What's a 3 string Cigar Box Guitar? It can take your playing back to the roots of early Delta Blues

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• Description : To learn more http://cigar-box-guit...(more)ar-history-museum.com/ visit that place, you'll be wowzered! It's the Delta Tramp....time for a test run.....yep...it sounds like the Delta Blues! Store bought???........... Nope! Lame old 6 string??? ................definitely not! boring China made guitar?..............Hell no! This is American simplicity! The Cigar Box guitar is the only thing that can deliver! Hey, Just Google "Red Dog Guitars!" In this video I play an old fashioned 3 string homemade cigarbox guitar. Many of the Legends of Blues and Country music got there start in music on simple 3 and 4 string homemade guitars. It's why thier music was so distinctive and it's a sound that CANNOT be made on a 6 string guitar or modern acoustic. You'll immediately hear many familiar sounds that have seeped into our modern music, the origins of these tonal qualities are not found on regular 6 string guitars....The reason is simple, in a 6 string guitar, the octaves repeat even when you don't pluck certain strings as you play and slide up and down the notes compete with the open strings, by moving from string to string you lose the long vibrato which is key for a"bluesy" sound that is only capable on 4 strings or less. Also, with 3 or 4 strings you can achieve that "slack" sound that provides the dissonance that is distinctly "folksy' or "early American" without using European 6 string(Spanish) guitar scales, chords and voicings. Early American music is derived from the banjo (4string) whereas modern 6 string music is tuned and derived from the Spanish guitar. For Blues, 4 string is the root, that's why it's is difficult to recreate on a 6 string. That's also the reason why when you hear a simple blues licks played on a guitar with 6 strings it just doesn't "quite" sound authintic, even if you made it with a 6 string cigar box guitar, it still will not sound like folk music did 100 years ago, it will sound modern....Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and all those guitarsligers sound great, yes, and yes there music is found in the "Blues" section of the music store, but there not really playing anything that would be truly defined as "The Blues". As for me I really like the that primitive gritty homespun sound and that's why I follow tradition and build 3 and 4 string guitars. That truly vintage sound will never happen with a 6 string neck or something bought in the store, it will sound too sanitary, generic and precise....there's nothing wrong with a great store bought or 6 string guitar, but that misses the point of trying to recreate what might have been played 100 years ago. That "Delta Blues" airiness that you hear come from the musics simplicity, it's not suppose to be complicated, over refined, lickity split fretted notes, beefed up high power, or masked with effects. A great cigar box guitar is just strum'n acoustic or plug n' play....plus, hey for the guitarits, what more could be easier than playing simple slide guitar with a pluck here and there??? It's basically one finger guitar!...Just connect the dots in your mind up and down the strings as you play, add slide and you've got that sound you've been after all those years but just couldn't never find it no matter what 6 string guitar you've played . That is the key and link to the Delta Blues that has long been forgotten in the mass market guitar world. (less)