Do any other members play drums, before they started in with cigar boxes and diddley bows?

If so does it have any influence on the way you approach the guitars?

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yes to the first question and no to the second. and i dont consider myself to be a good drummer

I've been playing drums since 1982. I knew nothing of scale lengths or different tunings or even that you could have a working guitar with less than six strings. I have a degree in music, but you don't learn everything in college. I learned a lot from Glenn Kaiser at one of his workshops. Like many members, I continue to learn things here at the nation.
I'm not sure that being a drummer effects my approach to building or playing CBGs. I didn't have lots of guitar knowledge before I started building. I owned a cheap six string guitar and I could strum chords, but that was about it.
I must say that playing slide guitar has really improved my listening skills and my ability to play in tune.

I been playing 2 years more than you then mate! I started when I was living in Peckham in 1980...and I know nothing of scales let alone scale lengths LOL

I find myself creating riffs and forms on the diddley bow very much the same as I would do with my bass/snare/hi hats, variations on the same shape etc, on the beat, off the beat, across the beat, 3 over 4 etc. And I see the diddley bow as percussive 1st "melodic" 2nd. I have always been one tgo use a small stripped down kit (bass/snare/hi hats/ride/crash-very rarely anything more sometimes a second set of hats to the right) What wto many would be a limitation (only 2 strings) is for me a chance to be more creative

Interesting you mentioned Glenn Kaiser. I got his acoustic cd of him and Darrly Mansfield probaly around 1992 or 94? doing the gospel classics, keep your lamp trimmed, you gonna need somebody on your bond, no body's fault but mine etc. That was the first time I played a guitar, alongside that cd. I had heard R L Burnsides and Napoeon Strickland, but didnt attempt to play along with them ...that has come later.

You playing diddley bow with a pick (like Justin Johnson) or with a stick (like Seasick Steve)?

Most of the time its my thumb and finger (the one right next to my thumb) I mostly use 2 stringers at the moment. Sometimes my thumb plays both strings down stroke mini strum, sometimes alternately, likewise the pointy finger pickes upwards, sometimes one or the other or a mini strum, theres a tremndous amount of variation possible, especially when you include dynamics, the way you bring the slide on, how much you slide, how much you stop and damp, include harmonic accents etc etc etc. I like to bounce the strings too sometimes to get a choppy percussive effect (LOL my diddleys have a "high" action), microtonal scalle effects and so forth. Plus I like the direct feel of touching the strings, I also dont seem to get tired as I do if I use a plecktrum (usually only on the 1 string bass diddley)

I have used sticks too, I made 3, 1 12 inch oak (quite dense) 1 12 inch cedar (much lighter) and 1 ash (heavy, but thin and long almost like a conductors stick which I made for an electric berimbau, still working on that to get a decentish sound. Instead of a gourd body, it has a tin can with a large cap piezo attached to the bow end. Still needs some R&D LOL (sounds ROUGH at this stage)

I am designing a new build diddley- 3 strings-1 bass, 2 normal, twin pickups, twin outputs, one piece body/neck/head from beech worktops (counter tops). And I have it in mind to build an electric Ngoni with 8 or possibly 10 strings, with 2 pickups set vertically, similar to a kora harp.

I play my diddley bow with a stick.

I've got brass from a .45 caliber round glued onto the end of the stick. Greatly increases the tone and gives a nice balanced feel for rhythmic work.

 I use a set of electronic v-drums on recordings, it would be impossible to use acoustic drums in my situation, maybe if i lived in a bungalow in the middle of a field, but they are easy to mike up and i can practice whenever i like, drumming does help with music experience overall, as with most things there is a lot to it if you do it properly - even bass! ;-)

Did you play guitar for a while before you played drums? I had a set of roland e drums for about 5 or 6 years. They are great for ease of practising without annoying wife and kids or the neighbours, and you can switch to different kits/EQ/efx etc in an instant without having to set up/tear down. BUT the thing I missed was the acoustic quality of real drums and (especially) real bronze cymbals, the feel of them, how you can make them whistle and so forth when you mix them. And I am a soft hitter (I rarley use sticks and even then only 7a jazz sticks, and prefer vic firth brushes generally). Its a true test to play quietly with brushes and still have a tight intensity to the sound. So any way I sold the roland and went back to yamaha drums and sabian/diril cymbals. I made a stomp box drum, not good sound with it yet.

yes i had a set of Pearl drums set up in the dining room but they made the house shake, but yes the cymbals sounded amazing :-)

i converted a set of cheap acoustic drums to v-drums using piezos as triggers with a Roland TD-12...

That is fascinating, Is that your current kit? Looks like regular hi hats? That was what made me decide to ditch the e drums, the hi hat was just a round 2 zone pad. To get a "proper" e hi hat was like £200+ or something I thought this is crazy, I could get some real decent used sabian hi hats and a good microphone for that money, AND at the end of the day the e hi hats would still never be the real thing.

But you got the best of both worlds on this. those peiezos get in everywhere...As I understand it e cymbals have improved a lot, but for me they were always the weak point of my roland kit. I think my brain was TD7?? Since starting in with diddley bows etc, I realised how easy it is to create a pickup, and how much the manufacturers were ripping off to charge so much for such a cheap and simple thing.  Do you stick the piezos to the heads or the shells? Do you get problems with say tom 1 interfering with tom 2 (cross talk)?

yes the hi hats were expensive but used them quite regularly for several years on my recordings, don't know if it would survive the rigours of live travelling but very well made.

the piezos are mounted beneath a rubber cone set just touching the head mounted on a metal bar..

no "cross talk"

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