Turtle Shell Guitar...

Looks like it has been a couple of years since I constructed a homemade instrument. Last things I made were a run of BOAT PADDLE GUITARS. On a recent visit to Chicago Katie gave me this turtle shell. With COVID concerns we had driven up there instead of flying so as flying in recent years has been kind of a bare bones bad bus trip kind of thing I had room to transport this shell safely back to Texas.  

I have made percussion instruments out of turtle shells before but this is the first stringed instrument. It's a one stringer in the diddley bow fashion. If you study music and how it moves around the world you should be aware that sub Saharan people imported to this country way back in the early 1600s brought the traditions of one string and bowed instruments here that turned into our fiddles and banjos. The Caribbean and South America is where the forest people of Africa brought the drum. That's why music sounds like it does.    

I wish I had had some bass guitar turners on hand to use. Seems like I had a set and I know I used a couple on a guitar I have hanging down in the Museum of East Texas so there shoukd be a couple more somewhere.   

I don't know where Katie got this shell. It's a Yankee Turtle. 

You do know if you are playing more than one string you are just showing off.  I play this with a slide, like a steel guitar or a diddley bow. 

That's an old axe handle used for the neck. One time years ago I lived in a rent house and the landlord came over to paint it. He got drunk while painting nd somehow went off and left a fine double bladed axe in my backyard. He never came back for it and I used that axe till the head got loose so I put a new handle in it. The pack rat I am I of course saved the old handle and it came in handy. 

I have a small shell and some old tool handles that might become some creation.  

Here's the video. I occasionally make money when I play music live, which no one is making money playing music live right now but I have made more money making things like this and selling them. People ask me if one string is easier to play. I don't know. You kind of need to know a little music theory, have a groove and a little imagination.