Slide Guitar

Overview

This tutorial aims to provide an overview of different techniques used to play a style of guitar often referred to as Slide Guitar. Rather than concentrate on specific pieces, this tutorial will attempt to highlight different techniques, which may then be applied to any given piece.

The points made in this tutorial shouldn't really be treated as rules. Not any more than rules of music theory. It'll all come down to preference and expression. If you do treat these points as a set of rules, do so with the aim to deliberately step outside the rules at appropriate points during your music.

Playing slide is in many ways very different from standard guitar playing. It is far from an exact science, so the only way to really get anywhere is to keep messing about with it and trying new things. It'll drive the people around you insane right up until the point where they can say to people 'I knew him/her before he/she was famous'. Keep at it. Make some noise.

The guitar

Selecting a guitar

There is a lot of debate over which guitars are best for playing slide. Ignore all of it. It really just comes down to personal preference and the style of music you intend to play.

The action

Selecting the right action for your style of playing is also important. The action (the distance the strings sit off the fretboard) can make it easier or harder to play. If you're planning only to ever play slide and never fret any notes with fingers (such as is the norm with lap steel or pedal steel players), setting the action quite high will probably suit. However, if you're planning on fretting notes too, you want a happy medium between being able to comfortably fret notes and being able to easily use the slide.

Setting the action a particular way is not as critical as some might suggest. I am of the opinion that string gauge is probably a bigger factor.

String gauge

Again, personal preference combined with your preferred style will play a big part, but generally speaking, heavy gauge strings will make it easier to play slide and is more likely to give the tone you're looking for.

On my shred-tastic electric guitars (brands like Jackson and ESP), I use a light string gauge -- usually starting at .009. These strings are not as high-tension as heavier gauges and suit the style of music I play on those guitars. On the odd occasion I do use the slide with those guitars, I find that the strings don't push back on the slide very hard and it's more up to me to control the pressure exerted on the strings.

On my other guitars (acoustic and Squier Tele), I tend to use a heavy gauge of string -- usually starting at .013. These strings are much higher tension and really push the slide back up. This means I can let the weight of the slide and the tension of the strings work out for themselves how much pressure should be exerted. My steel-bodied resonator guitar has a set of strings that start at .016.

Because the heavier strings have more mass, the sustain tends to be greater and the tone tends to be a lot richer. This is another reason why many players, including slide guitarists, tend toward heavier strings.

Accessories

Left hand -- the slide

Slides come in a variety of shapes and sizes and may be made of a number of materials. Lap steel and pedal steel players often prefer to hold a steel bar, whereas upright slide players tend towards steel, brass or glass tubes that sit over their left-hand third or fourth finger. Mississippi Fred McDowell is famous for using a steakbone and others used pocket knives or anything else to give their preferred sound.

Without turning this into a physics lesson, mass plays as big a part in the sound you end up with -- possibly even more so than the material the slide is made from. Many of the glass slides for sale are quite light and thin and give a sound that can be described in the same way. A thicker glass slide, especially those made from older (thicker) glass bottles, will give a fatter, more mellow sound.

I own two brass slides. One which weighs about three or four times as much as the other. The heavier of the two gives me a sound closer to my idea of perfection than the other.

The material the slide is made from, as well as its surface texture, will affect the sound. Most guitar shops will have a few different slides on display and are usually more than happy for your to try them all out to find the one(s) you like best. If you're trying to emulate your favourite slide guitar god, try starting with whatever they have or whatever you have lying around the home. I started out with a piece of mild steel tubing that I shaped and polished, as well as the neck of an old marsala bottle.

Right hand -- plectrums, fingerpicks, etc

To pick, or not to pick? That is the (most commonly asked) question. If you're playing a lot of chords with the slide, I would suggest not using a pick, whereas a lot of people playing single-string lead runs often prefer them.

Fingerpicks and thumbpicks are interesting creatures. If you've been playing guitar with a plectrum or fingers for a while, they are difficult to get the hang of. In the case of most thumbpicks, they require that you hold your thumb a fair distance from the strings. When starting out using thumbpicks, I used to file up to a centimetre or so off the end and fashion it back into a point to slowly ease my way into using off-the-shelf thumbpicks. I don't use fingerpicks, personally, but many do. Given the price, it's probably worth shelling out a couple of bucks of beer money to give them all a go. Maybe use rent money instead...

Tunings

Overview

The tuning you select will depend greatly on how you intend to play. This section is just a quick reference of a few tunings I use commonly and a little description of each to help in selecting one. Like everything else in this tutorial, don't treat it as gospel.

Standard tuning / concert pitch

Standard tuning (or derivatives such as dropped D) are quite difficult apply slide to. The reason for this is that muting unwanted notes with both hands is necessary. As the slide glides over a string that isn't played, it will still cause it to sound slightly. This will be more evident on an electric guitar with high gain than a nylon-strung acoustic, but it applies to most situations.

Because the slide is less flexible than our fingers, slide in standard tuning is more suited to single-string lead playing.

Open G tuning - D G D G B D

This tuning, often also called Spanish Tuning, is probably the most popular. It is used in a lot of blues (ranging from the early delta blues to late blues rock) and country music. The open strings form a G major chord, making muting less essential and some chords very easy. This is probably a good place to start.

To tune a guitar at Concert Pitch to Open G, tune the 1st, 5th and 6th strings down a full tone (2 frets). It creates a chord shape similar to the open A chord played in standard tuning, but down a tone (ie, G). To tune back to Concert Pitch, tune those same strings back up a full tone.

Open D tuning - D A D F# A D

Open D tuning is used less in country music and more in blues and rock music. It creates a D chord the same shape as an open E chord would in standard tuning. This is often used as a happy medium when playing slide-based chords (therefore making standard tuning difficult) and single string lead playing, due to it being relatively close to standard tuning on the top few strings.

To tune to Open D, drop the 1st, 2nd and 6th strings down a full tone and drop the 3rd string by a semi-tone. Dropping the third by a full tone would create a minor chord, which we're about to discuss...

An interesting point (in my mind, at least) is that both of these open tunings have the 1st and 5th note of the scale (G and D) on the 5th and 6th strings. This allows you to add more body to a solo performance by playing an accompaniment to the lead or melody where those chords are used.

Minor key tunings

As was alluded to in the previous section, Open D may easily be changed to Open Dm by dropping the 3rd string by an extra semitone (to a G, instead of G#). There are other minor tunings too, such as Open Cm, which is tuned thusly: C G C G C Eb. From Concert Pitch, string 1 is tuned down a semitone, string 2 is tuned up a semitone, strings 4 and 5 are tuned down a full tone and string 6 down two full tones. Heavy strings will help prevent the 6th string from flapping about as much.

One of the problems of minor tunings is that in the minor scale, some of the chords are still major -- in particular the 3rd chord of the scale, which is often used. This means that for those chords the string that would normally contain the major-or-minor 3rd interval in the chord needs to be muted. Not a big issue, but extra care does need to be taken to keep from making a piece sound too modal.

With the minor third of the chord being on the 1st string in the Open Cm tuning, it is much easier to control.

Technique

General principles

The idea is to find the right amount of pressure to apply to the strings using the slide. The strings should not be pushed down to the point where they touch the fretboard and the further from the fretboard the slide is, the less likely it is that you'll rattle the slide along the frets (accidentally). The less pressure you apply to the strings, the more they start to move around under the slide, giving a little rattle-and-buzz. We'll explore this as a technique shortly, but learning to control it is the key.

The point along the string at which the slide is applied is generally stopped by the slide in much the same way it is by the finger/fret combination in normal fretted playing.

Intonation

Intonation is the hardest thing to get right when playing slide. It's much like other (fretless) stringed instruments like the double-bass or the cello. It is what is called a continuous pitch instrument, which means it can play all of the frequencies that sit in between the notes we generally use in western music. According the The Wikipedia entry on Microtones, Charles Ives referred to these notes as the ones "between the cracks" on a piano.

To play a given note at the correct pitch, the slide must be positioned exactly above the fret of the note to be played. This differs from standard guitar playing, where the finger is positioned just behind the fret. To play more than one note at the correct pitch, the slide must be exactly over the fret(s) of both notes to be played.

The more you play, the more you will step outside this and slide to and from notes, or deliberately play slightly sharp or flat. This will open a whole new world of expression, but in the meantime, try to concentrate on being able to control the intonation.

Sliding

There are multitude ways to slide the slide across the strings to get different effects. They're all just a case of altering variables such as speed, acceleration, direction and pressure, but we'll discuss a few here. Pick a scale that suits your style of music (the blues scale or minor pentatonic would be a good place to start for most) and experiment with each of the following using notes from your scale.

Experiment with each technique until you really feel you understand it and can apply it without thinking. It'll sound awful to begin with, so lock yourself away somewhere to avoid complaints from family and loved-ones, but stick with it. It's not an exact science, so success will only come with experimentation.

Length and speed

• Short slide up - place the slide on a string (or strings) and strike the strings. As the strings are struck, slide the slide up one, two or three frets and hold the note you land on.
• Short slide down - as above, but slide down. Also try both of these holding the first note a little longer. Do not strike the strings more than once.
• Long slides up and down - Use the same technique as with the short slides, but try sliding from around the 3rd fret all the way up to the 12th fret and let the note ring out. Also try this with two notes at the same time -- an interval of an octave or a 5th would be perfect. Although less commonly used, try sliding down 5-or-so frets too.
• Adjust the speed - try long slide up again, but both slower and faster than in previous attempts. Keep the slide moving at the same speed for the duration of the slide.
• Adjust the acceleration - The long slide will be a good way to experiement with this technique again. Try starting out fast and slowing down as you come close to the destination note. Then try the opposite -- start slow and end fast as you approach the destination note.

Vibrato and pressure

• Vibrato - Attempt both the short and the long slides discussed above again. This time, while holding the destination note, try to waver the slide back and forth about a half-centimetre either side of the fret. You should get more sustain than without the vibrato and (as you'll note) it sounds a little more interesting. You'll find that most slide players rarely just rest the slide on the a note, but keep the slide moving -- even slightly.
• Less pressure - now that we're getting the hang of consistent pressure exerted by the slide on the strings, try mixing it up a little. Try a long slide to the 12th fret with a chord of some kind (say, strings 2, 3 and 5 in Open G tuning), and use a little vibrato, but this time use slightly less pressure on the strings until you get a little bit of a rattle.
• More pressure - this time we'll cause less sustain and a fairly brutal sound by digging the slide into the strings in a short slide. Don't push so hard that the strings hit the fretboard, but give them a little something to cry about. It may help to hit the strings a fraction of a second before the slide collides with them.

Intonation

Small faults in intonation can add a wealth of emotion and feeling to a piece of music. This is why string bending, vibrato and whammy bars are used so much by guitar players. Muddy Waters was a master of applying the same principles to slide playing (but by no means the only one). By making a note slightly sharp or slightly flat (even as little as a half or eighth of a semitone or less), a whole new layer of expression is at your disposal.

• A little flat - Try a series of longish slides to the 12th fret with a couple of strings in a chord. Always make it past the 11th fret, but never let it quite reach the 12th fret. Instead slow down and end with some vibrato just before the 12th fret. It sounds like the guitar is crying out to reach that note, but can never quite make it.
• A little sharp - Try the above again, but every few slides, go just past the 12th fret, but never as far as the 13th fret. It sounds like the guitar is really starting to get worked up about whatever's on its mind.

Other techniques

• Hammer-ons and Pull-offs - It may be obvious to seasoned guitarists, but it is also possible to use hammer-ons and pull-offs when playing slide. Try playing a scale of hammer-ons and pull-offs on a single string with each note alternating with the open string.
• Sweeping - A technique in common use is similar to the sweep picking technique used by shredders and not dissimilar to the rasgueado technique used by flamenco guitarists. When striking bass strings using downstrokes of the thumb (or thumbpick), rake a couple of fingers in an upstroke over other strings. It's not strictly a slide guitar technique, but fits well with some styles -- especially early delta blues.

Combinations

All of these techniques are used together, along with standard guitar techniques, to create the riffs that make up songs or the licks that make up that killer slide solo. As an example, try this:

1. Strike a string with the slide fretting the note on the 2nd fret
2. Slide up to the 3rd fret
3. Slide back down to the 2nd fret
4. Pull the slide off to allow the open string to sound

Note that we only struck the string once initially. Spend some time trying to get as much fluidity to this movement as possible. The whole movement is also quite quick and is often only done in a beat or two.

Conclusion

As promised, this wasn't just a library of someone else's licks and songs. In fact, there was none of that at all. We just looked at the basic techniques most often used with slide guitar. The more you can mess about and experiment with these techniques, the quicker you'll gain confidence.

Attempting to play along with tracks that contain the techniques you're interested in won't hurt at all.