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Youtube guitar sensation, Samurai Guitarist has just published a new video featuring "ridiculous" instruments he purchased on Etsy.  One of those instruments just happened to be a C. B. Gitty one-string Canjo!  The canjo was actually the instrument that spawned the entire C. B. Gitty Crafter Supply Company and the Samurai Guitarist (real name, Steve Onotera) shows its potential as a unique voice within a song. (Fast forward the video to the 9:20 mark to hear it in the s …

We recently got to know Scott & Betsy Heron of the duo, Green Heron at a gig up here in New Hampshire. Since then, they've appeared on the Gitty Gang show a few times and have quickly become good friends.When we created the 2021 Musical Mutants Build-Off Contest, they jumped right in and created their own double-instrument hybrid.   The only way we can introduce this instrument is to play the video first.  It features the trad music duo somehow pulling a fantastic tune out of this …

In the early days of musical recordings, singers and instruments needed to be loud and direct enough to project the music in the acoustic horns or primitive recording equipment.  The violin, in particular, was an instrument that needed extra help to make its way onto the wax cylindars.  In 1899, electrical engineer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, patented a violin that used a bridge that excited an internal membrane which was fed into a brass horn.  The sound was more piercing …

Unbeknownst to most historians Hawaiian music was all the rage during the Steampunk Era.  Introducing the Phono-Uke, a wild instrument created by Benand Nellie for our 2021 Musical Mutant Build-Off.  Nellie says, I call it a 'Phono-Uke'. The idea came from several late night discussions with a ukulele/ gramophone enthusiast friend of mine and it's made from an old battered cornet, a gramophone soundbox and some scrapwood.Hear it in action...twice...with this throwback demo video f …

We were so excited about the all new Gittybucker thin cigar box guitar pickups, we sent one down to Shane Speal for him to test it out.  Little did we know he'd create an entire guitar around a single pickup!  Check out the video he sent:The guitar is of a simple design: just a stick through a box.  This is the same guitar Speal demonstrates, step-by-step in his book, Making Poor Man's Guitars.  (We have copies for sale here.)  He made us a second video showing …