Playing electric slide

musicegbdf · September 2013

OK I love the sound of electric slide (Rory , Johnny Winter, etc) ...So I have bought a glass slide , allocated a cheap guitar (Strat copy) , Raised the action , set the string heights to a flat radius tunes to open G so off I go.

Ok reading a bit I see I should not use a pick , but use my fingers so I can mute with the right hand. I am finding actually my usual "Hybrid" picking works well enough , but I can't get the hang of left hand muting...

I will perservere , any tips or good DVD's . etc...?

vasselmeyer · September 2013

Put the slide on your ring finger or little finger so you can mute behind the slide.

Nothing wrong with using a pick but using fingers can take the edge off the treble.

I find that slide loves fuzz and a touch of compression.

You might have raised the action but you try going up a string gauge or possibly two.

Worth having a play with E-shape tunings too, open E or open D.

Col_Decker · September 2013

+1 to muting behind the slide. Also switch the glass slide for a metal one. OK it won't sound as sweet as a glass one but it will bounce better when you drop it.

Lexie1 · September 2013

Nowadays, there are some tremendous youtube lessons, so start your search there, look out for John Tuggle's "Learning Guitar Now" he has really got slide down nicely and covers a great many styles.

If it were me.... and we all do things differently I know, I'd het the strings back radiused to the fingerboard. It will pay dividends believe me. Once you are accustomed to it, you'll be able to play any guitar, which has to a bonus. I have a Tokai SG Jnr that is my go to slide guitar, but I am equally happy on just about anything these days. I started off with slide on electric have played it acoustic style for quite a few years and as I didn't have a guitar for slide, in fact I only had the one tired old Strat anyway, I learned to play with the normal action and usual strings. Again, it has paid dividends over the years.

Whatever else you do..... ENJOY it, once you start getting to grips with slide a whole new world opens up.

musicegbdf · September 2013

Thks guys , will search you tube a bit more

[Deleted User] · September 2013

Glass slides need to be heavy - thin ones sound awful (tinny/harsh) and provide poor sustain. Damping behind (as already noted) is vital. Some people play slide well with a pick (Eric Clapton is a great slide player who uses one) though I prefer just fingers.

Lewy · September 2013

Reduce your overall damping workload by not having the slide touching strings lower than the one(s) you're sliding on. So if you're sliding a double stop on the top two strings, use the 'tip' of the slide (ie the bit in line with your fingerprint) on just those strings. You also get better vibrato that way because you lengthen the lever of movement. .... plus you can play cool bluesy stuff that had baselines on the bottom strings whilst sliding on top.

musicegbdf · September 2013

Interesting point Lewy , I started to thiink the same , but my slide is a bit long. So might see if I can get a shorter one.

Lewy · September 2013

It's a personal thing but the ideal slide length for most people tends to be so the end of their finger tip is either level with or just poking out from the top of the slide.

Lixarto · September 2013

musicegbdf said:

Thks guys , will search you tube a bit more

Use the words "Sonny" and "Landreth" in this search

IanSavage · September 2013

Personal preference, but I use the slide on my ring finger - means you can add the odd note above the slide, which can be a nice option. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, my own slide hero is a guy named Ian Siegal, worth looking up on the 'tube.

musicegbdf · September 2013

Lewy;30998" said:
It's a personal thing but the ideal slide length for most people tends to be so the end of their finger tip is either level with or just poking out from the top of the slide.

I find my pinky best , but the slide is a lot longer than my finger. Will look for a shorter one

Lewy · September 2013

Lixarto;31008" said:
musicegbdf said:

Thks guys , will search you tube a bit more

Use the words "Sonny" and "Landreth" in this search

Although.....his style relies at least in part on a very advanced right hand damping style that would rule out using a pick or even hybrid picking....

Lewy · September 2013

IanSavage;31016" said:
Personal preference, but I use the slide on my ring finger - means you can add the odd note above the slide, which can be a nice option. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, my own slide hero is a guy named Ian Siegal, worth looking up on the 'tube.

Agree on all counts (ring finger and Ian)

Basher · September 2013

My slide heroes are Duane Allman and Derek Trucks. This style uses a relatively light glass slide (a Coricidin medicine bottle in Duane's case, the reissue version in Derek's), open E tuning and a low enough action to be able to use the guitar conventionally. It just goes to show that it's all about the sound you're after.

As @Lexie1 said, John Tuggle has the Duane/Derek style down really well. He also does stuff on slide in standard which is what Warren Haynes uses.

Anyway, I'm going to use this as an excuse to post a Derek Trucks clip. He's really taking the slide guitar in some interesting directions, particularly in his ability to bring in elements of Indian (and other) musics and make them sit well in a blues/jazzy context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N65cP52NC8s

midiglitch · September 2013

Flippen heck, that was good-Thanks for sharing!

I only ever generally play slide in regular tuning and work chord shapes and pentatonics mainly. Anyone care to extol the virtues on playing in an open tuning beyond simply being able to play full chords with a finger/slide? Any pointers to good videos would be good too. I've tried it but I always feel a bit lost because i have to grope around for shapes that I know instinctively in standard tuning.

ddlooping · September 2013

Lixarto said:

musicegbdf said:

Thks guys , will search you tube a bit more

Use the words "Sonny" and "Landreth" in this search

[Deleted User] · September 2013

Try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL7j_jx0IYs

A master at work....

p90fool · September 2013

I used to do a fair bit of touring as a slide playing sideman, and all I'd add to the above is; slow down and concentrate on the sound you're making. Opportunities to blaze away like a slide master are few and far between, what people actually like to hear is that classic, simple, evocative tone.

Also, work extensively on a beautiful, controlled vibrato. Just as in conventional playing, nothing says "amateur" like frenetic, warbly vibrato, unless it's used as a deliberate effect.

Lexie1 · September 2013

p90fool said:

I used to do a fair bit of touring as a slide playing sideman, and all I'd add to the above is; slow down and concentrate on the sound you're making. Opportunities to blaze away like a slide master are few and far between, what people actually like to hear is that classic, simple, evocative tone.

Also, work extensively on a beautiful, controlled vibrato. Just as in conventional playing, nothing says "amateur" like frenetic, warbly vibrato, unless it's used as a deliberate effect.

That, along with anything that Lewy says, is about the best thing anyone has said thus far.

Lewy · September 2013

midiglitch said:

Flippen heck, that was good-Thanks for sharing!

I only ever generally play slide in regular tuning and work chord shapes and pentatonics mainly. Anyone care to extol the virtues on playing in an open tuning beyond simply being able to play full chords with a finger/slide? Any pointers to good videos would be good too. I've tried it but I always feel a bit lost because i have to grope around for shapes that I know instinctively in standard tuning.

For single note playing, standard is a fine tuning for slide - most of Muddy Waters' electric slide playing was done in standard. You need to be accurate and mobile with the slide and good at damping for it to work though.

The main attraction to open tunings is, as you say, that chords become available under a straight bar, but in fact this is also the biggest pitfall to the beginning slide player. Nothing turns me off someone's slide playing more than them just sticking to barring full chords up and down the neck. Slide playing is only as good as what you put around it....it's just a technique, not a genre. If you only played with hammer ons that would be a bit crap and so it is with slide.

So for me, the beauty of open tunings is that they let you arrange guitar parts that make use of open and fretted as well as slid strings, and you don't have to damp the hell out of everything - you can get beautiful controlled sympathetic vibration of other strings.

You can also play alternate thumb bass lines on the bottom strings whilst sliding a melody on the top - which sounds great in all kinds of music, not just country blues where it's most common.

Ian Siegal has been mentioned on this thread and this video is a great example of what I mean about incorporating slide into a musical guitar part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWM7GFbk2t4

I learned so much from detailed study of this video. It was a great thrill to later perform this song with him at a few low key (for him....great for me!) gigs. It's in Open G, capo'd up to A.

ddlooping · September 2013

IanSavage · September 2013

Lewy said:

I learned so much from detailed study of this video. It was a great thrill to later perform this song with him at a few low key (for him....great for me!) gigs. It's in Open G, capo'd up to A.

Fully jealous, didn't know you'd done that!

I've put in a few hours working out what he was doing on this tune as well...

EDIT: and it's a wonderful example of how some audience members simply have no rhythm

ToneControl · October 2013

I've found playing slide with the guitar in a normal vertical position pretty unsatisfying, and fighting with the frets doesn't help

My (unoriginal) solution is: lay the guitar flat on your lap - Get a nut riser from ebay. should be less than £5 I think - lift the strings up a good quarter of an inch

Then get a chromed tone bar. The tone from these is so much meatier and sustain is better (think tones anywhere up to SRV), With these, you hold it with your thumb and first 2 fingers, so the opposite side of your hand damps. I like to use both pick and fingers - depending on the bit I'm playing, same as usual, damp with the heel of your picking hand just off the bridge I think (I don't think about it - I learned this with hyper gain pedal setups in the 80s, where you had to play one note at a time, and control feedback)

I use a glass or ceramic slide if I want to add more rattle or those glassy artefacts

If it works out, you can get a cheap purpose-built lap steel for £50-£100, replace the single pickup and you're done

The only catch with all this is that the chromed tone bars cost a fortune - up to £40

Amazon is cheap for them new. I think the best one is the Shubb SP1

The curved bit at the end lets you pick out 2 strings to do a slide with 2 notes in parallel.

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Playing electric slide

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