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Permalink Reply by Mr.C on August 31, 2014 at 5:41pm

Rat check out the vid I just posted

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on August 31, 2014 at 5:41pm

Got ya a wah! Awesome Smilingdog! Definitely hear a jam coming on! So have ya played your harmonica threw it yet???

Mark Bliss, totally cool your opening yourself up to new musical interests.

Diversity in the forms of music preformed on CGB's is the answer. A continued increase of complexity will keep this idea from becoming stagnant. I've listened to quite a few of the vids posted on this site from over the years. For the better part there is a pattern of playing that's persistent. Especially on slide orientated songs. In itself this pattern is a well defined musical genre. However a heavy influence of a single musical style associated with an instrument will profile that instrument with a single sound. If this is the case then the only people who will have an interest in CBGs will be those who like that genre. What is needed is more people to play the style of music they liked before they learned of CGBs.
The place best to display a diversity with these instruments is CGB fests. Getting the average person interested in a CGB would increase sales and musical participation. To get these results would take planning. It would be the job of a fest promoter to seek out a diversity of styles when putting a program together. To have someone leave a fest and think. "I can play the style of music I like on one of these." Should be a goal. Because this response will increase participation and interest in CGBs. Participation will increase audiences at fests. larger audiences increase venue profits. It's a cycle of creating then fulfilling a need.

With this in mind I can see a future of genre centered CGB fests. As long as each style of music is drawing in a profitable audience size there would be no shortage of venues.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 1, 2014 at 6:35am

l've run CBG festivals, and will continue to do so...but if spreading the word and developing the genre is your aim...it isn't the way forward, just in the same way as CBN services a relatively small niche in the musical world. Both are relatively inward looking entities, attracting a clique of enthusiasts, and generally having little appeal to the wider public. 

CBG fests and CBN are great, but if you want to spread the word, you have to go out into the wide world and preach not to the converted, but to the heathen masses who know little of the Book of Three Strings and the Gospel According To Shane. If you are lucky and you are a good promoter, a CBG fest will attract a couple of hundred people. I've just spent 3 days at folk festival, performing, teaching and selling, where there were thousands of people hungry for new music..and willing to pay good money to take my guitars home with them...you've got to get in with the movers and shakers, the people who make things happen and play on the same stage as some big names, then people will take notice. Anyway, enough of this, I've got dinner to get ready for my family, then get ready for a live radio broadcast tonight and start getting prepped for another two festivals this coming weekend. Another 1000 miles in the road and 4 countries to travel through...that's my job, and also why I don't spend that much time on here.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on September 1, 2014 at 6:45am

I do want to add to my observation. To help clarify something. The genre of music played in most of the videos on this site is a viable and existing form with no faults. It happens to be easy to learn on a non fretted instrument played with a slide. Changes in string tuning changes the notations. Still within the same genre of music. Simply put, there's nothing wrong with it. These same playing techniques could be applied to a major scale. A major scale would allow the player to perform both country and bluegrass. Three music genres could be represented playing on the same open tuning.

I've only been to two CBG fests. The majority of music performed was blues or blues orientated. Diversity is key to expanding the interest in these wonderful instruments.

Pop music has always been mind numbing. From it's beginning. The same thing repeated over and over again. For hours on a radio. You can hear that as early as the Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra years. I was fortunate enough to start listening to rock and roll in the mid 70's. It was nothing to hear bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Steely Dan, The Who and Yes. Played one after the other. No one can argue that any of these bands sound alike.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on September 1, 2014 at 7:08am

Chickenbone John, I wasn't able to read your post before I posted. Still disagree. Any instrument associated with a single musical style is doomed to stagnation. Take the violin. It's a limited voiced instrument. However it's played in classical, jazz, bluegrass, country and rock. It has a wide range appeal thus a large number of people willing to play it. Then there's the accordion. A SGB is a guitar. Weather it has one or twelve strings it's a guitar. An extremely versatile instrument. Yes, there are plenty of people out there who like the blues. There's more people out there who like everything else. A twelve year old kid who listens to rock and roll isn't going to ask mom and dad for a blues orientated CBG.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 1, 2014 at 7:38am

Rat,

I try to play my music. It reeks of other peoples' influence, yet is uniquely my own. It spans genres. It appeals to a very limited number of people here at CBN and elsewhere, I suspect because it is NOT exclusively blues, although it is blues-based. There's plenty of rock, both soft and hard, as well as country, bluegrass, jazz, and yes, even blues, in my playing. It does not bother me that I am not appealing to hundreds, much less thousands. My primary audience, initially, is me. If I'm pleased and happy, then maybe a few other people will get where I'm coming from. CBJ is in a different, though related, place than I. Or you. Or several thousand other people on this and other sites. He puts his money where his mouth is, building hundreds of gits, teaching, touring and playing. By virtue of this deep experience, he is worth listening to. The CBG can definitely be played across styles and genres. I try to do that as much as possible. Others go other ways. It's all good.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on September 1, 2014 at 12:30pm

Bullseye!

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 1, 2014 at 8:57am

Blue Rat, what did I say that you disagree with? As regards the single musical style thing..last month I played Birmingham Jazz Festival, over the last 3 days I played and taught at a folk festival (alongside Richard Thompson, The Waterboys, and Johnny Marr...oh and another guy turned up backstage too...Robert Plant..I think he was in a famous rock band...no apologies for name-dropping, I've worked hard over the past 8 years or so to get there), in 10 minutes time I'm doing a radio interview on an Americana music programme, Friday I'm in Belgium at a Rock 'n' Roll festival, Saturday in Holland at a CBG Fest...and been asked by the dance directer of Birmingham Royal Ballet to do a workshop and blues night at a club he runs...now you can't get much more eclectic and varied than that can you?  The point is, in order to spread the word you need out to the people who have never seen or heard a cigar box guitar..beyond the small confines of this little internet forum. I'm out of here, got a show to do.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 1, 2014 at 9:43am

Just finished the radio interview..they played Mike Snowden, Shane Speal and The Budrows plus a track from me

By the way..this is Moseley Folk Festival yesterday..jamming at my booth with Francois Bignon, a French bass player, who plays for Beorma Morris dancers...that's pretty eclectic I think.

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Permalink Reply by smilingdog1 on September 1, 2014 at 10:36am

Who's this colorful guy sitting next to you here?

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on September 2, 2014 at 9:00pm

He's a French double bass maker called Francois Bignon, and plays a cigar box short scale bass (made by me) with a group of Morris dancers.  It's a traditional English dance thing which goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. This particular group are part of a new revival of dance groups (or "sides" as they are more correctly called...there are men and women the group, whereas up until recently Morris dancing has been an all-male preserve. The tattered clothes and ribbons are trad..although the day-glo colours aren't, and they have adopted the ancient practice of wearing  black-face. Some people find that a bit difficult to understand as it's not blacking-up in the "blackface minstrel" style. It was traditionally used as a disguise, as dancers would often make mock of the upper classes and demand money for their performances. It certainly fooled me when he approached me, as I totally didn't recognise him..it was only when I heard his French accent that I realise who it was behind the out of context costume and make-up. Here they are in small group format performing one of their dances..at Sarehole Mill..which is the place that JRR Tolkien used as the basis for the mill at Hobbiton in The Lord of The Rings.

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Permalink Reply by smilingdog1 on September 1, 2014 at 10:34am

True Chickenbone and you have a great influence on what we've done with the build your own workshop, wonderful element at our fest. I can see you in the few clips posted how you get around and from what you shared and I'm sure you are making that connection out there. But that's not for everybody. We all have different levels of interest that we invest into these CBG's. However, small fest and low budget common folk having fun without the media is fine too. It's the combination of this site, small venues around the world and larger ones as well. I take my CBG's to work where hundreds of colleagues learn about the CBG. A huge corporation that now has to reschedule it's June events around our fest because we draw so many workers to it each year. Small fund raisers help spread the news also. My point is, I believe all the above has a hand in it.

I'd love to have big name draws play our fest, I'm just not sure we can afford them! But we do introduce the CBG to hundreds of newbies each year.

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