Using a slide or bottleneck is a great, simple way to change your Guitar sound and add to your sonic palate. One of the first problems you will encounter is tuning and set-up. Ideally you want high action with heavy strings when using a slide. If you don’t have a second Guitar that you can dedicate to open tuning for slide, you can still learn quite a bit using standard tuning on your main Guitar. One advantage of using standard is that you can play both Major and minor chords. Most open tunings force you to use a Dominant chord to imply a minor. Here are some of the points that apply to all tunings;
1) Muting- Always mute behind the Slide!
2) Motion- the Slide should never stop moving, generally slide UP to notes and never let your slide remain dead still. Chords and single notes all get some vibrato! Practice semi-tone and full-tone slides up to notes/chords and experiment with different speeds of vibrato.
3) Mapping- if you have memorized all the notes in (standard) on your fingerboard don’t bother re-learning them in open tunings. This is the perfect time to start thinking INTERVALS. Standard Guitar is built on a grid of fourths (and 1 Maj Third). Most open tunings add a Fifth. If this makes absolutely no sense, look at my Nashville Numbering System page.
The only note you need to know is the Root(what key). Dont worry about notes, remember the spaces BETWEEN the notes! Letters don’t tell you the relationships of notes the way numbers do. They are easier to visualize and spot patterns.
4) the Slide- the wieght of your slide depends on string gauge and height. For an acoustic with med or heavy strings and high action, you would use a fairly heavy slide. For electric with light strings, a light glass slide. You should not have to apply much pressure to get a clear sound. The weight of the slide should do it.
Your slide should not fit tightly on your finger. The slide should shake freely. This is how you get vibrato.
Glass and metal slides sound slightly different. Glass is warmer, metal is… metallic.
5)Tunings- Each tuning has it’s own sound and pros/cons. Generally it depends on the singer’s range or what key you are playing in. Open D has Quite a bit more low end than G or A. Open D/E and G/A all contain the same intervals; Root, Maj Third and Fifth’s. Having your Root notes on the 1st and 6th strings makes a huge difference in the overall phrasing. D is the easiest to learn but G is to me, more useful because if you learn it, you will understand Dobro and Banjo. G and D are closely related so if you figure one out, the other is very simple to figure out.
6) Phrasing- I say this for any kind of soloing/melody playing, HUM it. If it sounds awkward when you hum it, don’t bother playing it. Get comfortable leaving spaces. Slide Guitar is one of those instruments with a fairly high range like Violin. Underplaying is preferable to overplaying in almost every situation.
When accompanying singers, especially if they are trying to harmonize, you should hang back. Open tunings produce their own harmonies between the strings and mechanics of slide Guitar dictate that you are technically never 100% tune. This is the main reason that you always want to use vibrato, when you stop moving the slide, it’s very hard to hit notes dead on.
