Let's Talk About Learning to Play Slide Guitar

[Bluenose]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

The drawback that I found when I tried one was that there was a lot of mass out past the fingertip. While mass generally equals tone in a slide, in this case it made it much harder to control the side. Better to have the mass on the sides of the slide.

Agreed. I find sparkplug sockets, as you say, hard to control but if you used one enough I guess you could get used to it. I think a good slide is a bit of a compromise. You want one heavy enough so that it stops the string vibration but not so heavy that it hits the frets.

Learning slide requires hours and hours of practice and maybe painful for anyone that's within earshot. It's sort of like leaning to play the violin because in essence you are learning a fretless instrument. Accuracy is very important, notes that are sharp don't sound good at all.

I play bottleneck slide where you fret the guitar normally the majority of the time. Slide adds interest and sounds good even used sparingly.

[yaharadelta]

Originally Posted by Bluenose

Agreed. I find sparkplug sockets, as you say, hard to control but if you used one enough I guess you could get used to it. I think a good slide is a bit of a compromise. You want one heavy enough so that it stops the string vibration but not so heavy that it hits the frets.

Learning slide requires hours and hours of practice and maybe painful for anyone that's within earshot. It's sort of like leaning to play the violin because in essence you are learning a fretless instrument. Accuracy is very important, notes that are sharp don't sound good at all.

I play bottleneck slide where you fret the guitar normally the majority of the time. Slide adds interest and sounds good even used sparingly.

The brass Latch Lake Acousti Glide slide has the heft/weight of a steel socket, open with a bit of flare on one end. Nicely made. For a slide that doesn't fit me perfectly, I use adhesive backed velcro tape on the inside, the tape stays put, and has a soft feel.

https://www.lunchboxaudio.com/latch-...=1&sku=ACGS-XL

[slimey]

Find some slide music you like, put it on your music system whatever it is, play along listening and trying to copy.
Me and Mr Johnson by Eric Clapton has a lot of old blues standards with slide , I think all in the Key of G, a great example of something to hear and learn from.
Old blues slide is more about your right hand than the slide itself.

[Bluenose]

Originally Posted by yaharadelta

The brass Latch Lake Acousti Glide slide has the heft/weight of a steel socket, open with a bit of flare on one end. Nicely made. For a slide that doesn't fit me perfectly, I use adhesive backed velcro tape on the inside, the tape stays put, and has a soft feel.

https://www.lunchboxaudio.com/latch-...=1&sku=ACGS-XL

I just got a brass 'Rock Slide'. It's snug on my pinky and has some heft to it. It's my new #1. I don't know if a flared slide would work for me. I usually don't slide all six strings but I use a slide to bar across all six at times.