Play a Diddley Bow Today

Shed Diddley Bow

Music should be fun. Really, anybody who wants to make music should be capable of doing so. 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 this isn’t true.

Have you ever see any African tribes people dancing to drums? The drummers have never studied at music college. They obviously can’t read music and wouldn’t know a scale or chord if it hit them on the head. But they’re having 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 Brasilian instrument called a Berimbau 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 be made from nothing more than a plank of wood with a length of wire stretched from end to end. 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, a well known exponent of the Diddley Bow would make his one stringed instruments by attaching a wire to the vertical support of his front porch. In fact, making Diddley Bows in this manner, by attaching a piece of wire (often fence wire or broom wire) to a house or shack, was common practice amongst the poor workers living 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 exponent of this simple instrument is Seasick Steve. So why not make yourself a simple one string Diddley Bow today and make some music.

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