Easy For Beginners: Open Tuning On A Cigar Box Guitar
If you’ve always wanted to play guitar but struggled, try a cigar box guitar.
A 3 or 4 stringed guitar in open tuning makes it easy to play chords with one finger barred across all strings. 3 strings are much easier to barre than 6.
These 1 finger power chords enable you to play many songs easily. As you progress, you can learn major, minor and 7th chord shapes. These other chord shapes are easier to play on a cigar box guitar.
There are many moveable chord shapes. This means you can use the same chord shape up and down the neck for different chords.
A Versatile Instrument With Many Different Sounds
As far as stringed instruments go, a cigar box guitar must be one of the most versatile. You can play blues, rock, country, folk and classical music. You can make it sound like an electric guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo, ukulele and mandolin. It’s all about the amp, pickups and strings you use.
If you want the most versatile sounding cigar box guitar, I recommend using nickel strings and a coiled pick up on an instrument with a medium scale length. This means a distance from the nut to the bridge of about 20-23 inches
The Cigar Box Guitar: Great For Blues
Many people who play cigar box guitar will have a certain genre of music that they prefer to play. The Blues is one of the most popular forms of music that cigar box players choose. One of the reasons is that it is incredibly easy to play a 12 bar blues, much easier than on a standard six string guitar.
Playing with a guitar slide made of metal, glass or ceramic is a popular addition to the blues sound. Because you can choose a fretless instrument, this makes it slightly easier to play slide guitar. You can also choose a fretted cigar box guitar with a high action ( meaning that the strings are slightly farther from the frets) which means you can play with or without a slide.
Not Just For Blues: Other Genres Of Music
There are many other options for the type of music you can play. These include rock, country, folk and even classical music.
Part of the versatility of the cigar box guitar comes from the fact that they are handmade instruments and this means that the size, style and strings used are very easily adapted.
Rock Cigar Box Guitar
Playing rock on a cigar box guitar is made easier with the use of nickel strings and a coiled pickup. An amplifier will extend the range of sounds you can produce and add distortion. You can play both lead and rhythm guitar.
Country And Folk Music On A Cigar Box Guitar
You can choose to play cigar box guitar with or without a pick.
Country music players can choose phosphor bronze strings and a piezo pickup for an acoustic or amplified acoustic sound. Alternatively country music can be played with nickel strings and a coiled pickup and amplifier set to a clean sound without distortion.
Folk guitarists will probably prefer phosphor bronze strings used with or without a piezo pickup and amplifier.
Metal bodied cigar box guitars made with tins can also produce a banjo like sound.
Amplifying Your Cigar Box Guitar
Attaching a cigar box guitar to an amp gives a wide range of sounds. This is because the amp can be set to give a very distorted sound, suitable for rock and metal music. Amps can also just make a guitar louder, leaving the sound clean.
You can find out more about amplifying your cigar box guitar here and more about different string choice here and in this article too and more about scale length here.
Change The Strings, Change The Sound
My first cigar box guitar had nickel strings and a coiled pickup. I did have an old amp that I’d had for years when I played Fender Strat but I found that I rarely used the amp for my cigar box guitar.
When I changed the strings I bought phosphor bronze and I was pleasantly surprised when I played the guitar acoustically. It had a much warmer tone.
Unfortunately the amplified sound was far less pleasing. You see a coiled pickup needs nickel strings to work well. Whilst both phosphor bronze and nickel strings contain steel, the phosphor bronze strings are not magnetic enough to get a good sound with a coiled ( magnetic) pickup.
Synthetic strings would change the sound even more, but without a piezo pickup it is not possible to amplify the cigar box guitar. This is because synthetic strings are not amplified with a coiled pickup.
Cigar Box Guitar Or Six Stringed Guitar?
A three stringed guitar tuned to an open chord is much easier to play than a six stringed instrument, both in terms of fingering and also it’s physically easier to barre across three strings than six. As I’ve got older, I found that my wrist and fingers found it harder to play six stringed guitars, especially metal stringed ones.
Those who come from a background of playing six string guitar will be surprised at how rich and full a sound can be got from a three string guitar. In fact some say that six strings is three strings too many.
I would say that a three stringed guitar can play most genres of music with as much versatility as a six string. The only exception is classical guitar, but the addition of a fourth string particularly on a shorter scaled instrument means that classical guitar music is playable on a cigar box guitar.
Transfer Learning From Ukulele Or Banjo To Cigar Box Guitar
Cigar Box Ukulele
Synthetic rather than metal strings on a cigar box guitar will make a sound more like a classical guitar. A short scale instrument can sound like a ukulele with synthetic strings.
A ukulele has four, generally synthetic, strings. There are a few ukuleles available now that have metal strings, but you should not try to put metal strings on a regular ukulele as the neck will not have a truss rod and the force will break the neck. The other point with ukuleles is that the bridge is not designed to take the force of metal strings and will likely pull off as the strings are tightened.
If you already play ukulele and are looking for a different sound but using all the chord shapes and tunes that you already know, consider a four stringed cigar box guitar.
Choose a metal 4 stringed cigar box guitar with nickel strings and a coiled pick up. You will probably prefer a short to medium scale. Tune it to G C E A and you can get a steel stringed sound using what you’ve already learned on the ukulele. See this post for more information
From Banjo To Cigar Box Guitar
If you come from a background in playing banjo and want to experiment with cigar box guitar, you have a few options. If you are used to a five stringed instrument, you could find a builder to make you a five stringed instrument ( or build your own) Four stringed instruments could be tuned like your banjo.
Either of these methods would give you a head start in playing music you already know on a cigar box guitar. Alternatively go for a three stringed guitar in open tuning and have fun using your fingerpicking techniques on chord shapes which are either very easy or a little more complicated.
Once you get the new finger patterns in your head, you will find that you can play all different genres of music. I think that this is a much easier transition to different genres than if you started to learn the six string guitar.
Can A Cigar Box Guitar Sound Like A Banjo Or Mandolin?
A banjo has such a distinct sound. Claw hammer and other bluegrass styles sound great on a banjo. I wondered if it was possible to get this kind of sound a cigar box guitar. I found that my metal bodied cigar box guitar could have the tone of a banjo but my fingerpicking style is not yet good enough to say that it sounds like I am playing banjo.
A mandolin has pairs of strings so I wondered if it’s possible to pair up the strings on a three stringed cigar box guitar. I suppose it’s similar to having a twelve stringed guitar instead of a six stringed one.
The neck on a six stringed but paired stringed cigar box guitar would not need to be as wide as a standard six string as the paired strings are closer together. The through neck of a cigar box guitar should be strong enough to take the force of six strings as long as it is made from a good strong hardwood.
A mandolin is usually tuned to GG DD AA EE so you could use this tuning on your cigar box guitar. Unlike a twelve stringed guitar where some of the paired strings are an octave apart, the mandolin uses strings of the same pitch.
This means that the mandolin has a lot of sustain and good resonance. I haven’t tried making a paired string cigar box guitar yet but I’m adding it to my list of future builds. I think I will use two sets of G D G strings and set them in pairs.