Gadget Master

Fancy building your own Diddley Bow electric slide guitar (or "monochord zither" as my ethnomusicologist father would call it)?

Instructables has a cool project for building one of the Southern States guitars. You'll soon be beating out a rhythm on the single string, changing the pitch with a bottle slide...

Wikipedia describes them:

The diddley bow is typically homemade, consisting usually of a wooden board and a single wire string stretched between two screws, and played by plucking while varying the pitch with a metal or glass slide held in the other hand. The diddley bow has traditionally been considered an "entry-level" instrument, normally played by adolescent boys, who then graduate to a "normal" guitar if they show promise on the diddley bow.

Instructables splits the project into five steps:

• Supplies
• Setting up the String(s)
• Wiring the pickup
• Placing the pickup
• Play it

Read them in more detail >>

And for alternative build instructions, you can always check out One String Willioe, at www.onestringwillie.com/