Play a Diddley Bow Like Seasick Steve
Diddly Bo – Seasick Steve (LWJH S35E05)
Music should always be fun. It should be easy for anyone with almost any level of aptitude to make some form of music. 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? These drummers will never have studied drumming at college. They obviously can’t read music and wouldn’t know a scale or chord if it hit them on the head. 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.
There is a one stringed Brasilian instrument called a Berimbau that has African roots. The instrument looks very much 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 easy to make African American one stringed folk instrument. These might typically be made by stretching a piece of wire along a length of wood. The string is made taught with a bridge of some kind, maybe a can, and then fretted with a slide, often a knife, piece of bone or bottleneck.
One notable Diddley bow player, Lonnie Pitchford, would make his Diddley Bows by attaching a wire to a vertical support beam on the front porch of his house. Making simple diddley bows by attaching a wire to the side of a house or shack was a common way that poor share croppers and field workers would make instruments in the Mississippi Delta region.
The sound of the Diddley Bow is very much the sound of the blues. Many of the early blues greats got their start in the 1920s and 1930s by playing Diddley Bows. One popular modern day Diddly bow player is Seasick Steve. So why not make yourself a simple one string Diddley Bow today and make some music.
