Washboard Using metal thimbles on the ends of your fingers and scraping them up and down the corrugations produces a rhythmic rattle, like a drum kit. Add saucepan lids, bells and squeaky toys and you’ve got a percussion set and, its very easy to play and great fun. I’ve seen some very weird bits and pieces bolted onto the frames and they are a great sound!

Autoharp Using a Plectrum or fingers, this Instrument is picked or strummed. It can be played laying flat on a table or held across the chest, like a Guitar. If a Chord button is pushed down, selected strings are damped, leaving only the chosen chord playing.

Kazoo The easiest Instrument to play. Put the large end between your lips and make an ‘Ooooo’ sound with your voice! You can get the same effect with a comb and paper and its easy to carry!

Tea Chest Bass Another easy Instrument to play! Pulling back the pole tightens the string as you pluck it and the note is high. Slacken the pole and the plucked note is lower. Building Instructions are available FREE on the site. Just e-mail me. Another fun piece of Kit and a MUST for a Skiffle Band!

Six String Guitar Mainstay of the Band, playing the backing Chords and the odd ‘solo’ break. Most of the songs you will Skifflize will have three or four backing chords so, the songs should be easy to learn and commit to memory and also, very easy to play.

Twelve String Guitar Don’t be put off by having twelve strings on the Guitar! The Chords are just the same as the six string to play because each string is duel toned, four of the lower toned strings are Octave tuned, giving a fuller and brighter sound with more colouring to its Chords and the ‘action’ on your fingers is kinder!

Five String Banjo This instrument is the chosen one for Blue Grass and Country music. There are numerous ways of playing it. Strumming chords, picking chords and a combination of backing chords and picked melody! An accomplished player will confound you with his speed and boggle your mind with his dexterity and musical interpretation. I can strum three chords!

The Lagerphone Lagerphone and Whacker! Get a new Thick Broomstick, nail or screw on a cross-piece, collect beer bottle tops and nail them into the broomstick, add anything that will attach to the cross-piece, paint or stain or varnish and job done. Visit "The Lagerphone" Page.

Top left is the control Room. This contains the Recording equipment, consisting of a Boss 1600 Digital Recorder with 255 tracks, Special Effects, Graphic Equalizer, Compressor and CD burner and is Midi compliant. That’s hooked in to my Computer Sound Card and gives me Recording Backup and Archiving facilities and also doubles up on Special Effects etc.. On the right is the Booth Area and the Main Mic can be seen just above the Instrument necks. We also use a Roland XP50 Work Station but this is for the other side of our Studio Work and not used in Skiffle. If, like me, you are on your own, musically, this should not stop you from enjoying the creation of music, no matter how basic or primitive it is. The answer is to Multi-track your song. Record the base part, then the Guitar, then the washboard, then the vocals. Mix all the playbacks with some reverb and, Job Done! It’s Earthy and its Real Life! I have not used the two track Revox Reel to Reel for about two years so, get yourself a digital recorder and a reasonably priced mic, a pair of earphones, your computer will burn your CDs and off you go! If you’ve got any problems, e-mail me and I will try to help. The site is monitored frequently so help is here! ‘Take me home, Daddy!’ George England