Acoustic slide questions

[airborne1]

What steps would an an advanced beginner (Not intermediate) take to start on the road to acquiring some acoustic slide knowledge?

For instance, what type of slide for someone new, videos, etc. Would like something that starts with simple chording, etc.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[JonPR]

I recommend a heavy glass slide. They give the smoothest sound, and the best sustain, although the slight scratchiness of metal has its own appeal. I use either a real bottleneck, or an old piece of 22mm copper pipe for that grittier sound.

Technically, the important thing is to position the slide right over the fret, to get the intonation right.
And always approach the fret from below: slide up to it, then waggle the slide a little to get vibrato - very useful if you're not confident about exact positioning. (The whole idea of vibrato - IMO - is to mask any intonation issues, as well as make long notes more interesting.)

Ideally, you need a higher action than you're comfortable with for normal playing, or you risk knocking into the frets as you slide. You can get special devices to put over your nut to get the strings higher, but you can probably make your own.

Open tuning obviously. Either open D (D A D F# A D, aka "Sebastopol" or "Vestapol") or open G (D G D G B D) or "Spanish".

[blue]

Originally Posted by JonPR

I recommend a heavy glass slide. They give the smoothest sound, and the best sustain, although the slight scratchiness of metal has its own appeal. I use either a real bottleneck, or an old piece of 22mm copper pipe for that grittier sound.

Technically, the important thing is to position the slide right over the fret, to get the intonation right.
And always approach the fret from below: slide up to it, then waggle the slide a little to get vibrato - very useful if you're not confident about exact positioning. (The whole idea of vibrato - IMO - is to mask any intonation issues, as well as make long notes more interesting.)

Ideally, you need a higher action than you're comfortable with for normal playing, or you risk knocking into the frets as you slide. You can get special devices to put over your nut to get the strings higher, but you can probably make your own.

Open tuning obviously. Either open D (D A D F# A D, aka "Sebastopol" or "Vestapol") or open G (D G D G B D) or "Spanish".

Pretty much everything above would be my contribution other than the nut devices. I don't like them and prefer to just raise the saddle. The reason is all the ones I've seen are for lap style playing. You want to be able to fret normally. About 3/32nds at the 12th will usually give you the best of both worlds, letting you slide hard, but fret without weird intonation or too much difficulty. If you like acoustics that "play like electrics" your nut may be too low. But you can play most things with only sliding on the 5th fret up, and a low nut won't kill you there.

Go to your local library (mine works online these days and you only go to pick up) and look for tab books from folks like George Thorogood, or Elmoore James and learn your basic technique there. Bone simple stuff but still fun to play. You don't necessarily want to dive directly into Robert Johnson type stuff unless your picking thumb is already dead solid and independent with alternate picking. Otherwise it'll be pretty frustratingly difficult if it's the first stuff you go after.

I recommend this as a great starting point: https://www.guitarvideos.com/stefan-...egory=33776473 and Tom's slide videos in general.

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, I don't consider myself an expert but you might find this useful, or not.



https://youtu.be/7fslLuoOdCY

[rwhitney]

Warren Haynes has some excellent lessons on video on slide technique. There are some of his on YouTube, and he made a DVD of his method some years ago that might be available in one form or another somewhere on the Internet. He recommends using standard rather than open tunings.

I usually prefer a short (covers about four strings most of the time) Dunlop glass slide on my pinky. I like to leave my other fingers free for switching back and forth between slide and fretting. Probably due to Haynes’ influence, I play mainly in standard tuning, so I’m not likely to want to play more than three strings simultaneously.

I also like thick ceramic slides (Dunlop Moonshine slides are nice), and also the raw sound of brass for some things. My resonator is my favorite for slide. There’s just something about its sound that lends itself particularly well to that style.

Main things I do is pluck with fingers (index and middle) rather than a pick for a good solid sound; get the slide even and straight across the strings; mute the strings I’m not playing with my righthand fingers, and mute behind the slide with my fretting-hand index finger (and other fingers, too, but mainly keeping the hand straight behind the slide so no unwanted, extraneous notes or sounds occur). It’s important to me to get a pure, sustained note, unless I want a little noise for that blues sound. As always, a tasteful vibrato’s essential for the blues, I think, even when playing slide.

[pegleghowell]

Just buy a slide(or make one)and dive in.I prefer glass but ceramic,brass etc.all work well...great thing is it`s relatively cheap to experiment.Great sliders like Fred McDowell etc.would give a little wry smile over our obsessions with the minutiae of slide playing...why Fred would even rattle on a fret from time to time...horror of horrors!!!.