Melodic Slide Series 1

Chris Says:

Slide playing can be so expressive once you learn how to control the sound.

Muting the strings with your picking hand is the key, plectrums don’t help with this. You should also mute the strings with your slide hand behind the slide. Then you need to de- velop good intonation. A higher action, heavier strings and flat string radius will assist. If you can dedicate a guitar especially for slide it might make things easier. My Strat was pretty cheap but has had a good set- up.

Find a slide that feels comfortable to you. I use tailor made glass slides from Diamond Bottlenecks. Wear it on whichever finger feels best, there’s no right or wrong answer. Getting used to having a strange lump of glass or metal on your hand is crucial for being able to control this style. I used to wear my slides around the house when watching TV.

To improve accuracy I teach students a well known melody to practice, such as Amazing Grace or Summertime. Because the melody is so strong you’ll quickly hear where you need to focus your attention.

If you’re new to open tunings playing guitar solos can seem tricky. Try to learn the pentatonic scales (major and minor) on one string at a time, moving up and down the neck instead of across the strings. This will start to map out the neck for you. You can also find commonly used licks in the box positions, i.e. just in-front and behind the slide as it forms a chord across all 6 strings. Standard tuning sounds good too and can be a good place to start as you’ll know the note positions, but it does arguably limit your vocabulary.