Diddley Bow anyone?

[rodmbds]

Hi everyone!

I know it's probably "off topic", but I'm moving to another state next year and had my two guitars shipped this week (both arrived safe and sound). But the house felt kind of empty without a musical instrument and so I decided to look for whatever I had around the house and build a diddley bow.

I gathered some stuff and assembled it in about 30 minutes. It took me some more 20 or 30 to (try to) get the "fretboard" and notes right, using a chromatic tuner as a guide.

Played around with it and recorded a video, which I'll post at the end. I have to say it felt great building something from scratch and making it work the best I could.

It didn't have much volume until I attached a plastic cup to it. Again, it was fantastic to experiment and try out different materials.

Now I have much more respect for guitar builders and think will enjoy my guitars even more.

The materials used are in the description but are written in Portuguese. Basically I used a small wood board (leftover from kitchen cabinet), two hooks, a plastic cup, scrap wood for nut, a AA battery as a slide and a piece of nylon string, though it's not a proper guitar string. It cost me $0,00 because everything was lying around anyway.

I liked because it kept being acoustic, without the need of a pickup. But I've seen many diddley bows with steel strings and pickuos online and they are great, maybe in the future I'll try it.

I know it's a first attempt / project, I did it mainly because I had some spare time. Who knows in the future I may try and build an acoustic guitar?



https://youtu.be/ny4w-BeY3i8

[tippy5]

I like the percussive Asian type instrument note attack.

[rodmbds]

Originally Posted by tippy5

I like the percussive Asian type instrument note attack.

My wife said the same thing! Shamisen is the name. Thanks for the comment!