Blind Kiwi Blues - Home made music

Welcome to Blind Kiwi's Blues

The Short Story

I am an amateur singer songwriter living in country Victoria, In my spare time I build home made cigar box and biscuit tin guitars, cajons and the occasional blues harp microphone. Or is that the other way around?

Heavily influenced by blues and folk, my songs are mostly in those genres. I have also collaborated with a number of other talented songwriters and musicians through the fifty ninety and FAWM songwriting challenges. Blind Kiwi's Music

The Instruments

Cigar box guitars an idea as old as the blues themselves. No one knows where they came from but one string diddley bows and banjo type instruments came to America from Africa, as did the roots of blues music. Traditionally unfretted and played with a slide (bottle neck, pocket knife or anything else to hand) these instruments are part of the essence of blues.

They are also related in a way to the mountain or lap dulcimer which first appeared in the early 19th century among Scots-Irish immigrant communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains. These 3 string diatonic fretted instruments may be traced back to the European zither and share a lot with todays cigar box guitars.

So they may be born in the blues, but they are great for folk, bluegrass and ROCK as well :)