Meet Bob McNally, Inventer of the Strumstick and Backpacker Guitar

In the modern cigar box guitar and handmade musical instrument movement, we sometimes forget that there were some key innovations, and innovators, that in their own way helped lay the groundwork for the hobby we enjoy today.

At the NAMM show in Anaheim, California in late January, I had the pleasure of getting to know a man who was one of those innovators - Bob McNally. Bob has been involved with creating musical instruments since the early 1980’s, and his inventions influence some of the things we do today with cigar box guitars.

Bob started teaching and repairing guitars in the early 1970’s, and began building instruments in 1973. In the early 1980’s his key creations began taking shape. The first was a small-profile six-string acoustic guitar specifically designed to be easy to take along when hiking and travelling. He called it the Backpacker, and it turns out that people loved it. In 1994 Bob licensed the design to the C. F. Martin company, which still produces the very popular Backpacker guitar.

While the Backpacker was a cool variation on the old acoustic guitar theme, Bob’s next creation struck out into true musical innovation. His goal was to create a stringed instrument that was easy to play and accessible to beginners. After some experimentation with names, scale lengths and number of strings, he came up with the Strumstick - a three-string instrument with diatonic fretting like a dulcimer, but with a neck so it could be held like a guitar. Bob filed for a patent on the Strumstick and it was granted in 1983.

The design of the Strumstick was based on some of the same principles that guide our building of cigar box guitars and other such instruments today - creating a musical instrument that sounds good, looks good, and is both fun and easy to play. Bob McNally struck out in a unique direction from existing instrument designs available in 1980. He combined the basic guitar shape with the fretting scale of the Appalachian dulcimer, and simplified the strings and tuning to a basic 3-string, Open G GDG tuning.

The result was a new, unique musical instrument that was an immediate hit. It was fairly inexpensive, had great tone, and was very accessible and easy to play for beginners.

More recently, Bob has added chromatically fretted models, different scales and tunings (Open D and Open C in addition to the original Open G), and also a ukulele model. He has also released a number of albums under his Handcrafted Recordings label, which have sold over 200,000 total copies.

For many years Bob built all of the instruments himself by hand, and while he now has a person to help him in the wood shop, he still does all of the setups himself. After all of his years in the business, with two groundbreaking instrument inventions to his name, and thousands of instruments build and sold, Bob McNally remains excited, friendly and passionate about music. He was surprised and happy to hear that he was an inspiration to the modern cigar box guitar and handmade music movement, and that there were many people around the world who look up to him and his creations as foundations of what is happening now.

I am currently talking with Bob to figure out ways we can work together, from carrying his Strumsticks in the C. B. Gitty store to him guest-authoring articles for CBGitty.com, CigarBoxGuitar.com and more.