Slide guitar

[joeyd929]

I "dabble" with slide guitar. There are several different techniques for the picking hand. Just wondering if anyone is into slide and how they use the picking hand.

The Duane Allman method was that he would hold his thumb, index, and middle finger each on a different string and this would act as a mute so the only string making a sound is the one he allows to by removing the appropriate finger.

Other players use the base or palm of their hand to mute strings. Muting is essential to slide or you get chaos...

Also, regarding the left hand, some slide players, like Johnny Winter use the slide on their pinky, where as Jimmy Page uses a slide on his middle finger I believe... Others use the ring finger.

Wil Ray has these half slides and mixes slide and regular playing. Just curious about other slide players out there in ibreathemusic.com land..

[hairballxavier]

I really don't play slide much, but it seems to me that I fall into a clawhammer type RH technique when I play slide automatically. I just lose the pick if I'm using one. I use the side of my hand on the bridge to mute extraneous sounds.

[widdly widdly]

I dabble in slide but I used to play quite a bit. I like to keep the slide on the pinky. It feels a bit funny at first but you can mix and match slide an fretted notes a bit easier that way. I think first finger is a bad idea because you need to mute behind the slide also, especially on an accoustic. I finger pick all the way with slide. I mute with fingers and the side of my palm. I like to play 6ths which are easier using your fingers.

If you haven't already, check out anything by Bob Brozman. He is a slide king.

He's got some tips on his site at http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_slide.html

[CaptainCaveman]

I usually use my right-hand palm and pinky for muting when playing slide, but sometimes I simply lift the slide (I wear it on the pinky) a little and let the Left-hand fingers mute the strings.

[woodenkings]

just a note of something you may already know:

these were two items which were a big part of Son House's style.

Son House, placed the slide over the first two joints of his pinky and then dampening the string behind the slide with his ring finger.

[hairballxavier]

Yea using the pinky seems to get the best results for me. I used to have a spark plug socket that fit my pinky real good but I lost it and I've broken several home made bottleneck slides so I went and bought a couple of commercially made slides. I think Dunlop made them. I have a pyrex glass slide (won't break) that will fit either my ring, middle or index finger and a chrome one that fits the pinky.

But It seems to me that the spark plug socket worked the best for me though because it was heavier on the end than commercially made slides. That extra weight on the end seems to give it more sustain and make vibrato easier.

I usually like to tune to open G when I play slide. (D, G, D, G, B, D) but sometimes I'll keep the first string at E ( D, G, D, G, B, E) or just play in standard tuning.

I've also been known to spontaneously use a mic stand or beer bottle.

The weirdest thing though is that many years ago I used to have this old reel to reel recorder/50W tube amp that I would run into a PA speaker when I played live.

I played electric guitar for many years before I ever broke down and bought an actual guitar amp. Being just naturally electronically inclined I would just modify jamboxes, old home stereos I found at the side of the curb to make amps and scavenge parts from whatever I could get my hands on to make fuzzboxes and other FX units. (If someone in the neighborhood threw out an old stereo or TV or something I'd be there ripping it apart and gutting it, one man's trash is another man's treasure).

I could use the horn on the cab as a slide and get the wickedest sound when I did my obligatory guitar solo. The controlled feedback was amazing. I've never found another setup that could give me that much control over feedback. I'd sometimes play the star spangled banner, imitate engine noises, incomming missiles and other weird noises using only feedback from sliding the strings against the speaker horn or the top of the cab in various ways.

That was always a crowd pleaser even if it was quite "unorthodox" so to speak.

The point is, sometimes the stuff you make yourself will better suit what you want to do than the commercially made stuff. Everyones fingers are different and what some company makes is definately not made specifically to fit your individual fingers it's made to fit the average guitarists fingers. I find spark plug sockets and various cut-off bottlenecks to work best for me.

But anyways,

There are two main reasons I usually like to use the pinky for slide.

1) It leaves the three fingers with the most leverege and strength behind it open for playing licks and fingering chords. Being more of an electric blues/rock oriented player, the majority of the licks, partial chords, intervals, runs, etc I tend to play can be done with just those three fingers anyways if I want to. I'm not really a barre chord type of guy when I am jamming. So having the slide is like an extra bonus tool in that respect.

2) It leaves 3 fingers behind the slide for muting. This is especially important at loud volumes when muting can be a big issue.