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Ramkie: Home Made Oilcan Guitar.

By Alex in Music, Pictures on Jun 30, 2006 at 1:01 am


From the Atlas of Plucked Instrument, a wonderful website dedicated to string musical instruments, comes this weird contraption called a "ramkie" from Southern Africa:

The ramkie is the famous "blik kitaar" from Southern Africa; a home made guitar, using an empty oilcan for the body.

The wooden neck is sometimes stuck all the way through the can; sometimes it is fixed to a wooden "lid" on the top. The 4 to 6 strings (if not of nylon) are made of unraveled bicycle brake wire. The frets are made from U-shaped pieces of wire stuck in the front of the neck.

The kind of capodastre construction is usually just an upside-down bridge and can not be moved.

The ramkie is mainly found in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.

See much, much more at Atlas of Plucked Instrument

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COMMENT
  1. dannie
    Mar 19th, 2007 at 4:26 am

    are their any pics of someone PLAYING the ramkie?

  2. Freddie Freelance
    Feb 22nd, 2008 at 6:36 pm

    How about a video of someone playing one?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6vpqbRIigA

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