Cigar box guitars kinda come in two flavors fret-less and
fretted
Fret-less guitars may be a a little daunting if you have only experience
of “normal” six string guitars
The purpose of this post was just to cover some very basic
things about playing a fret-less cigar box guitar.
The ones I make are build just for slide work with a high action, the note is arrived by placing the slide on the string
with enough pressure to make the note.
Some thing like this.
You don,t want to be trying to do some thing like below though. The the action is too high. Some fret less guitars will have a low action and you may be able to hammer down. With a high action like this though the note will be out of tune and it will probably sound terrible.
Another thing to know is that notes can be picked and made to sound very much like it would on a six string by simply placing the slide on the position of the note and plucking.Think of it as replacing the fret with the slide. With a bit of practice this sounds just like it would if you had fretted a note. If you mix this up with sliding you can can some very good sounds.
To demonstrate check this video out from sea sick Steve.
You get some quick close ups of the neck, first thing to see is the action is about two weeks from the neck second its a broom stick, so not much chance of fretting the strings right down.
Listen to the verses there played with just the slide picking out the notes as I described above
Close you eyes as listen to the sound, quite like a rif being played on a six string right ?
Now check the chorus here Steve changes to slide style.
This is a really good example of how you can use these two techniques to make some really good sounds
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