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Which is the easist CBG to learn to play.

I have been struggling to learn the CBG. Is the fretless slide, fretted fingering / finger picking or just strumming with chords the easiest way to learn. I am not making much progress with the slide. I have no previous music experience

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on October 23, 2013 at 2:55pm

Which is why I said one string D-bow or canjo as the simplest.The only things you have to worry about are 1 string, and where to put the slide. In the Middle Ages, beginning in about the ninth century, Gregorian chant and mathematical musical relationships were taught to monks using a monochord: essentially a diddley bow, but with a sheep intestine string suspended between two wooden bridges, above a large (some of them were 8 ft long!) resonating box. It was played with either a wooden dowel, or a leg or jawbone, lightly riding on the string, just like a modern slide instrument. The notes were marked at specific places on the resonating box. There is a woman in the UK that builds modern replica models of these teaching devices:

http://www.trombamarina.com/instruments/monochord

Many of the early blues musicians reported learning the rudiments of music the same way; Elmore James and earlier blues greats reported stringing a piece of wire on the wall or corner of a shack, using one bottle as a bridge, and another as the slide, creating a gigantic diddley bow from their own houses!

If it was good enough for ninth century monks and early twentieth century Mississippi slave descendants and sharecropping farmers to learn the rudiments of music, note intervals, pitch, etc., then it should be good enough for someone with "no previous music experience." Or, do like the kids in elementary schools where the music programs haven't suffered budget cuts, and get a cheap Yamaha recorder and a xylophone. Teach yourself notes and the intervals between them. Then apply that to a d-bow, strum stick or canjo. Try dulcimer tuning on a one-string canjo. Then add two more strings. Then go to frets. One of the things that causes people "with no previous music experience" not to stick with guitar is the complications of too many strings to think about, painfully developing calluses, getting finger pressure just right in the right spot behind frets, and learning to manipulate the fingers both individually, and in concert. This can blow people's minds. Which is precisely why the Loog 3-stringer was designed for kids. Start simple, learn the basics work up to complex. You can't get any simpler stringed instrument than a one stringer. Watch Jack White build an electrified diddley bow in about 3 minutes in the documentary, "It Might Get Loud:"

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dZNk76_4lds&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3...

Simple. You can make music with it. Leave off the pickup first.

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on October 23, 2013 at 3:14pm

i gotta agree with the fretless crowd .

or a d-bow as easiest to learn .

as for fretted , a ducli scale is easiest to learn .

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Permalink Reply by Jim Woods on October 24, 2013 at 8:28am

I would say for most, a diatonic fretted 3 string tuned Gdg. Strumming all & fretting only the thin string makes all the notes "good", easy to sound out simple, childhood & nice sounding improvised songs immediately & learn about intervals looking at the one string. Like the didley bow in that respect, but a much fuller sound. The challenge beginners will have with unfretted necks is getting a decent sound because of too many wrong places to put the slide. I know that CBG have "no rules", but part of music is physics, which has definite rules.

I have given several CBGs to friends and find the slide is too foreign for many beginners to find easy success with.