Diddly Bo – Seasick Steve (LWJH S35E05)

Music should 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? 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 know how to have a good time. Making music on simple, home made instruments like drums and rattles is what music making is all about.

There is a one stringed Brazilian instrument with African roots called a Berimbau. 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 make have heard of an instrument called a Diddley Bow. This is an easy to make African American one stringed folk instrument. These might be made from nothing more than a plank of wood with a length of wire stretched from end to end. 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 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 popular modern day Diddly bow player is Seasick Steve. So why not knock together a simple Diddley Bow and become a one string virtuoso today.