Musical Instrument Inventions and Designs: Don Rickert

The Prodigal String Band Playing one of Don Rickert's Creations

Love this video. Suspect that it will really irritate some of the the people who irritate us as well, but that is not the intent of showing the video. By the way, the electric cigar box fiddle is the instrument Don Designed.

Cigar Box Fiddles Antique Style

Several years ago we observed a trend having to do with musical instruments made from cigar boxes. Most of the the activity has to do with cigar box guitars, but fiddles and other instruments as well. The part of the trend that we are keenly interested in is cigar box fiddles.

Cigar box fiddles have a history going back at least 150 years. The Spanish "Cedar" (not really cedar, but a hardwood that smells like cedar) cigar box was introduced in the 1840s, and there were plenty of discarded ones around by the 1850s. There is pretty good evidence that home made cigar box fiddles were common among soldiers during the American Civil War. The prevailing theory is that it was members of segregated or predominantly Irish regiments (one hears the Illinois regiments mentioned frequently), who were familiar with making fiddles from found objects such as ham tins, who invented the cigar box fiddle. Bottom line: It was probably a "Yank" (Union or Federal soldier, depending on which side you were on) who invented the cigar box fiddle, but they were quickly adopted by both sides.

To find out more about cigar box fiddles and their origin, see the Introduction to Cigar Box Fiddles information page at the Rickert & Ringholz Musical Instruments blog. To find out about antique-style cigar box fiddles in particular, see the Cigar Box Fiddles Old School page.

The cigar box fiddles designed by Don Rickert are "authentic" except that they sound really good, uncommon for cigar box fiddles. Various Rickert & Ringholz Musical Instruments variations are shown below. Click on any thumbnail image for a full-size view.

 

 

Antique Style Cigar Box Fiddles being Played

Here are two video photo montages, one showcasing Rickert & Ringholz Cigar Box Fiddles themselves and one of people playing them. The audio tracks (Soldier's Joy and Napoleon Crossing the Rhine) are performed on Rickert & Ringholz instruments.