{"id":29557,"date":"2017-09-06T14:05:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T21:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=29557"},"modified":"2017-09-06T14:27:55","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T21:27:55","slug":"ben-baker-owner-of-cigar-box-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/ben-baker-owner-of-cigar-box-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Baker, Owner of Cigar Box Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We have hired an editor to edit the Cool Tools podcast. It costs us $300 a month. So far, Cool Tools listeners have pledged $255 a month to the podcast. Please consider\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cooltools\">supporting us<\/a>\u00a0on Patreon. We have nice rewards for people who contribute! \u2013 MF<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our guest this week is Ben \u201cGitty\u201d Baker. Ben fell in love with the idea that anyone, anywhere can build their own musical instrument and make music on it. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbgitty.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">His company<\/a> was founded to spread that message all around the world.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/341217646&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cool-tools-show-and-tell\/id605920446?mt=2\">Subscribe to the Cool Tools Show on iTunes<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/feedpress.me\/cooltoolsshow\">RSS<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1nROVi7Ifxl6yV1o9QzhWSh_kGxaI7v6zOnBQdAiDFzU\/edit?usp=sharing\">Transcript<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/tracking.feedpress.it\/link\/7810\/6704951\/341217646-cool-tools-88-ben-baker.mp3\">Download MP3<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/tag\/cool-tools-show\/\">See all the Cool Tools Show posts on a single page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Show notes: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29560\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/brasshead-300x229.jpg\" alt=\"brasshead\" width=\"300\" height=\"229\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/brasshead-300x229.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/brasshead-1024x781.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/brasshead.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/2w7v3y6\" target=\"_blank\">12-ounce Brass Head Dead-blow Fretting Hammer<\/a> ($14)<br \/>\n\u201cI got to thinking, &#8216;What tools am I always reaching for when I&#8217;m there at the bench, building a new cigar box, guitar or other instrument?&#8217; This little hammer is a dead-blow hammer, which means the head is filled with a metal shot. So when you strike something, it doesn&#8217;t have that bounce and recoil that a standard hammer will. One of the heads is brass, and the other head is kind of the molded plastic that the rest of the hammer is, and it\u2019s great for more gentle tapping or hammering. You know, most people have a hammer of some sort, but with that hardened steel head, you can dent softer metals. You can dent wood. Having a little more, shall we say, gentle method of persuasion, is handy at the work bench. I always find myself reaching for one of these.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29558\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/cigarboxguitar-300x47.jpg\" alt=\"cigarboxguitar\" width=\"300\" height=\"47\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/cigarboxguitar-300x47.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/cigarboxguitar.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cigarboxguitar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">CigarBoxGuitar.com<\/a><br \/>\n\u201c[This] is a site that I created and have built up full of free how-to information, related to cigar box guitars and other homemade instruments. We&#8217;ve got how to build them, how to play them. We&#8217;ve got modern plans and blueprints. We&#8217;ve got historic plans and blueprints. We&#8217;ve got photo galleries of famous celebrities holding and playing cigar box guitars. So, my goal with that was to make it the one-stop resource and knowledge base for the entire homemade instrument movement and it\u2019s been a work in progress over a few years, but there\u2019s a lot of great stuff on there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tablature<br \/>\n\u201cTablature is a way of depicting where you put your fingers on a fretted instrument neck to play your particular tune. So, usually there are horizontal lines that represent the strings on an instrument, and then there are numbers that get placed on those lines that indicate what fret you place your finger on to play a particular note. And the number of horizontal lines depends on what instrument it&#8217;s written for. So, a conventional six-string guitar will have six lines. A three-string cigar box guitar will have three, and so forth&#8230; It&#8217;s a much easier and more approachable and accessible way for a beginner to start playing recognizable music. They don&#8217;t have to learn musical notation, they don&#8217;t have to know what all the notes and lines and everything mean. It\u2019s just pretty much a way of displaying &#8216;Put your fingers here and you&#8217;ll get a song out of it.&#8217; So, I like it as a very accessible, kind of like an on-ramp to playing a musical instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-29559\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/CigarBox-300x100.jpg\" alt=\"CigarBox\" width=\"300\" height=\"100\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/CigarBox-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/CigarBox-1024x342.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/files\/2017\/09\/CigarBox.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbgitty.com\/cigar-box-guitar-kits-and-more\/complete-pure-simple-cigar-box-guitar-kit-choose-fretting-and-pickup-options\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Cigar Box Guitar<\/a> ($80)<br \/>\n\u201cMy favorite tool of all is the cigar box guitar. Because it&#8217;s both a tool that you make yourself and it&#8217;s a work of art that use to make more art in the form business. Or, business. In the form of music. And there are very few other tools that you can say that about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cool Tools Show 088: Ben Baker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1559],"tags":[1555,1472],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29557"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29565,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29557\/revisions\/29565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}