Slide guitar has a kind of magical quality. Something to do with the almost voice-like tonality seems to really speak to us.
We may think of slide as a predominantly blues-based technique, but for every Dave Hole or Duane Allman or Derek Trucks, there’s a George Harrison or a Sonny Landreth or a Brett Garsed using slide as a texture within their playing.
Most guitars don’t arrive ready for slide straight from the factory, and there are two main things to consider when setting up your guitar for slide.
Glass Slide Guitar Bar
It might seem logical to those who have played slide before, but if you’re new to it the first thing to do is simple yet crucial; raise your guitar’s string height. If you’ve ever attempted to play slide on a guitar with low strings, you’ll be aware of the clattering, clanging, clunking sound of slide against fret. It ain’t good.
When you think about it, the whole point of slide guitar is to remove the frets from the equation completely so you can reach ‘in between’ the notes and glide smoothly from one to another using your ears as a guide instead of the frets. Your guitar should have come with an instruction manual on how to raise the strings on your particular bridge type (if not, we all have Google), but sometimes it’s not enough to simply raise the strings at the bridge end.
If you’re setting up a dedicated slide guitar, you’ll want to raise the nut as well. This is work for a qualified tech unless you’re comfortable doing it yourself. If this sounds a bit daunting, you’re in luck; there’s an easier way.
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Commercially-available slide guitar extension nuts are inexpensive and non-destructive, simply slipping over the guitar’s existing nut and raising the strings nice and high above the frets. This means you can dig in with the slide with complete confidence no matter where you are on the neck, knowing that you won’t be bashing against frets and adding a whole bunch of noises that you don’t want.
As for string gauge, slide tends to work best with medium to heavy gauge strings. They’re louder than light strings, and they put up just enough of a fight. If a string ‘gives’ a little too much it can mess with the clarity of your playing.
Many great slide tones were captured with original Gibson PAF humbuckers or P90s, and there are all kinds of pickups out there that can help you capture that tone. You don’t need to go crazy with high-output pickups for slide, and in fact it’ll often sound better if you don’t. There are no hard and fast rules with regard to pickup height on a guitar with slide.
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As with any guitar, it comes down to what sounds good and what doesn’t interfere with the free vibration of the strings. If the pickups are too high, they’ll interrupt sustain and could create ‘wolf tones’ – weird oscillating overtones that can make it sound like you’re out of tune or like there’s some kind of wobbling sound happening. If the pickups are too low, your sound could become thin and weedy with a higher noise floor.
A set of super-heavy strings will sound different through the same pickup compared to a set of medium-gauge strings on the very same guitar, and depending on how hard you pick, your pickups will respond differently at different heights.
That’s what makes slide guitar so great. It forces you to focus on how you’re interacting with the string itself and in turn, expands the creative possibilities of your playing.THE SOLUTION There are several things you can do to get a good slide sound: Set up your guitar with heavier strings, use an open tuning, try different kinds of slides, dampen the strings, and learn to properly intonate. Getting a good sound is often as much a function of proper setup as it is technique. Some guitarists like to raise the action on a cheap guitar and put on heavy-gauge strings—guitars with low action and light-gauge strings make it difficult to get a good tone because the extra weight of the slide can bang into the fretboard and produce unwanted sounds.
How To Play Slide Guitar, Part 2
For bottleneck style, you want the strings to be a little above the fretboard, but not too much. I’ve seen guitar stores that sell guitars with damaged necks as “slide” guitars because it’s impossible to press down on the string and play in tune. Avoid these.
Setup & Tuning If you’re used to playing light strings, try a medium (.013–.056) set. Some guitarists like to swap out the E and B strings with gauges as heavy as .015 and .017. Be careful if you do that, because it will put extra tension on the neck and top of your guitar. If you use heavier strings, you might counteract the extra tension by tuning down to open G (D G D G B D), for example. Conversely, with light strings you can tune up to open A (E A E A CG E)—the relationship of the strings to each other is the same in open G and open A tunings, so musical ideas can easily be transferred between the tunings.
As for string height, you can place a shim under the saddle at the bridge, which should raise your action just enough to achieve a good sound. You can also buy a nut extender that you slide under the strings and which covers the nut. However, this might raise the action so high that it is impossible to fret the guitar normally.
Setup Faq: Do I Need A Different Setup For Slide? — Haze Guitars
Materials & Size Slides come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and materials. The best slide for you is a personal choice, both in terms of sound and comfort. After years of playing slide guitar, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are different slides for different applications. On the acoustic guitar, go for a slide with some mass: thick glass and ceramic slides work nicely, as do thick brass and steel. The more mass, the more sound. If you play fingerstyle in open tuning, choose a slide that is long enough to cover all the strings, at least 2 ½ inches in length. On the other hand, if you play mostly single-string and double-stop licks, then consider a smaller slide.
Technique & Intonation Now that your guitar is set up and you’ve got a slide, it’s time to play! The following exercises are all in open-G tuning. As your slide touches the string, keep in mind that you don’t need to apply much pressure: It’s more important to keep consistent pressure as you slide from note to note. The slide should only cover the strings that you are playing slide notes on. For example, if you’re making a melody on the high E string, only cover that single string with the slide.
A lot of slide playing occurs on the high E, and these tips will help you get a good sound. As you move from note to note, target the fretwire itself, rather than playing between the frets as you would when fretting conventionally. Finally, tilt the slide slightly away from your body and the fretboard, thus avoiding other strings and unwanted overtones.
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String Damping A critical aspect of slide playing is string dampening, which can be achieved with both hands. There are times when you want string noise and overtones and there are times when you don’t. These tips are for avoiding those sounds. First, as you drag the slide across the strings, use one or more of your fretting fingers to touch and drag along that string behind the slide. I tend to use my first finger, which results in a slight cupping of my hand. This cupping also tends to consolidate your hand, making it feel as if it’s one appendage rather than five independent digits.
Beginning Open-G Exercises In Ex. 1 on (scroll down), practice moving the slide between notes of the G-minor pentatonic scale. Make sure to keep your slide low, just covering the first string. Timing is not important. Just try to get a good, even sound, using your slide and damping finger.
In Ex. 2 use the same pentatonic scale, but work the third string. This will require you to “dip” the slide in. It’s okay to cover the first and second strings as well, but listen carefully: if it’s not pleasing to you, then you might need to angle the slide in so that you are not touching the top two strings. In Ex. 3 and 4, play on multiple strings. Make sure your slide is not tilted, so that all the strings have an even sound.
Oahu Square Neck Lap Steel Slide Guitar 1930's
Ex. 5 offers a chance to vary the length of the slide notes. The first few notes are quick, but then the slide lingers a bit over the second string as you slide between the 10th and 12th frets. As you develop your slide playing, consider the difference between long vs. short, decay vs. sustain, and when to cut the note off with either your left or right hand.
Ex. 6 is an exercise in
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