"I've made them out of corrugated iron too: I guess I'm chasing a look as well as a sound and trying to do something a little bit different."īruce also machines his own timber for the necks using mostly Tasmanian timbers. He has also begun making cigar box battery powered amplifiers, and has a collection of various tins on his shelf for future projects. The 'diddley bow', part of the same tradition, is a single stick and string, played as a slide guitar.īruce made the guitars and diddly bow that were played by touring musician Justin Johnson, who performed at Stringfest in Deloraine earlier this year. "Sometimes I think I am getting to far away from the original cigar box tradition, but I have refined them: the necks are better shaped, they become more playable, I put frets on them, and I put tuners for string tension. "If you can get a sound out of something, why not try it and see what happens.
The early origins of the guitar in Southern America saw people take the box and add a stick for a neck with a single string, and they developed from there.Ī look at Bruce's current stock shows the variety and experimental nature of the craft. "The idea behind cigar box guitars is 'there are no rules'. "I just started building cigar box guitars: it was something I had known about for quite some time. "I started because I was always interested in the blues, and I really wanted to learn guitar after 50 odd years, but decided that a six string was a bit beyond my reach, and that a three string guitar would be a lot easier. Tamar Valley craftsman Bruce Trappes has taken to continuing the tradition after discovering their simplicity and particular 'bluesy' quality. The cigar box guitar is a little closer to a regular guitar, with multiple strings, a fret board and a headstock. What is known as a 'diddley bow', a stick and single string played with a slide, is the simplest of all. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the cigar box guitar is one of its many children.īorn out of a desire to make music in the Southern US states, people used what was available. A cigar box guitar, just as the name says, is a guitar made using a wooden cigar box for the body.
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