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The cigar box guitar is an instrument that has fascinated many guitar players, mainly in relation to whether they are real musical instruments. Many people who have learnt how to make a cigar box guitar have done so simply to give their children something to amuse themselves with but the truth is they can make serious music. The origin of the cigar box guitar is in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when there were many people seeking to express themselves through music but could not afford to but real musical instruments. The use of homemade musical instruments like the cigar box guitar had a resurgence in the years of The Great Depression.

The need for improvised musical instruments led to the proliferation of jug bands which gave people the opportunity to play melodies and generate rhythm for dancing using homemade instruments. So musical gatherings featuring washtubs, spoons and kazoos became commonplace in communities all over America. Gourds with guitar necks attached originally provided the basis of homemade guitars but as cigars began to be shipped in small boxes and the boxes were left lying around the house, sooner or later somebody had to try them out as resonators for guitars. The neck for your average cigar box guitar was often a broom handle with one or two strings attached.

If you want to make your own cigar box guitar you will need some basic tools: a box cutter or pocket knife, a hacksaw, a drill, some fine and coarse grade sandpaper. The raw materials for making your guitar are: a cigar box, a one inch by two inch piece of lightweight soft wood (poplar is a good choice), a dozen one inch nails, wood glue, some wood stain and an applicator. To tune your cigar box guitar just buy three tuning pegs from your local musical instruments store. Their are plans available from expert cigar box guitar makers, in fact there is even a Yahoo Group you can join.

Once you have made your three string cigar box guitar you have several options for tuning. These tunings are from bass to treble: A E A, G D G, A E G.

Many guitar legends are supposed to have played cigar box guitars but not many are talking openly about it. Here is an unverified list of reputed cigar box guitar players who have made names for themselves using conventional instruments: Rockabilly legend Carl Perkins, jazz guitarist George Benson, epitome of refinement Ted Nugent plus other noted musicians like BB King and Jimi Hendrix.

There are also guitarists who make and play their cigar box guitars as their sole musical outlet. One cigar box guitar mover and shaker is Shane Speal, the curator of the National Cigar Box Guitar Museum in York, PA. Shane is archiving cigar box guitar history. He has found the earliest known plans for a cigar box banjo (circa 1870), unearthed etchings of Civil War Soldiers playing cigar the box fiddle and owns a genuine dated and signed cigar box violin from 1899.

John Lowe, a musician and bookstore owner from Memphis who makes electric cigar box guitars called Lowebows. They are made from two oak dowel rods, a wooden cigar box, three guitar strings and a bass string. You play Lowebow with a slide. Lowe’s repertoire has everything from Johnny Cash to Iggy Pop. You can find him busking on Beale Street.

Can the venerable Juke Box remain in the digital and MP3 world? The MP3 Jukebox is a available in various types and expressions although still the regular Juke Box is still here.

Juke Box styling came along from the stark plain wood boxes in the early 1930s to bright light displays with plastic and color liveliness in the Rudolf Wurlitzer 850 Peacock juke box of the early 40’s. Unfortunately once the USA government went into the 2nd world war, metal ore as well as plastic were required for the war campaign.

Music juke box output was restricted. The 1943 Wurlitzer 950 juke box sported wooden coin slides to save on on metal alloy. It should also be noted that although the juke box mechanisms were made of metal, they weren’t built during this period, instead, an new console was developed and the inside components of the juke box were positioned into it. As most of the mechanisms were built handmade, many of these juke boxes contained parts which never fit the right way and involved alteration.

The 1943 Wurlitzer Victory console had glass lit panels instead of plastic. After the war, materials were available once again and there was a great expansion in juke box construction. The Bubbler juke box represents the appearance and is arguably the most popular juke box styling of all time. Alot of of these continued in popularity on into the 1950’s in active use and are alternatively associated with the fifties in pop music culture despite their 40s origin, as their unique visual prominence and production volume.

After the ’40s, the juke box trends as a whole went more three-dimensional and techy in appearance, distancing their look from traditional juke box fashions such as ancient Grecian, renaissance, and Gothic architecture designs noticed in the ‘forties model juke boxes.

Music juke boxes of the forties are known as Golden Age because of the yellow catalin plastic. Music juke boxes of the fifties are known as Silver Age because of the predominant chromium-plate design. With the rise of drive in restaurants in the sixties, restaurants wanted to get customers in and out quickly.

Today, the restaurant juke box has been replaced by other forms of amusemententertainment media, yet when you go to a place that still has a juke box, young and old are still attracted to their almost garish styling. The juke box as a mass media device may be dying yet the nostalgia is something that may never leave us.