So, grab your 3-string cigar box guitar and let’s roll up your sleeves and get to work. First, we will start with the chord progression, then learn a few tricks to adapt the nuances of B.B. King’s guitar playing to the cigar box guitar.

Watch the video below to play along with The Thrill is Gone. To buy the sheet music, go here

If you are more interested in fingerstyle or slide playing, I suggest you check out this CBG blues jam #1 here.

If you are a complete cigar box guitar newbie, check out my primer beginner lesson for cigar box guitar here.

12 Bar Blues in B Minor on the Cigar Box Guitar

Alright, so I’m sure many of you know what a 12-bar blues is? The Thrill is Gone is an example of a 12-bar blues in a minor key, in this case, B minor. Here is the repeating 12-bar blues progression for The Thrill is Gone with the chords for cigar box guitar:

There are always options, so I suggest you experiment with different chord voicings. I used the stand B minor but you could change it up and play different shapes of the chords for variety.

Now that you have a grasp of the 12 bar blues in B minor let’s look at a few tricks to play the solos.

Playing Blues Solos on the Cigar Box Guitar

I would take an educated guess that most people who play cigar box guitar are interested in playing blues music. First, it seems to be a natural fit with the open G tuning of G-D-G, and second, many players have the cigar box guitar action set up for slide playing. This would mean the strings are a little higher off the neck to allow the slide to glide up and down without clanking on the frets.

Of course, you are limited to 3 or 4 strings depending on which cigar box guitar you play (or both 3 & 4-string if you have them). As mentioned before, having only 3 or 4 strings is beneficial as it reduces your options – fewer strings and fewer places to go.

Maybe the most challenging part of playing blues on your CBG is that you are limited to a limited note range compared to the guitar. Blues solos tend to favour higher-pitched notes with bending and vibrato, so we need a strategy to play guitar songs on the cigar box.  The best place to start is seeing how it’s done on the guitar then, we can transfer those ideas over to the cigar box guitar. Let’s start with bending strings.

Bending Strings on the CBG

The most difficult aspect of playing blues solos on the cigar box is bending the strings. The heavier gauge of the strings makes bending difficult unless you have a strong hand and light guage strings. Therefore, we have to use slides and hammer-ons in place of bending much more than a 6-string guitar player would. In other words, we must adapt most bending to slides and hammer-ons.

Look at this guitar bend played up the neck and see how it was dropped an octave and the bend became a slide:

*Tip – Use at least two fingers to bend the string. For a third-finger bend, put your second finger behind the third for support.

The bottom line is you will often use more slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs to achieve a similar guitar sound on your CBG. Next, more techniques are used in The Thrill is Gone.

Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, Slides and Vibrato

Techniques like hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, and vibrato are basically the same on the cigar box guitar as the guitar. If you aren’t sure about these techniques, check out this beginner guide for how to play cigar box guitar.

In the video below and sheet music, hammer-ons and pull-offs are written with a curved line over the top of the tab numbers.  Slides are notated with a straight diagonal line showing which direction to slide from.  If there is a number in front of the slide, slide from that fret number to the higher or lower one.

And finally, the vibrato is shown with a squiggly line over the top of the notes. There are many types of vibrato: slow or fast and wide or short, and vibrato helps define your sound as a player, so experiment. B.B. King uses all kinds of vibrato, especially the fast and short ones

Pentatonic Scales on Cigar Box Guitar

The pentatonic scales are often used when improvising blues solos. There are three solos in “The Thrill is Gone,” and B.B. King uses the B minor pentatonic scales almost exclusively throughout. In this case, B.B. uses one scale over all the chords with one important variation. You must consider that the bends and vibrato also pull notes from the B blues and the B harmonic minor scale.

If you analyze the notes from the solo, you will primarily find the B minor pentatonic scale (B-D-E-F#-A). Many of the bends and slides start with a pentatonic note but touch on the other B scales with the bend and vibrato.

On the 3-string cigar box, we can use the B minor pentatonic scales to make up solos for the blues chord progression above. You can also use the B blues and harmonic minor scales. Here are the B minor pentatonic scales on the cigar box guitar.

Notice that the scales are divided into four positions to accommodate your finger’s reach. The red line shows the notes in the open position, the blue in position (fret) 4 and the yellow in position 7.  The last group of notes is the same as the open position up one octave at the 12th fret.

Practice the scales until memorized, and pay close attention to the fret where the root (B) is on the neck. The root is shown with a square around the black dots. Jam with the 12 bar blues B Minor backing track below to master your B minor pentatonic scales:

Cigar Box Blues Songs

Want to learn some more blues tunes on your cigar box guitar? Check out the other arrangements for cigar box on my YouTube channel. To purchase the sheet music visit Sheet Music Plus and Sheet Music Direct.

Here’s a list of some of the other blues and blues inspired titles currently available:

• I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man
• Sleepwalk
• Gold on the Ceiling
• Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo
• Rebel Rouser
• Tennessee Whiskey
• Purple Haze
• Walk Don’t Run
• Back in Black
• Sunshine of Your Love
• Pretty Woman
• Birthday
• I Walk the Line

Check out all my cigar box guitar books here.