Writing the Cigar Box Guitar Manifesto

I have been thinking for a while about writing some sort of manifesto, or mission statement, that attempts to sum up what this whole cigar box guitar movement, often referred to as a revolution, is all about. When you really get down to thinking about it, it is not an easy thing to sum up. The people who take part in this come from all over the world, from a wide range of backgrounds. There is no stereotypical cigar box guitar builder, or cigar box guitar player. People build for different reasons, and in many different ways. Some only play CBGs, some only build them, some do both. Some believe in using very traditional methods, others prefer the latest and greatest technology. This range of views and styles makes it very difficult to try to write a document that sums it all up and that most folks can read and say "Yeah, that's it!"

But, I decided to try anyway. You can read the result over at www.CigarBoxGuitar.com. My goal in writing this was to try to answer some key questions that the world at large might be curious about, namely:

• Who are we?
• Where do we come from?
• What do we do?
• Why do we do it?
• How do we do it?
• What are we yet going to do?

You can decide for yourself whether my attempt at a manifesto answers any of these questions. You can also decide for yourself whether it serves any useful purpose at all. For myself, I am glad to have written it. For me, it sums up the core of what got me into this whole thing, and what keeps me in it. It tries to capture that spark of creative joy that I see new builders experience time and time again. It seeks to distill the deep belief that THIS is what music should be like, not some stale, factory-made thing handed down to us mere peons, but a real from-the-roots thing that can spring up wherever a poor boy has a stick, some strings and a box.