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.
There are probably more variations of banjos than there are breeds of dogs. Okay, a banjo is a drumhead with strings, right. But, in reality, a host of high quality banjo types exist, some made entirely from wood, or metal, or plastic, others put together with varying combinations of each. They can also grow out of combinations with other instruments-ukuleles, guitars, mandolins; one stand up type I've seen even uses a bass. Playable banjos can also be made with one, three, four, five, six, even ten strings, with or without pickups, and open-backed or close-backed. Add it all up and you have a mind boggling power of 10.
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.
In the beginner's experience, the banjo sound can move from painful and piercing to plunky hollow and incisive. A tuned banjo with a pleasant sound heard in one player's ear can be heard as an annoyance by another. Mark Twain once remarked that the sound produced coupled with the unmatched experience of playing one made the banjo an instrument that could not be imitated. Perhaps thinking of that pleasant to one, irritating to another banjo sound, Twain also famously said that a gentleman is a person who knows how to play a banjo but doesn't. As most gentleman players have experienced, the sound of a cigar box banjo is deeper and mellower, and, unamplified, is not as loud. "Good sounding banjo" becomes a subjective term dependent more on the music being played than on the instrument itself.
"Easy Lovin'" was a 1971 country hit that peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard chart by Freddie Hart. Hart was one of many well known people who are not so well known for their banjo playing, but got their first exposure to making music with a cigar box instrument. He grew up in Loachapoka, Alabama in a large, sharecropping family of fifteen children. Freddie said 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.
Other artists used the very rudiments of instrument making as the root of their iconic musical style, creating what would shunned by many today as less than basic musical instruments. Stringbean Akerman made his first banjo from a shoebox and stings made using thread from his mother's sewing kit. Jim Reeves, the youngest of nine children, made his first instrument from a cigar box and rubber bands.
Many who had no claim to playing any instrument well experimented early with cigar box banjos. Carl Sandburg, recognized as the American Bard, tried his hand at a willow whistle, then a comb with paper over it, a tin fife, a flageolet (a type of wooden flute), and an ocarina before developing his own brand of music early in life using the banjo. He is quoted as saying, "My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself", and these experiences helped define who he really was.
Only the minutest part of their gift of originality may be what ties these artists together, and these early-in-life experiences being the spark that kindled that originality. But if you can identify in the minutest way with that experience, than my work here is done. Are you ready now to go find a beagle?
There are probably more variations of banjos than there are breeds of dogs. Okay, a banjo is a drumhead with strings, right. But, in reality, a host of high quality banjo types exist, some made entirely from wood, or metal, or plastic, others put together with varying combinations of each. They can also grow out of combinations with other instruments-ukuleles, guitars, mandolins; one stand up type I've seen even uses a bass. Playable banjos can also be made with one, three, four, five, six, even ten strings, with or without pickups, and open-backed or close-backed. Add it all up and you have a mind boggling power of 10.
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.
In the beginner's experience, the banjo sound can move from painful and piercing to plunky hollow and incisive. A tuned banjo with a pleasant sound heard in one player's ear can be heard as an annoyance by another. Mark Twain once remarked that the sound produced coupled with the unmatched experience of playing one made the banjo an instrument that could not be imitated. Perhaps thinking of that pleasant to one, irritating to another banjo sound, Twain also famously said that a gentleman is a person who knows how to play a banjo but doesn't. As most gentleman players have experienced, the sound of a cigar box banjo is deeper and mellower, and, unamplified, is not as loud. "Good sounding banjo" becomes a subjective term dependent more on the music being played than on the instrument itself.
"Easy Lovin'" was a 1971 country hit that peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard chart by Freddie Hart. Hart was one of many well known people who are not so well known for their banjo playing, but got their first exposure to making music with a cigar box instrument. He grew up in Loachapoka, Alabama in a large, sharecropping family of fifteen children. Freddie said 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.
Other artists used the very rudiments of instrument making as the root of their iconic musical style, creating what would shunned by many today as less than basic musical instruments. Stringbean Akerman made his first banjo from a shoebox and stings made using thread from his mother's sewing kit. Jim Reeves, the youngest of nine children, made his first instrument from a cigar box and rubber bands.
Many who had no claim to playing any instrument well experimented early with cigar box banjos. Carl Sandburg, recognized as the American Bard, tried his hand at a willow whistle, then a comb with paper over it, a tin fife, a flageolet (a type of wooden flute), and an ocarina before developing his own brand of music early in life using the banjo. He is quoted as saying, "My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself", and these experiences helped define who he really was.
Only the minutest part of their gift of originality may be what ties these artists together, and these early-in-life experiences being the spark that kindled that originality. But if you can identify in the minutest way with that experience, than my work here is done. Are you ready now to go find 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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