[rockabilly69]

Well my advice is a little different than others.

First off, too many people equate National guitars with slide guitar and open tunings. Although I play slide guitar on my National guitars, I play mostly in standard tuning, and many times I never pick up a slide piece. I just think certain songs are geared towards the sound of a National with it's beautiful midrange.

Here's a Jimi Hendrix song in Standard tuning on my National M2...


When I first learned to play slide guitar, I didn't even know about open tunings, I just played what I heard in my head. I would wait till a melody came to me. and then I would just figure out where the notes were on my guitar and play them. I started looking for pairs of strings in the chords that I was playing that lined up for my slide.

The big thing for me was learning how out to finger pick simple songs, so that I could play rudimentary bass lines with my thumb, while I played chords and simple melodies with my other fingers, and then eventually, with a slide. I just learned simple fingerpicking songs and started adding little flourishes of slide here and there.

I eventually learned how to play in open tunings, but I made up my own open tunings, and even when I play in open G, I do it different than most people, because I tune both of the top strings to G! low to high (GGDGBD)

Here's one my favorite tunings...
low to high) CGCGGC



I eventually got artist deal with National as Don Young (RIP) one of the co founders of the new National Resophonic heard what I was doing and liked it.

I think too many people paint themselves into a corner by buying a resonator and then just playing slide guitar blues on it. They are guitars first, they just happen to have resonator cones in them.

Start by learning to play songs first!