Free Cigar Box Guitar Christmas Music CD download. Yes I said FREE! Share this one with your family and friends! http://www.cigarboxnation.com/
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Update on Cuesta Rey Cigar Box Guitar Build
I had hoped to have pictures of my latest Cigar Box Guitar build the Cuesta Rey to post on this weeks blog, but alas two things happened that prevented that:
1) the fret nut did not turn out the way I wanted it at all, so I am retooling it
2) my wife was at a travel conference and had the “good” camera with her
Here's a picture of a bit of the Cuesta Rey art
Overall I am very pleased with the way the Cuesta Rey turned out. What first caught my eye was the amount of artwork on the box and the vivid colors. What I really like is how the colors came even more alive once I applied a protective top coat.
As I progress in my enjoyment of building CBG’s I find it is a journey of discovery. Discovering the history of the instrument, new sounds, new like minded people, new enjoyment in my own life and different techniques for building and finishing these fantastic instruments.
As an example, CBG’s started becoming popular around 1840 simply because that is when the small cigar box was first manufactured. Before that cigars were shipped in large crates. For a more detailed history visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar_box_guitar
You will discover just how versatile this fine little instrument really is, from a gutsy blues to country to mellow ballad to rock. You can play it all on a Cigar Box Guitar. Shane Speal is bringing to light some of the old one string techniques and something he calls the “stubby slide”. Very cool stuff!
I have found so many like minded people across the globe that are building and playing CBG’s. A good place to meet Cigar Box Guitar folks is at http://www.cigarboxnation.com/
One thing I have always enjoyed is music, I love it! Another is working with wood. Building CBG’s gives me great enjoyment and a feeling of accomplishment. 1) I built an instrument and 2) it makes great sounding music
I don’t know about you but I find that when I’m interested in something my creative side comes alive and questions I may have about something seemed to get answered as I work.
Since I have been building CBG’s I have discovered I like to sand the plain wooden boxes down (being careful not to disturb the lettering), use varying coats of stain rubbed into the wood and natural oil or paste to finish it. While on the papered wooden cigar boxes with the beautiful artwork I prefer to use a spray poly as a top coat to protect that artwork.
One more discovery that ties it all together for me was with the need to retool the nut. After work I dropped by our local hardware store. Mind you it is not one of the big box stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot. Family owned since tools were invented. I’m telling the guy I need a large brass bolt for the nut.
He’s showing me what they have and not coming up with anything big enough. I asked what he would suggest. He yells over to the boss and the boss says sounds like you need a brass toilet bolt. Perfect and just the right size!
As I’m checking out I see the boss sorting through a box of old brass knobs and drawer pull handles. I mention how great those would look on my Cigar Box Guitars. One thing leads to another and he tells me how he used to collect old wooden cigar boxes from garage sales. They were closing so I said I would be back.
The CBG discovery trail has opened up a whole new source for friends at the local hardware store, antique brass parts and potentially a source for some antique cigar boxes!
1) the fret nut did not turn out the way I wanted it at all, so I am retooling it
2) my wife was at a travel conference and had the “good” camera with her
Here's a picture of a bit of the Cuesta Rey artOverall I am very pleased with the way the Cuesta Rey turned out. What first caught my eye was the amount of artwork on the box and the vivid colors. What I really like is how the colors came even more alive once I applied a protective top coat.
As I progress in my enjoyment of building CBG’s I find it is a journey of discovery. Discovering the history of the instrument, new sounds, new like minded people, new enjoyment in my own life and different techniques for building and finishing these fantastic instruments.
As an example, CBG’s started becoming popular around 1840 simply because that is when the small cigar box was first manufactured. Before that cigars were shipped in large crates. For a more detailed history visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar_box_guitar
You will discover just how versatile this fine little instrument really is, from a gutsy blues to country to mellow ballad to rock. You can play it all on a Cigar Box Guitar. Shane Speal is bringing to light some of the old one string techniques and something he calls the “stubby slide”. Very cool stuff!
I have found so many like minded people across the globe that are building and playing CBG’s. A good place to meet Cigar Box Guitar folks is at http://www.cigarboxnation.com/
One thing I have always enjoyed is music, I love it! Another is working with wood. Building CBG’s gives me great enjoyment and a feeling of accomplishment. 1) I built an instrument and 2) it makes great sounding music
I don’t know about you but I find that when I’m interested in something my creative side comes alive and questions I may have about something seemed to get answered as I work.
Since I have been building CBG’s I have discovered I like to sand the plain wooden boxes down (being careful not to disturb the lettering), use varying coats of stain rubbed into the wood and natural oil or paste to finish it. While on the papered wooden cigar boxes with the beautiful artwork I prefer to use a spray poly as a top coat to protect that artwork.
One more discovery that ties it all together for me was with the need to retool the nut. After work I dropped by our local hardware store. Mind you it is not one of the big box stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot. Family owned since tools were invented. I’m telling the guy I need a large brass bolt for the nut.
He’s showing me what they have and not coming up with anything big enough. I asked what he would suggest. He yells over to the boss and the boss says sounds like you need a brass toilet bolt. Perfect and just the right size!
As I’m checking out I see the boss sorting through a box of old brass knobs and drawer pull handles. I mention how great those would look on my Cigar Box Guitars. One thing leads to another and he tells me how he used to collect old wooden cigar boxes from garage sales. They were closing so I said I would be back.
The CBG discovery trail has opened up a whole new source for friends at the local hardware store, antique brass parts and potentially a source for some antique cigar boxes!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Johnny Depp and Cigar Box Guitar
Thought you might enjoy this picture I gleaned from the Cigar Box Nation http://www.cigarboxnation.com/ of Johnny Depp and his Cigar Box Guitar!
Friday, August 21, 2009
New 3-String Cigar Box Guitar Started
New 3-String Cigar Box Guitar Started
I wanted to post a couple pictures of my new build. It’s going to be a fretless 3-string cigar box guitar. Fretless in that there will not be regular frets installed. In their place will be inlayed veneer to mark the fret positions which are laid out to a Fender scale.
This layout will be perfect for slide guitar work.
I chose a wooden Cuesta-Rey Centro Fino cigar box from the Dominican Republic for the body and a nice piece of red oak for the neck. I enjoy the artwork a lot with the lovely senorita having red blossoms in her hair and palm trees to the sides. The beautiful dark reds, golds, yellows and blues really appealed to me. The thought of putting sound holes in this great looking box disturbs me somewhat. Oh well, CBG building is all about repurposing, rebuilding and remaking one thing into another.
I used to cut all the frets with a coping saw but I really like the perfection of a fret slotting saw and miter box which I show in this picture.
I wanted to post a couple pictures of my new build. It’s going to be a fretless 3-string cigar box guitar. Fretless in that there will not be regular frets installed. In their place will be inlayed veneer to mark the fret positions which are laid out to a Fender scale.
This layout will be perfect for slide guitar work.
I chose a wooden Cuesta-Rey Centro Fino cigar box from the Dominican Republic for the body and a nice piece of red oak for the neck. I enjoy the artwork a lot with the lovely senorita having red blossoms in her hair and palm trees to the sides. The beautiful dark reds, golds, yellows and blues really appealed to me. The thought of putting sound holes in this great looking box disturbs me somewhat. Oh well, CBG building is all about repurposing, rebuilding and remaking one thing into another.
I used to cut all the frets with a coping saw but I really like the perfection of a fret slotting saw and miter box which I show in this picture.Thursday, August 13, 2009
UK Cigar Box Guitar Festival Announced!!!
This is great! Cigar Box Guitar Festival in the UK!!!
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX – THE 1st UK CIGAR BOX GUITAR FESTIVAL
[3, Oct. 2009]
Tickets are available for either the all day event, including the evening performance (£25.00), or for the evening performance only (£5.00). Ticket sales http://crossroadsbluesclub.bigcartel.com/
CONTACT: John Wormald – wormald.design@virgin.net
0121 429 9996
07957 255 846
Available for interviews, live performance broadcast sessions etc
PRESS & MEDIA RELEASE
Introducing the alternative music sensation that's the hot ticket!!!
In today's economic climate, there's pressure on everybody's finances, and for music-makers, some people have gone back to the old-timey approach of making their own entertainment, and making their own instruments from whatever is to hand…a box, a stick of wood and some strings…and you've got a cigar box guitar!
This has a venerable tradition from the plantations of the southern USA, and many famous musicians made their first instruments the very same way. Thanks to the internet, this tradition has been slingshotted into global awareness through sites like cigarboxnation.com, and now we have organized the very first get-together for these UK music pioneers.
The event is taking place in Birmingham's "Tower of Song" bar. It's a dedicated music venue after the fashion of the classic USA roadhouse…a small no-frills room, atmospheric lighting and great music of all genres, easily spotted from the roadside by the 25 foot high image of Robert Johnson adorning the façade of the building. Here you're likely to encounter people like blues and jazzman Steve Ajao and Birmingham rocker Steve Gibbons chatting to customers and the proprietor Tom Martin, a quiet spoken muso with a passion for genuine, original live music. The event is organised and hosted by Chickenbone John, who, together with bass player Ken Stratford, runs the weekly Crossroads Blues club at the venue.
The event comprises an all-day get-together with workshops for players to learn and swap techniques, and for cigar box guitar makers to `show and tell' about the way they make their instruments. Guitar makers will be bringing example of their work, for display and for sale. There will also be the opportunity for informal music sessions during the day. In the evening, the headline act is Hollowbelly, an amazing one man band performer on drums, cigar box guitar and harmonica…laying down some original tunes in a thrash punk blues style. Support will be from Chickenbone John, and the evening will also feature an open mic session for those cigar box guitar players who feel brave enough to perform in front of a paying audience, so an entertaining evening of energetic and original music is guaranteed.
http://www.towerofsong.co.uk/blues/
http://www.myspace.com/hollowbelly
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX – THE 1st UK CIGAR BOX GUITAR FESTIVAL
[3, Oct. 2009]
Tickets are available for either the all day event, including the evening performance (£25.00), or for the evening performance only (£5.00). Ticket sales http://crossroadsbluesclub.bigcartel.com/
CONTACT: John Wormald – wormald.design@virgin.net
0121 429 9996
07957 255 846
Available for interviews, live performance broadcast sessions etc
PRESS & MEDIA RELEASE
Introducing the alternative music sensation that's the hot ticket!!!
In today's economic climate, there's pressure on everybody's finances, and for music-makers, some people have gone back to the old-timey approach of making their own entertainment, and making their own instruments from whatever is to hand…a box, a stick of wood and some strings…and you've got a cigar box guitar!
This has a venerable tradition from the plantations of the southern USA, and many famous musicians made their first instruments the very same way. Thanks to the internet, this tradition has been slingshotted into global awareness through sites like cigarboxnation.com, and now we have organized the very first get-together for these UK music pioneers.
The event is taking place in Birmingham's "Tower of Song" bar. It's a dedicated music venue after the fashion of the classic USA roadhouse…a small no-frills room, atmospheric lighting and great music of all genres, easily spotted from the roadside by the 25 foot high image of Robert Johnson adorning the façade of the building. Here you're likely to encounter people like blues and jazzman Steve Ajao and Birmingham rocker Steve Gibbons chatting to customers and the proprietor Tom Martin, a quiet spoken muso with a passion for genuine, original live music. The event is organised and hosted by Chickenbone John, who, together with bass player Ken Stratford, runs the weekly Crossroads Blues club at the venue.
The event comprises an all-day get-together with workshops for players to learn and swap techniques, and for cigar box guitar makers to `show and tell' about the way they make their instruments. Guitar makers will be bringing example of their work, for display and for sale. There will also be the opportunity for informal music sessions during the day. In the evening, the headline act is Hollowbelly, an amazing one man band performer on drums, cigar box guitar and harmonica…laying down some original tunes in a thrash punk blues style. Support will be from Chickenbone John, and the evening will also feature an open mic session for those cigar box guitar players who feel brave enough to perform in front of a paying audience, so an entertaining evening of energetic and original music is guaranteed.
http://www.towerofsong.co.uk/blues/
http://www.myspace.com/hollowbelly
Friday, May 29, 2009
Seven Bridges Road
These lyrics by the Eagles are strictly vocal only. If you get a chance put the CD on with your favorite headset and enjoy!
I love this song as it reminds me of a simpler time in my life when I lived in my one room school house along the banks of the Chickahominy Creek on Nelson Mountain Road:
Seven Bridges Road lyrics
There are stars
In the Southern sky
Southward as you go
There is moonlight
And moss in the trees
Down the Seven Bridges Road
Now I have loved you like a baby
Like some lonesome child
And I have loved you in a tame way
And I have loved you wild
Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road
There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide
You should go
There is a taste of time sweetened honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road
I love this song as it reminds me of a simpler time in my life when I lived in my one room school house along the banks of the Chickahominy Creek on Nelson Mountain Road:
Seven Bridges Road lyrics
There are stars
In the Southern sky
Southward as you go
There is moonlight
And moss in the trees
Down the Seven Bridges Road
Now I have loved you like a baby
Like some lonesome child
And I have loved you in a tame way
And I have loved you wild
Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road
There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide
You should go
There is a taste of time sweetened honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Universe Provides if We Step Aside!
We had what I fondly call a "Barbe moment" on Sunday. I went to dinner with my wife Sally and the German Miner’s Band (http://www.lock3live.com/winterMarket.aspx) at the Radisson Inn in Akron. After that the plans were to take them over to EJ Thomas Performing Arts Hall on the campus of the University of Akron for the second performance of Tuba Christmas. While at dinner one of the band members, Norman Wolfgang (not sure of his last name) said, "It's one thing to see it but really another to be able to play in it!" A couple minutes later Sally’s cell phone rings and she gets a call saying Tucker Jolly, the conductor and professor of Low Brass instruction at U of A, has invited the Miner's Band to play in Tuba Christmas and is waiving the registration fee. So we rush through dinner while Norman and Uri rush off to get their instruments and put on their Miner's Band shirts.
Sally decides that “duh” elf (me) needs to take the two band guys in and get them registered if needed and get the rest of the band seated while she parks the 15 passenger van. I go in and get our tickets and I ask an usher where the band guys can check in. He says stage door follow me and TAKES OFF OUT THE DOOR WITH THEM IN TOW!!! I have to follow them! I glance over my shoulder at the rest of the band and happen to hear, "Take the elevator to the second level." We were supposed to have seats saved in the first row! YIKES!!!
I get down to the stage area (lucky I went) and search for someone in charge. Norman Wolfgang speaks English well but doesn’t “speak between the cracks” so to speak. Uri speaks a couple of phrases. The guy in charge wants to know how many people are playing which prompts Uri to start naming all the instruments played in the Miner's Band. I explained to guy in charge briefly as to what was up and asked if he could make sure they got hooked up. No problem. I bolt back out the door and back inside knowing the rest of the band is lost in the huge crowd by now. I spot Sally inside asking people something like, “Where are my Germans?” I explained as best “duh” elf could the situation and said I think I heard, “Elevator go to second level” So we head up and start looking out over the sea of people and see way in the distance some arms waving that look like our people. Thank goodness they have found seats in the nose bleed section.
We get settled in the two seats they have saved for us and spot Norman and Uri looking good amongst the 400 other tuba players.
Here comes the Barbe moment…
Halfway through the performance Tucker Jolly talks about who comes from where, so I’m kind of nudging Sally in the ribs by now as Tucker Jolly says, “We are honored and privileged to have all the way from Chemnitz Germany two members of the Miner’s Band performing with us tonight.” The guys stood up and were thrilled and I could see Sally was doing the proud momma thing. So I said, “You know Barbe would say this is the universe putting things together!” It was a great evening, everything just fell into place!
Barbe by the way is my good friend from soulyyours on Etsy. You can view her blog link on the right side of my blog if you like!
Sally decides that “duh” elf (me) needs to take the two band guys in and get them registered if needed and get the rest of the band seated while she parks the 15 passenger van. I go in and get our tickets and I ask an usher where the band guys can check in. He says stage door follow me and TAKES OFF OUT THE DOOR WITH THEM IN TOW!!! I have to follow them! I glance over my shoulder at the rest of the band and happen to hear, "Take the elevator to the second level." We were supposed to have seats saved in the first row! YIKES!!!
I get down to the stage area (lucky I went) and search for someone in charge. Norman Wolfgang speaks English well but doesn’t “speak between the cracks” so to speak. Uri speaks a couple of phrases. The guy in charge wants to know how many people are playing which prompts Uri to start naming all the instruments played in the Miner's Band. I explained to guy in charge briefly as to what was up and asked if he could make sure they got hooked up. No problem. I bolt back out the door and back inside knowing the rest of the band is lost in the huge crowd by now. I spot Sally inside asking people something like, “Where are my Germans?” I explained as best “duh” elf could the situation and said I think I heard, “Elevator go to second level” So we head up and start looking out over the sea of people and see way in the distance some arms waving that look like our people. Thank goodness they have found seats in the nose bleed section.
We get settled in the two seats they have saved for us and spot Norman and Uri looking good amongst the 400 other tuba players.
Here comes the Barbe moment…
Halfway through the performance Tucker Jolly talks about who comes from where, so I’m kind of nudging Sally in the ribs by now as Tucker Jolly says, “We are honored and privileged to have all the way from Chemnitz Germany two members of the Miner’s Band performing with us tonight.” The guys stood up and were thrilled and I could see Sally was doing the proud momma thing. So I said, “You know Barbe would say this is the universe putting things together!” It was a great evening, everything just fell into place!
Barbe by the way is my good friend from soulyyours on Etsy. You can view her blog link on the right side of my blog if you like!
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