Guitar Collector Forum

Here's something a little different. I heard a guy playing this guitar at a local market, and was so impressed. I wondered over to have a chat and did a deal and bought it on the spot. 2 strings and no frets, and a beautifully turned brass slide...away you go...it's called a Diddly Bow
here's a guy playing a one string version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqgEjSttutk. This instrument is from the grass roots of the delta blues in the southern states of the USA.

What a great video! I've seen a number of different 1 or 2 string instruments in my travels, but never one played like that.

In a Sussex recording studio, the owner had a Japanese instrument with a kind of round bowl and (IIRC) just one rather slack gut string and a fretless neck. You plucked it while sliding and pulling off on the neck and got very Japanese twanging sounds out of it.

I also have memories of when I was at school and a teacher demonstrated a strange single-stringed bowed instrument that had no body, but a neck with two pads that you head between your knees (seated) to play... and a brass horn!

I love these quirky, unusual instruments and it's great to actually see them played.


PS: I've also got a 4-string mandolin that I bought in Nepal (I think). Nice to look at, but impossible to keep in tune and pretty much unplayable!

Of course, having remembered this I just had to look it up. Isn't Google fantastic?