slide guitar help...

hey all, today's question...I decided to try some slide guitar. Read a few things about using fingers on left hand to mute strings behind the slide. What I don't understand yet, is do you try to mute all the strings, or just the ones you are not playing?

Just tonight I tried tuning to open D and my eyes (ears) just opened up! OTOH, my wife describe the tone as "fingernails on chalkboard" so I have some work to do....

First off-Welcome to the forum.
I would suggest that you experiment a little with materials.
When I record I use glass; on stage I use brass. The stage environment is anti-glass. I ended up with a pretty good gash one time from a broken slide.
I put my slide on my pinky and mute with the middle and ring fingers by laying them across the neck and that includes all the strings. I also play hybrid so when I am not using the fingers on my right hand (picking) I also mute the strings with these.
Buy some Allman, Ry Cooder, Butch Trucks, Robert Johnson, any of the old Delta players and just soak in the vibe for a while and play with it. You will eventually find your voice.

Hi Jake, Gary

this is my first post here, I'm enjoying this forum, just a ton of info and friendly folks.

I taught myself to play slide and I use a 5/8th's chrome socket on
my pinky finger like gary. I found it fits snugly with no loose wobble
and I prefer the sound to glass. I've tried to find a tight fitting glass
slide and even went the "ignite the meths coated string around the
wine bottle neck and hope for a clean break method" :grin:

haha I've read that it takes dozens of tries to get a useable authentic
wine bottle slide :rolleyes:

Anyways, like gary said, mute all the strings behind the slide, and another
trick is to use volume swells with your volume knob and slide up as you increase volume, really great violin sound.

I've started playing with slide myself. I'm starting with open G. I too am just figuring out which finger to use, what material slide, guitar setup, all that stuff. The concept seems simple, but the whole decision making process for all that stuff is keeping me from actually learning songs.

Seems alot of guys are using standard tunings so they can do standard picking also. Guess you don't have to learn new scales then.

My head is spinning.

Hey, Welcome Kebmel, good to have ya here.
Ry Cooder said that he started out playing in Standard or Spanish tuning but that when he went to Open D & E & G the neck really opened up to him.
I play in open tunings when I am by myself but it doesn't work on stage.
In a band situation, if you are not playing all blues, you will find it is just simpler to stay in std. tuning.

bds, Arlen Roth has a a great DVD on learning slide. He does a great job of demonstrating the muting technique. I forget the title, but a quick search should turn it up.

Hi, Jake!

Open and standard tuning sound different, so it's good to work on both. In standard, it's the fingers of your right hand that do the muting.

One thing that will drive you crazy is deciding which finger to put the slide on. After years of occasional slide playing, I've settled on my pinky:

- it lets me play notes with my other fingers most easily, and

- it's easier to modify the slide chord I'm playing by fretting behind it. (For instance, in open G, putting my forefinger on the G string two frets below the slide makes the chord I'm playing a 7th.)

As folks above have said, try different slides. My three favorites are a glass tube from the music store, an old piece of pipe from a friend found in his garden, and an old glass prescription bottle (which is tight, so I never worry about dropping it in the middle of a tune).

Ratchet wrench sockets are cool, too, especially because it's easy to find your own perfect size. They're top-heavy, which can be awkward, but which can also add more good wiggle to the sound.

Some others to listen to:

Elvin Bishop
Roy Rogers
Sonny Landreth
Robert Johnson
Elmore James
Bonnie Raitt
David Lindley
Rory Block

I had a chance to watch Sonny Landreth play slide from about 4 feet away on Thursday night at the Continental Club in Austin. Sonny and Eric Johnson on their Stratocasters and Cindy Cashdollar on a lap steel. Sonny uses a glass slice on his pinky finger and is the master of fretting and muting behind the slide. Sonny uses a thumb pick on his right hand and his attack uses a lot of moves that would have to be video taped and slowed down to really comprehend. Lots of sting striking with the fleshy part of the finger and lots of tapping the string all over the guitar.
Here is a good Youtube video that shows you what to do

2DUxs2aIa_g Now, actually doing it is another thing altogether.:mrgreen:

Sonny is speaking specifically about playing notes underneath the slide ... toward the nut. Also muting with the right hand is a great way to choose the notes with all the fingers ... muting with the others. Kirk Lorange video is a good example. Note the right hand fingers and which pick and which mute. Two different things ... Sonny and Kirk ... both really brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN5M7YoEMm4

:mrgreen:

Welcome +1
One bit of advice; Alren Roth is a stickler for picking hand muting in some of his videos and books. It can be important depending on your style, but IMHO, no where near as important as intonation (hitting the right note when sliding).
I got good and PO'd trying to learn his method.
BTW, I use G because I can still fret chords on the D-G-B strings.

I've always played in standard tuning ... but in the last few years began experimenting with open tunings (mainly on acoustics).

But I really like Drop-D (tuning down the low E string to D). This leaves all just about everything available as in standard tuning but really opens up the low registers for a lot more options on the low strings. Also, real easy and quick to tune up and down on the fly ... no need to change guitars.

Combined with the right hand muting, there are a ton of options for two string, three string, & skipped string combinations ... all over the finger board. Opens up a lot of new territory.

Sonny is speaking specifically about playing notes underneath the slide ... toward the nut.
:mrgreen:

Right - that's one of the advantages I'm talking about of wearing the slide on your pinky. The other (which he didn't show here) is that there's a lot of fingering you can do when your slide isn't touching the strings. I have tunes that are 90% fingering and 10% slide.

I really like Drop-D

The poor musician's baritone!

Right - that's one of the advantages I'm talking about of wearing the slide on your pinky. The other (which he didn't show here) is that there's a lot of fingering you can do when your slide isn't touching the strings. I have tunes that are 90% fingering and 10% slide.

Agreed ... the clip I posted with Kirk illustrates that too. He uses the pinky finger for slide too. I have played with the 3rd finger for so long that I just can't change the "decades old" habit. But even on the 3rd finger you can still use the other fingers. I especially like using the shorter slide. With the Drop-D there are so many 2 & 3 string options across the entire fingerboard that you don't need a slide that covers all the strings ... shorter slide gives you a bit more freedom with the other fingers too.

The drop-d gets somewhat of a bad reputation from all of the metal guys using it to just bang out power chords, but when you look at the options added it's worth tuning down a step occasionally. I still play most of my slide in standard tuning though.

I still like to use a full size slide and an open tuning on the acoustic.

Thank you everyone for your replies... I am going to order a dvd and keep working on this. Sonny Lamdreth is coming to the Kansas City area later this year and wife and I are going to try to see him.

You may already know this, but there are several companies that sell wine bottle slides. You can buy them in a few different cuts.

Wayne


Hi Jake, Gary

this is my first post here, I'm enjoying this forum, just a ton of info and friendly folks.

I taught myself to play slide and I use a 5/8th's chrome socket on
my pinky finger like gary. I found it fits snugly with no loose wobble
and I prefer the sound to glass. I've tried to find a tight fitting glass
slide and even went the "ignite the meths coated string around the
wine bottle neck and hope for a clean break method" :grin:

haha I've read that it takes dozens of tries to get a useable authentic
wine bottle slide :rolleyes:

Anyways, like gary said, mute all the strings behind the slide, and another
trick is to use volume swells with your volume knob and slide up as you increase volume, really great violin sound.

Warren Haynes has a great instructional book/cd on slide in standard tuning, which covers mostly electric, but has a chapter on acoustic too.