•3:11 PM
In Peanuts Guide to Life, the collection of one-frame wisdoms of Charlie, Lucy and Linus, cartoonist Charles Schultz advises, "As soon as a child is born, he or she should be issued a new dog and a banjo." Good advice for anyone wanting the right start. The idea begs two questions though-what kind of dog and which type of banjo? The answer to the first is obvious, it's a beagle. The second answer concerning the right banjo is a little more elusive.
Banjos are made from a host of materials, metal and wood primarily, with some plastics and combinations using each. There are also banjos made from other instruments like ukuleles, guitars or mandolins. It seems there are more banjo types than dog types. One banjo uses a bass in a standup version that is definitely far more than just a drumhead with strings, often the very definition of banjo. String quantities are another wide variable, with one, three, four, five, six or ten. Many of these combinations use open backs, others use closed backs, some with pickups for amplification, others without pickups. The combinations available can boggle your mind.
One type that is often overlooked, though, is the cigar box banjo, which seems strange because the cigar box banjo has often been the very root of a banjo player's life experience. These are relatively simple instruments to make, either from scratch or assembled from a banjo kit containing the basic components-either way, scratch or kit is then subject to the user's own creative imagination during the fabrication process. But don't let this relative simplicity fool you into thinking that cigar box banjos lack a quality sound. Like anything else, the quality of the sound and the playability of the instrument are in direct proportion to your commitment to excellence during the building process.
Mark Twain had some experience with the banjo sound. He recognized that what to some was painful and piercing was plunky hollow and incisive to others. "Good sounding banjo" was a relative term dependent on the music and the hearer as much as on the instrument. Twain also remarked that a gentleman was a person who knows how to play a banjo but doesn't. He recognized that the experience of banjo playing and that inimitable sound couldn't be matched. The cigar box banjo doesn't play quite as loud as a conventional banjo. With care and craftsmanship, many players use the cigar box to create a deeper and mellower sound.
Many well known banjo players and many well known people who are not so well known for their banjo playing got their first exposure to making music with a cigar box instrument. Freddie Hart, whose 1971 country hit "Easy Lovin'" peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, grew up in Loachapoka, Alabama in a large, sharecropping family of fifteen children. He got started musically by cobbling out a cigar box instrument using strings made of wire from the copper coil of a Model T Ford.
For others, the roots of their iconic musical style were developed from the very rudiments of instrument making, creating what would scarcely be considered a musical instrument today. Jim Reeves, the youngest of nine children, made his first instrument from a cigar box and rubber bands. Stringbean Akerman made his first banjo from a shoebox with thread from his mother's sewing kit.
Carl Sandburg, "the American Bard", tried his hand at a willow whistle, than a comb with paper over it, a tin fife, a flageolet (a type of wooden flute), and an ocarina. Another example of one far more famous as a writer than a banjo player, nevertheless played his own brand of music, especially early in his life. His first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where he cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires himself. He claimed to play none of these instruments well, but each of them, and in his view, especially the cigar box banjo, helped define who he really was.
What ties all these folks together is their gift of originality, the minutest part of that originality may have been sparked by these early-in-life experiences. But if you can in the minutest way identify with that experience, then my work here is done. Now that we have the banjo, let's go get a beagle.
Banjos are made from a host of materials, metal and wood primarily, with some plastics and combinations using each. There are also banjos made from other instruments like ukuleles, guitars or mandolins. It seems there are more banjo types than dog types. One banjo uses a bass in a standup version that is definitely far more than just a drumhead with strings, often the very definition of banjo. String quantities are another wide variable, with one, three, four, five, six or ten. Many of these combinations use open backs, others use closed backs, some with pickups for amplification, others without pickups. The combinations available can boggle your mind.
One type that is often overlooked, though, is the cigar box banjo, which seems strange because the cigar box banjo has often been the very root of a banjo player's life experience. These are relatively simple instruments to make, either from scratch or assembled from a banjo kit containing the basic components-either way, scratch or kit is then subject to the user's own creative imagination during the fabrication process. But don't let this relative simplicity fool you into thinking that cigar box banjos lack a quality sound. Like anything else, the quality of the sound and the playability of the instrument are in direct proportion to your commitment to excellence during the building process.
Mark Twain had some experience with the banjo sound. He recognized that what to some was painful and piercing was plunky hollow and incisive to others. "Good sounding banjo" was a relative term dependent on the music and the hearer as much as on the instrument. Twain also remarked that a gentleman was a person who knows how to play a banjo but doesn't. He recognized that the experience of banjo playing and that inimitable sound couldn't be matched. The cigar box banjo doesn't play quite as loud as a conventional banjo. With care and craftsmanship, many players use the cigar box to create a deeper and mellower sound.
Many well known banjo players and many well known people who are not so well known for their banjo playing got their first exposure to making music with a cigar box instrument. Freddie Hart, whose 1971 country hit "Easy Lovin'" peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, grew up in Loachapoka, Alabama in a large, sharecropping family of fifteen children. He got started musically by cobbling out a cigar box instrument using strings made of wire from the copper coil of a Model T Ford.
For others, the roots of their iconic musical style were developed from the very rudiments of instrument making, creating what would scarcely be considered a musical instrument today. Jim Reeves, the youngest of nine children, made his first instrument from a cigar box and rubber bands. Stringbean Akerman made his first banjo from a shoebox with thread from his mother's sewing kit.
Carl Sandburg, "the American Bard", tried his hand at a willow whistle, than a comb with paper over it, a tin fife, a flageolet (a type of wooden flute), and an ocarina. Another example of one far more famous as a writer than a banjo player, nevertheless played his own brand of music, especially early in his life. His first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where he cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires himself. He claimed to play none of these instruments well, but each of them, and in his view, especially the cigar box banjo, helped define who he really was.
What ties all these folks together is their gift of originality, the minutest part of that originality may have been sparked by these early-in-life experiences. But if you can in the minutest way identify with that experience, then my work here is done. Now that we have the banjo, let's go get a beagle.
About the Author:
email me at walker@papasboxes.com and I'll send you a follow up with photos. Or you can get additional information with fabrication details here
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