coiled pickup and phosphor bronze if the pick up is a piezo or if there is no pickup installed. Specialist cigar box guitar suppliers sell packs of 3 strings suited for a cigar box guitar but you can also use 3 from a standard set of 6 strings. There are many different tunings for a cigar box guitar, but they are often tuned to G D G, E B E or D A D. These open tunings have the following in common: Strumming the open strings plays a power chordFretting across all the strings plays a power chordThis means that one finger barre fretting or using a guitar slide plays a power chord wherever you play on the neck The strings are arranged such that the 7th fret of the bass string is the same as the open middle stringThe 5th fret of the middle string is the same as the open top stringPlaying the open strings power chord, the power chord on the 5th fret and the power chord on the 7th fret allows you to play practically any song in a very simplified way For more information on which strings to use read my article What Is The Difference Between A Cigar Box Guitar And A Standard Acoustic? For information on how to change the strings read How Do I Put New Strings On My Cigar Box Guitar? I have lot of information on different tunings for a cigar box guitar in my article 9 Different Tunings For A Cigar Box Guitar My favorite strings are made here in the UK : Zilpha strings by Chickenbone John I also like these light acoustic guitar strings from Amazon which can be used with a piezo pickup: D'Addario Wound Strings on amazon.com or D'Addario Wound Strings on amazon.co.uk but if you have a coiled pickup you need nickel strings such as these light electric guitar strings from Amazon: D'Addario Nickel Wound Strings on amazon.com or D'Addario Nickel Wound Strings on amazon.co.uk Light strings are a bit easier for a beginner guitarist to play than stiff heavier strings. What Tuning Pegs Are Needed For A Cigar Box Guitar? The tuning pegs or machine heads used on acoustic or electric guitars are suitable for a cigar box guitar. They can be open or closed backs: Good quality machine heads are a priority when building a cigar box guitar because there is nothing more annoying than a string that won't stay in tune because it keeps slipping. I have more information on machine heads in my article How Do I Put New Strings On My Cigar Box Guitar? What Is The Difference Between A Fretted And Fretless Guitar? A fretted guitar has metal fret wires installed in precise positions on the neck. When a finger is placed on the fret it reduces the length of the vibrating string, raising it's pitch. A fretless instrument usually has the precise positions marked but no fret wire is installed. The action of the strings is usually higher for a fretless instrument. This means that the distance between the strings and the fretboard is higher, typically about 3.5mm ( just over 3/32 inch) at the 12th fret but it's all a matter of personal taste. My article What Are The Differences Between A Fretted And Fretless Cigar Box Guitar? is coming soon What Is A Guitar Slide Used For? A guitar slide is a hollow tube used on a finger to press down one or more strings. It stops the full length of the string ringing out so raises the pitch of the note. In this way it acts the same as a finger pressing down on a fret. Slides can be used on fretless instruments and are typically made of ceramic, bone or metal. Slides can be used on fretted guitars as long as the action is not too low. ( This means that the strings are not too close to the fret board) The main difficulty with playing slide on a fretted instrument is that the slide and the fret together make an annoying buzzing sound. If you are interested in learning about playing slide guitar I have a couple of articles that may be of interest: How Do You Begin To Play Slide On A Cigar Box Guitar? What Is A Resonator Cigar Box Guitar? My current favorite slide is a Star Singer Blue Lagoon Ceramic Slide. I'm lucky enough to live near where these are made so I bought one at my local music shop but you can order one here from this link on Amazon What Is A Guitar Pickup? A guitar pickup is the part of the guitar that collects the sounds from the strings and sends them as electrical signals to the amplifier where the sound can be made louder or electrically adjusted to give reverb, overdrive and other sound effects via the amp itself and pedals attached to it. Pickups are either: magnetic pickups such as single coils or humbuckers which use magnets to detect the movement of the metal strings above thempiezoelectric pickups which detect pressure changes in the body of the guitar caused by the vibrations of the strings on the bridge For more information on pickups and amps read my articles: Beginner's Guide To Pickups On A Cigar Box Guitar and Amplifier Settings For A Cigar Box Guitar: Your Questions Answered