Become a Blues Diddley Bow Player Today
Posted by blogger on November 6th, 2009
Diddly Bo – Seasick Steve (LWJH S35E05)
Music is meant to be fun. Anybody with an inclination to make music should be able to. Unfortunately we are taught that, in order to make music, you need to study music tablature, learn scales and chords, spend money on expensive musical instruments and practice loads. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Have you ever see any African tribes people dancing to drums? The drummers have never studied at music college. They can’t read music and wouldn’t know a paradiddle if it bit them. But they are certainly having a good time. Making music with the simplest of instruments, often nothing more than a hollow log or a an empty gourd with some lose seeds used as a rattle, is great fun and that is what music is all about.
The Berimbau is a Brazilian instrument that uses only one string that has African roots. Its not surprising to note that the instrument looks like a bow that might be used for hunting. Now this simple instrument is the precursor to pretty much all forms of stringed instrument including guitars, harps and even pianos.
You may have already heard or seen a Diddley Bow. This is an African American folk instrument that uses only one string or wire. These might typically be made by stretching a piece of wire along a length of wood. The string is tensioned with something uses as a bridge and the pitch is varied by fretting the string with a piece of bone, glass or maybe a knife or some other form of slide.
Lonnie Pitchford is one well known Diddley Bow player who would make his Diddley Bows by attaching a wire to an upright on his front porch. Diddley bows were commonly made by poor field workers and share croppers in the Mississippi Delta region.
The sound of the slide and the Diddley bow is very much the sound of the blues. Many of the early blues orginators from the 1920s and 1930s got their start by twanging Diddley Bows. One modern day Diddley bow players who you may have heard of is Seasick Steve. So why not make yourself a simple one string Diddley Bow today and make some music.