Wednesday, October 8, 2025

SLIDE GUITAR -- some thoughts and basics

A pic of me playing slide on my favorite guitar, a Sakai Japanese Jaguar knock-off of sorts, which for a long time I thought was probably a Daimaru, or a Teisco/Kawai, but which I recently found out actually is a SAKAI -- the pic was taken some time in 2002-2003 or so -- I have a Dunlop Blues Bottle 271 on my little finger. I was learning a lot of old blues stuff during this period -- Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Rogers, Slim Harpo, Son House, etc. -- copying harmonica licks as well as guitar licks on slide. I still play slide (plugged in and unplugged) on this Teisco-made electric guitar daily. :-)

I've been playing guitar, both acoustic and electric, for over 30 years now. That doesn't make me an expert, of course, nor does it make me a great player. But what I do, I do well -- mostly rock rhythm and songwriting. And lately, slide guitar.

Being that my radio hobby has been touch-and-go over the past year or two, and I haven't been doing much aside from work and playing slide (along with some fiction writing), there hasn't been all that much to write about here. 

Consequently, I thought I'd post a blog article about slide guitar, because I find it interesting, and also because there really isn't a ton of written info online about slide playing, especially any articles aimed at beginners and journeymen. One slide guitar forum I found online unfortunately doesn't see much activity (Home | SLIDEGUITARIST.COM FORUM (proboards.com). Another slide forum hasn't seen activity since 2006 (The Steel Guitar Forum - powered by Infopop). There are other forums, including a resonator guitar website ( Reso Hangout - resonator guitar forum, lessons, videos, jukebox, and more - Reso Hangout ), that have slide guitar threads, but Google and Bing searches don't bring up much.

Of course, there are a lot of YouTube videos aimed at beginners, but I'm referring to the written word here. :-)

Hence this lengthy article about my own slide guitar journey, which I hope may help some beginners, and encourage some slide 'journeymen' players. This article is a bit lengthy -- not because I am a slide expert, but due to the fact I've had over two years with tons of time (thanks to corona) to try to perfect the craft. And after years of increasingly tinkering with slide, and working on accuracy, I've probably hit every pitfall a beginner or journeyman slide player is going to hit, and the pointers in this article might help others avoid them, or otherwise deal with them. 

So, hopefully this article will help guitar players who are in a similar situation as I have been in -- getting into slide on a more serious level, and not wanting to screw up so much you give it up -- like I almost did. :-)

A CAVEAT: There is a LOT of information packed into this article -- not only my personal slide guitar background, but I've thrown in bits and pieces of nearly every difficulty a starting slide guitar player might encounter (that I've experienced) as well as a lot of tips.

This is a long and comprehensive article. If you are a starting slide guitarist, there will be a lot of info here to take in. But hopefully it will help you at the same time. Some of the information -- like how to set up a guitar for slide -- isn't covered well on internet videos. Other information may be a repeat of what you can see on YouTube. Because I wanted to make the article complete, I've probably repeated some of what you may find elsewhere.

But some of it isn't commonly addressed elsewhere. Hopefully, there is something in this article helpful for anybody interested in slide.

So, let's go.

WHAT IS 'SLIDE GUITAR'?
To start out with, for those non-guitar playing readers who may not know what "slide" guitar is -- it is when you make notes on your guitar by using a slide -- usually a hollow tube made of metal or glass, that you touch against the strings, or slide along the strings, to make the notes. Slide guitar started in two ways -- African Americans used a form of slide to play blues notes in the 1800's and even earlier -- sometimes by stringing a wire between two nails on a barn wall, using a metal or glass pipe or other implement to make the notes by plucking the wire and moving the pipe along the wire to make the notes.

Hawaii also lays claim to slide guitar, being that lap steel guitars either originated there, or were popularised there before African Americans (and white country players) adopted them in the Continental US. Most guitar players are aware of slide, even if they haven't tried it. Of course, Mississippi Delta Blues and other early acoustic blues players (like Son House, Fred McDowell, Bukka White, Blind Willie Johnson, and numerous others) popularised the use of a slide (often using actual bottlenecks cut from glass bottles, putting them on their finger, and using it to slide against the strings). Consequently, blues guitarists especially are well aware of slide guitar.

In the rock music world there aren't that many famous slide players -- clearly not as many slide players as there are famous lead guitarists. Still, slide is a very expressive way to play rock music or blues music on either electric or acoustic guitar.

Here and there throughout this post are links to YouTube vids of slide guitar players doing their thing. If anyone is interested in learning slide, watching and listening to vids like these is probably a good thing to do. A suggestion: if you are learning slide, it's good to watch the pros. Listen to their playing, but also watch their technique. The beauty of videos is that you can back up and replay if you want to really catch what a slide player is doing.

Remember, most of the tricky stuff you see the pros doing are just long chains of simple movements, which were practiced over and over, and finally executed at speed. The pro guys generally aren't doing much that YOU can not do with practice.

Let's kick off this post with a couple of rock slide videos:


[England's Rod Price is barely ever mentioned by slide players online -- or guitar players in general, for that matter. But he was a fine example of using slide in rock 'n' roll. In the 1970s, during Foghat's heyday, Price used Gibson SGs primarily. Here in this cool video from the 1990s (Rib Fest, Dayton Ohio, 1997) you can see Rod playing with a glass slide on his middle finger -- deadening strings with his index, and forming chords with his ring and pinky. Unusual, but it worked out quite well. There are numerous other vids of this particular 1997 Dayton show online -- the sound is excellent and shows that the original group still 'had it' after 20-odd years. Rod's tuning of preference apparently was Open E.].


[A Foghat blast from the past, Slow Ride, during a 1976 live show in Detroit. The vid starts out with Rod Price playing solo slide, apparently in Open E. It's a little blurry until 30 seconds in, where the camera zooms in closer to Rod, showing him using his glass slide and getting some great sounds from his white Gibson SG.].

MY OWN SLIDE JOURNEY -- IT STARTED WITH TENDONITIS
I first started playing slide guitar in the summer of 1990 when I developed tendonitis on my left ring finger. I had just finished my demo album Dead End City in 1989 (much of it audible here: ChrisCampbellRock | Chris Campbell Rock | Free Listening on SoundCloud ), in which I'd actually done some lead guitar work that I was proud of. I started to sound like an ersatz Mick Taylor (my favorite lead guitarist, probably) -- at least close enough to satisfy myself. I had finally arrived.

The tendonitis sort of put an end to that. I had heard of guitarists who had issues with it. Some got it in their wrists, and had to give up playing.

When I first developed the tendonitis I realised that I had two choices: either find a new way to play electric guitar, or stop playing for a while. I decided to opt for the former. Now, the tendonitis went away within a month or so, but in the process I discovered Open G, and slide guitar. I had toyed with Open G from time to time before that, but never took it seriously. I also had a steel Ernie Ball metal slide I bought on a lark at a music store when I was in high school -- a slide which I rarely, if ever used. I toyed with it in the 1980's, adding slide (using my Daimaru guitar -- a Jaguar knock-off from the early '70's) to a punk track made by a friend of mine, Doug Zimmer, in his Seattle alt-punk band Walkie-Talkie. They never used my slide track, but it was my first real foray into doing something serious with slide. Then -- like usual, I lost interest.

So in the spring or summer of 1990, while dealing with the tendonitis, I retuned my trusty Univox Les Paul (their 'Gimme' model), and my other guitar, my Daimaru (Teisco/Kawai) Jaguar knock-off, to Open G, hoping to still be able to play. And I also started messing with the slide, finding the basic "blues boxes" for the slide notes. I also tried Open D, but it was a bit too cantankerous to play rock tunes. Open D sounds cool, but is a bit restrictive for hard rock chording. Open G seemed to be easier and more natural for hard rock, and I was able to find some basic barre block chords and do some slide.

I got bored with slide quickly, though, and mainly stuck with Open G for chording, songwriting and some rudimentary leads. Lead guitar in Open G is different -- you depend on your pinky more than your ring finger, which is preferable if your ring finger has issues, especially as your pinky is ironically the stronger finger. But one thing I liked about Open G was the massive wall of sound you can get from it, especially when you're cranking your guitar through a Marshall or similar amplifier. For a rhythm guitarist, Open G can be a Godsend.




[Links to two Rolling Stones songs. The first is Love in Vain, in which Keith Richards does some of the best slide playing on record. He played in open D. And he only played slide on the Let It Bleed album, as well as a couple tracks on Beggars Banquet. Stop Breaking Down has Mick Taylor playing slide -- and the vid has a lot of very cool pics of Mick Taylor and the Stones. The first actual slide part I learned riff by riff was the one Mick Taylor plays here. He may be playing in Standard or Open G. It's very easy to do this slide part in Open G, which is how I play it.].

I soon also discovered that one of my favorite blues-rock bands from the 1970's, Status Quo, used Open G a lot. That opened up a whole new world -- I could imitate their sound, and I also started writing a lot of rock songs in Open G.

Back to slide: I happened to see a 'blues bottle' (Dunlop 271) in a music store some time in 1999 or 2000. I decided to buy it. The coolest thing about the bottle, aside from its sound (Duane Allman used a similar slide), is that it won't fall off your finger easily, which is something preferable in a glass slide, which can break on hard surfaces. The Dunlop 271 blues bottle is easy to use, and is heavy enough to have positive contact with the strings.

For a while I toyed with slide using the bottle... I got into blues for a while -- Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and a few of the other Chess Records bluesmen like Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson, and I learned to play the harmonica riffs on slide guitar, using the Dunlop Blues Bottle and my Daimaru guitar. But after a while I also gave up on it. I think there was a mental wall or some sort of block for slide playing that I had to bust through, and I just wasn't there yet.


[The Rolling Stones at their rocking peak, 1972, playing All Down The Line live in Fort Worth, Texas. Mick Taylor plays slide on his Les Paul (through Ampegs), and I think he is playing in standard tuning here, something he is said to have done a lot. There are a lot of shots of him playing, which is very cool. Any video of the Stones with Mick Taylor usually has a lot of comments talking about Mick Taylor, and there is a reason for that. :-) ].

Fast forward to 2011. In 2011 I heard the famous Eric Clapton song Layla on the radio. There is this part where Duane Allman plays slide guitar above the neck, and even between the pickups. I decided to try doing that. It was a chore, as the notes are so close together up there, but finally I was able to do it fairly well with the blues bottle. It took a lot of work (and admittedly a fair bit of cussing), but I eventually was able to play riffs up there.

The only thing left was to take up in slide where I left off in 1990 and 2000 when I last junked the idea of playing it.


[Link to a Slim Harpo track that the Rolling Stones also recorded early in their career. Songs like this are good for slide learners, because the harmonica riff is fun to imitate, as it is so bluesy. The main blues harp bit is near the end. Sounds awesome if you can dupe it on a slide.]

Since then, I rarely, if ever play lead guitar. I do it with a slide. I also have collected an assortment of slides, both glass and metal, and have learned the scales from bottom to the top of the neck fairly well. I have a library of riffs I use that sound good, and build on them daily. I'm no pro at it, of course, but I can pull it off OK for my uses.

There seems to be a mystery about slide. Some guitar players do as I did -- they get a slide, and take it home and go up and down the neck, hacking away with full chords. Then they get bored, and give it up. Over the years I've discovered some tips in slide playing that might help some beginners, or guitarists out there who have considered slide at one time or another, so they can get more from it, tone-wise and playing-wise.

DEDICATE ONE GUITAR TO SLIDE AND SET IT UP FOR IT
One of the first things you have to do if you want to play slide is to re-set a guitar up for it. At first, you can dink around with slide on your main guitar, but if you really want to get playing slide, you'll want to have a guitar set-up for slide in Open G or Open D.

You'll need your action a bit higher than standard, which means you also will probably re-adjust your bridge and saddles. You may need thicker strings, because you'll get a better sound and playability with slide if you have higher string tension -- the notes are more positive and sound out better when the string is fighting back against the slide. You may also have to readjust your pickups a little to account for the higher string tension making certain strings louder than others. Another issue is that once you have a guitar set up for slide, you can't easily re-set it for standard tuning and regular lead guitar. You can't really go back and forth a lot without the guitar taking some time to readjust to the different string tension. So you'll want to have a separate guitar dedicated to slide if you still play standard lead a lot.

It's highly advisable that if you intend to stick with slide guitar, just stick to one guitar when playing slide until you are sufficient enough at it. Otherwise, if you are playing slide on two or more guitars, even small differences in neck width, scale length, string tension, action, and even differences in neck radius can throw you off for a bit until your hand gets accustomed to the difference. The slide may come down where it thinks the string is supposed to be but it's a millimeter or two off -- due to radius -- and either the note is off, missing completely, or it's a ghosty half-note because the slide isn't having positive enough contact with the string. 

It's not a deal breaker -- I still am learning and play slide on three different electrics with different radiuses and scale lengths -- but it's still a bear to bring the slide down and miss the note because you got used to playing a guitar with longer scale length, wider neck and flatter radius (my Ibby Gio) than another one.

So, either just dedicate one guitar to slide, or be prepared to give your hand time to adjust each time you switch guitars. If you can deal with a few miffed notes to start, no problem.

The bridge and treble pickup (bridge pickup, a Kawai single coil) of my #1 guitar, my 1972 Sakai. As you can see, the action is fairly high, as the strings are at least 10mm off the bobbin on the Low E string side of the pickup, and 13mm off the strings on the High E string side. The action is 4-5 mm at the 12th fret -- I can play barre chords up there, although it's not easy. But for slide, it's the perfect guitar.

WITH GUITARS, CHANGE = BAD
Guitars don't like drastic changes -- if you retune your guitar a lot, or go up or down in string gauges, without changes to the set-up, they won't sound the same, or stay in tune if you do that. One thing I've found through years of rebuilding and adjusting guitars is that every part of the guitar is part of the whole -- if you change one thing drastically -- like a major tuning change, or string gauge change, it takes a while for the neck to settle in, and everything to work well together. Guitars also like to stay in one tuning, and one set-up. I have an acoustic which I have tuned to Open G or Open D. When I switch tunings, it takes a bit for it to settle in to one tuning or the other. It's either the strings or the neck shifting slightly to deal with the change in tension. It's a minor thing, but still a bear to deal with sometimes. I usually just leave it in Open G -- my main tuning -- for that reason.

So -- if you want to play slide, get a guitar and set it up for slide. Once you find a tuning you like, stick with it for a while. If you have the guitar set up with heavy gauge strings, and open G, and it starts sounding good -- with the pickups balanced, the intonation right, and everything else -- if you leave it that way, it will stay in tune longer, and the guitar will be 'happier', and you will be also.

I like playing my guitars, not screwing around with them trying to get them to stay in tune, or screwing around with them to get them to sound right. For that reason, once I get a gauge of strings, and a tuning, and a set-up that makes everything sound good, I leave it that way.

TEMPERATURE AND STRINGS -- AND SPRINGS, TOO
Even temperature changes -- so long as they're not quick or drastic, don't really mess up my guitars much. I think it's the heavier strings, the stable string tension (my Daimaru has a tremolo but it's an old school cross between a Fender Jag / Jazzmaster tremolo and a Bigsby, and the spring is fairly thick and it doesn't respond to temperature at all). 

My Ibby Gio (a Strat / Superstrat design, basically) is another matter. It is pretty stable, but I've noticed that sometimes one string will go sharp when normally strings go flat when sitting. It took me a while to figure out that it's probably the three tremolo springs in the back of the guitar: Strat and Superstrat owners remember -- your tremolo springs can respond to temperature changes, too! So if you're finding that your Strat-style guitar isn't staying in tune overnight when the temperature changed a bit, don't cuss at the guitar like I did.

The tremolo springs on my Ibanez Gio GRX-40. They are standard, Strat style springs, and are set exactly the way they were at the factory. I decked the tremolo, which placed the bridge plate flat against the top of the guitar, and tightened the string tension slightly. If you look close, you can see that at the factory, the ground wire was soldered to the wrong lug. Being that my Gio is the 329th Gio made, I suppose such a mistake is understandable. :-)

It's probably the trem springs. With my Ibby, the string I need to touch up the most is the B string. I've learned to live with it. I never use the trem, but I like having it on there. It looks cool, and it's part of the design of the guitar. And it's still there should I ever want to dive a chord and then spend an hour getting it back into tune. :-) 

I've found over the years that with heavier strings, a good set-up, and as little messing with different tunings as possible, my guitars stay stable and in tune better. There have been times I've had my favorite guitar in the case for over a month, and when I took it out to play it I only had to touch up one string slightly (usually the middle D string, which has the most tension, or the smallest string, which seems to be affected the most by temperature changes).
My best overall slide guitar, a 1972 Sakai (a Sakai-made, Fender Jag copy w mahogany plywood body, and maple neck with rosewood fingerboard) which I rebuilt in the late 1990's. It's been tuned to Open G since the Summer of 1990. After I modified it in 1997 or 1998 (moving the bridge, shims under the bridge, new tuners, dots added down the side of he neck, extra springs on the pickup retainers -- for stability and to reduce microphonics -- and a few other modifications) it became perfect for slide guitar, although that wasn't my intention when I rebuilt it. I still play it every day.

GLASS OR METAL SLIDE? IT DEPENDS
As for slides, glass and metal have different sounds, and they also react differently with the strings. Glass sounds a little mellower, and more bluesy. It is 'quick' against the strings, which can help in playing. Metal slides have a sharper, more pointed tone, and with some of them you'll get a bit more sustain (especially the heavier metal ones). Some slides are heavier than others. Some have a brassier, more shrill tone. Some are quicker moving against the strings than others.

The circumference of the slide makes a difference. If your slide is a big glass one, it will be easier to go from note to note. With a smaller, metal one, you have to be more accurate, because the notes themselves are more accurate (from less metal striking against the string). At first this may be a little irritating, but it just makes you practice harder. :-)

My main glass slide is my original Dunlop 271. I have a couple backups in case one breaks. It holds onto your finger well, and is reasonably heavy, and large enough in circumference to move from note to note very quickly. It's useful for playing above the neck and even over the rhythm/neck pickup.

My metal slides are a brass Dunlop 222 and a couple different steel ones. My brass 222 is fairly heavy and has a mellower sound than the steel slides. It also is a little slower when moving across the strings -- it seems to adhere to the strings more than steel or glass. Notes are a little more pronounced with the brass, with more treble and quickness from the steel.

My chrome steel slides -- a Fender (Fender FCSS1) and a Dunlop 220 -- are fast and easy to play. The Dunlop is a little heavier on the finger and has a more positive feel on the string. The Fender is about half a millimeter longer (you don't have to worry as much about covering all the strings when doing whole chords), and it is lightning fast, but I have to press down a little when I play above fret 14 or so, which is no big deal. It just takes a bit of warm up with the slide to regain the different feel of it. It's my favorite metal slide for electric, as it's so fast on the strings. The Dunlop 220 is sort of the best of both worlds -- heavier then the Fender, and brighter than the brass 222.

The two chrome slides also sound different -- the Fender FCSS1 sounds more 'plunky' and musical, while notes on the Dunlop 220 are more pronounced with slightly more sustain. My newest slide, a small Ernie Ball 'Pinkie' Slide, sounds more like fretted notes than the others. Sometimes it's very useful, but at other times I prefer standard sized slides.

My 'brassiest' and 'plunkiest' steel slide is my old Ernie Ball I got when I first started learning guitar. It's 54 millimeters long (2 and 1/16ths inches) -- about a quarter inch shorter than my other slides. It will still cover all the strings -- just barely. It's the most trebly of my metal slides, and not as quick on the strings as my other steel ones. The steel is also a little thicker, making it a hair heavier than my other metal slides, which alters the sound a bit. It sounds great on my steel string acoustic.

Some guys use copper slides -- my first slide was a short piece of copper pipe I found on the side of the road... Too light to really use on steel strings, unfortunately. Of famous players, George Thorogood uses copper slides, apparently made of pipe. Some guys make their own slides from wine bottle necks. I have seen a great video of Ry Cooder playing with what appears to be a genuine bottle neck slide (cut from a bottle), so it also is used by some players. Mick Taylor has used glass and chrome slides. Duane Allman used a Coricidin bottle (Dunlop's 271 Blues Bottle, one of my favorite slides, is similar); Derek Trucks uses a specially made version of the Coricidin bottle in his slide playing. The Coricidin / Blues Bottle, in itself, isn't particularly special, except they are a good, heavy slide and the bottle shape allows your finger to have a little more control over the way the slide moves over the string. They're also easier to grip (i.e., harder to drop off your finger!).

Heavier slides will generally give you more sustain, and the notes may sound more pure, and possibly a bit louder (although loudness can depend on your pick, and how you play, as well). The lighter slides will generally be quicker to play -- you will be able to do faster slide riffs -- and they sound a bit 'plunkier'. You can play fast with a heavier, brass slide. I do. It's just easier to do it with a lighter slide, and also easier with a chrome or stainless steel slide.

As for glass -- even the heavier glass slides are quick on the strings, allowing for some speed. Heavier glass slides will give your notes more definition, lighter glass slides sound a little funkier. It's a trade off.

Static Crackle? Use Brass or Glass
For what it's worth, if you play on a single-coil pickup guitar, you'll probably have some issues with 'static crackle' when the steel or brass slide first makes contact with the strings. Brass, having slightly different electrical properties, is much quieter -- there is much less static crackle with a brass slide. Glass, of course, gives you no static crackle whatsoever. Even using steel, you can minimise static crackle with your technique, but if you have issues with the noise and can't get rid of it with technique, brass or glass are probably the way to go. And don't despair -- you can hear static crackle on some of Elmore James' recordings, and he did fairly well for himself despite that. :-)

A pic of my assortment of slides, minus my newest one, an Ernie Ball 'pinkie' slide, which is smaller and lighter, and chrome steel. I use the steel slides the most. My first steel slide, an older Ernie Ball, thick-walled stainless steel (which you can't get anymore), is the chrome one that's closest to the black capo in the picture. 

CHOOSING THE RIGHT SLIDE FOR YOU
The best thing for a beginning slider to do is buy a couple slides, and take it from there. Most basic slides are fairly cheap -- maybe $5-$10 US.

First, you want one that's comfortable on your finger. Second, you want it to sound good to your ear, and the style of slide -- rock or blues -- that you want to play. You also want to take your guitar and strings into consideration. This takes experimentation. And, as I said -- some slides are quicker on the strings than others, and some will require more immediate accuracy in your playing than others. A larger circumference slide will strike more of the string, and give you a bit more wiggle room for error.

As for which fingers to use the slide -- whichever one works for you is the finger to use. I always have used the pinky. It feels better, and the slide is out of the way when I want to make a chord. I also think having more of your hand behind the slide (when it's on your pinky) gives it a little more control, and places more momentum when moving the slide over the strings. 

To Deaden the Strings, or Not Deaden the Strings With Your Finger...
Some experts say lay a finger down behind the slide to 'deaden string noise'. They also say it sounds cleaner to play slide that way -- which it can. I don't do that, however. I've found that laying a finger down behind the slide also deadens the response of the string, and sometimes cuts the volume and sustain that way. I also don't notice much difference in string noise on electric -- the pickup usually won't pick it up enough to worry about, because of where the pickup is located. At least my guitars don't pick up the extra string noise.

Once again, it's a matter of taste. Some of the big name players deaden the string behind the fingers. I think Duane Allman did. Sonny Landreth does. Derek Trucks seems to. Ry Cooder sometimes does and sometimes doesn't. I just don't. On some occasions I'll lay my ring or index finger down behind the slide if a string is rattling against it too much. But most deadening of notes I do with the fingers of my right hand -- the ones holding the pick, mainly. 

The only time I purposefully deaden the strings behind the slide is when I'm holding the slide in place, and I am using the slide to hit a chord. Then I drop down the ring finger (and maybe a bit of the middle finger) behind the slide to deaden the strings, because that is when you can really hear the strings reverberate between the slide and the nut, and if it is anywhere near a harmonic point, they'll be audible.

When playing single notes, I never hear such resonance. So all deadening is done with the pick and right hand fingers when needed.

It can be done. For others this technique may not be preferable. For me, it's the best of both worlds. The strings ring out better without a finger dragging against them behind the slide, and when I want to kill the note, I bring down the fingers of my right hand (along with the pick) onto the string and kill the note. Problem solved.


[A lot of slide players are really into Duane Allman, but I'm not one of them... that said, it's undisputed that any slide player worth their salt should at least learn one of Allman's slide tracks, and for me, this one was the one to learn. Relatively easy to learn basic riff, playable in Open G as well as Open D -- the tuning Duane used (actually, he probably had it tuned to Open E -- same thing -- just up one step). If you listen to his tone, and solo, you can tell he listened to a lot of blues harmonica riffs, as well as Delta slide blues players, and perhaps some country dobro players as well.].


[Delta bluesman Son House playing one of his better known songs, recorded live some time in the 1960's. The video shows a few close-ups of his playing, using his fingers and a metal slide on his resonator guitar.].
As for fingerpicking or using a pick, a lot of the pro guys use their fingers (Duane Allman, Ry Cooder, Derek Trucks, Sonny Landreth). Some use a thumbpick (Johnny Winter, Chris Whitley). Mick Taylor used a flat pick, as well as his fingers. Slide virtuoso Roy Rogers usually uses a flat pick. Australian blues-rock and slide guitarist Kevin Borich usually uses a flat pick. I use a flat pick. Makes life easier that way.

ON SLIDE CIRCUMFERENCE, DIAMETER, AND Slide Playing INTONATION
One factor that isn't mentioned much in slide circles is the difference the circumference of a slide makes on the tone, as well as the purity of the note, or your accuracy. Generally, the larger in circumference a slide has, the note will sound less like a fretted note, and you'll have slightly less pure a note, because of the rounded surface striking against the string. You don't need to literally measure the circumference of the slide to see a difference. Just measuring the diameter will do.

I started noticing this when I got my Ernie Ball Pinky slide, which is only 18 mm in diameter. It sound fairly close to a movable fret when compared to my other slides. My largest in diameter, metal slide is the Dunlop 220, which is about 22 mm in diameter. My Fender chrome steel FCSS1 slide is 21mm, as is my brass Dunlop 222. 

When I switch back and forth between the Fender chrome steel and the Dunlop chrome steel 220, or between the Dunlop brass 222 and Dunlop chrome steel 220, I have to work harder at note accuracy with the 220 until my hand gets used to it finding the notes. It's because there is more of that rounded steel surface touching the strings, and it changes the placement of the notes when you're playing.

You wouldn't think that such a small difference in metal touching the strings makes that big a difference, but it can.

So a good rule of thumb is probably to stick with one slide until you get good at slide. Then it may be easier switching back and forth between slides and maintaining your accuracy.

On Picks... It's How They Work Off the Slide
As for picks: a different pick will give you a different sound, obviously. This also applies to how a pick will interact with the slide. Thinner picks will bring out more bite and treble, and thicker picks cause the string to plunk against the slide a bit more, which gives a slightly bluesier sound on some guitars. Thicker picks (especially on electric guitar) will also give more volume.

 I usually use a Clayton .50mm nylon pick. I like the shape of it, and it sounds good enough to use both with slide and rhythm. I prefer the sound of celluloid Fender thins, which are louder and more distinctive, but the Clayton is a little longer on the point, and makes it easier to play more accurately, and not miss notes. It's also a little easier on the strings than some Fender Premium Thins, which are also long at the point. When I use Dunlop Tortex blue .90mm picks, my acoustic guitar sounds plunkier, almost like a 1930's blues record. It's useless on my electrics, though. I prefer classic 'thin' picks on my electric guitars.

 One thing to keep in mind is that different picks project your sound differently, something most guitarists already know -- but with a slide you're also dealing with how the pick is making the string hit the slide, so you have an extra variable. Also, different slides will project the notes differently. Some slides will really push the notes out better. Some picks give you more treble when playing slide, and others will give you more volume, and some picks will give the notes a little more body. Experiment.

Finally, during those times that I aim for my slide playing to sound similar to regular lead playing, I generally use chrome slides, as they are steel -- just like most frets are made of steel. As mentioned before, my Ernie Ball "Pinkie" Slide sounds the most similar to fretted notes, probably because of its smaller circumference (less slide actually contacting the string).
My Lotus L520, an Indian-made, solid ash plank (actually, three or four solid planks glued together, with one of them making up the middle of the body), which is heavier than many Gibsons (my L520 weighs in at exactly 10 pounds). It sounds very good on slide. The tail is short -- I'm not sure if that was a mistake at the factory, or intended. The angle gives the guitar incredibly good sustain, and a decent balance between playability and string tension. I lucked out when I got it. They don't apparently make them any more.
OPEN D OR OPEN G -- A MATTER OF TASTE
Also, there's the choice of primary tuning. The pros like Ry Cooder can probably flip from D to G in a heartbeat, but for the most of us we probably stick to one tuning until it comes automatic when you're playing. In my case, I prefer Open G, as it's more useful for hard rock and general blues. Anything you can do easily in Open D, you can imitate it in Open G easily enough. To me, Open G is the best of both worlds.

When I switch back and forth between Open G and Open D I have to remember that the scale is the same, roughly, but knocked down a string, and playing takes more thinking and it's less automatic. I suppose once you've been playing both tunings for years it's less an issue. Johnny Winter didn't seem to have an issue with it. But I still do.


[Chris Whitley was an enigmatic singer-songwriter from the 1990's who had a couple minor alt-rock hits before he turned out his masterpiece, Dirt Floor, in 1998. The CD is all just Whitley playing soulful and gritty acoustic songs on a resonator guitar, with one done on a clawhammer banjo. Whitley used fingerpicks and slide, and sometimes a half-slide, which some guys use. In the video you can just see a half-slide on Whitley's finger in the first track. He appears to be playing in Open D tuning. The second song on this vid is him doing Ballpeen Hammer -- a cool song where he plays an open-backed, clawhammer banjo in a mountain-minor tuning.].

Open D is very cool, but for rhythm playing the chords available to the fingers are somewhat limited. It's more of an open-string-and-slide-to-a-note sort of tuning. If you watch Ry Cooder play Vigilante Man (link to the video is in this blog article) you'll see what I mean. He hits a couple open strings and then slides a few notes higher up on the neck, and then plucks another couple of open strings. Then again, Keith Richards made a different use of Open D on the Let It Bleed album (where he played all the slide), and some of his rhythm and lead playing on Beggar's Banquet was in Open D as well. Rod Price did well with his SGs in Open D/Open E.

It's just a matter of choice. Each tuning will give a different tone.

The main caveat here is until you're really good at doing a slide blues scale in one tuning, it's probably not a smart thing to switch back and forth a lot until you have one tuning mastered. It will be frustrating if you switch around a lot -- at least from my own experience. When you work with open tunings like Open G and Open D, it's sometimes like re-learning guitar scales completely.

An Open G, Quick 'Modal' Tuning: DGDGGD
One cool thing about Open G is all you have to do is tune down the B string to get a cool tuning that sounds like Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks". It's not the same exact tuning (I think Jimmy Page used a unique one) but it sounds close enough to sound modal like the tuning used in that song. You just go from DGDGBD to DGDGGD. It doesn't seem to mess up the string tension on the other strings. Some may find this tuning useful on some tracks when you want your guitar to sound 'modal' or 'Celtic'.

When done, just raise the pitch back up to B. Very simple.

THE 'BLUES BOX', STOCK PHRASES AND THE TRAIL BACK 'HOME'
One thing you'll want to do first off when learning slide is to get the primary 'blues box' down and memorised. The blues box in Open G is obviously much different from the one you learn in standard tuning. I have a small chart of it here:


THE OPEN G 'BLUES BOX'
This is a tab graph of the most basic 'blues box' (of notes) in Open G. Once this one is learned, the rest of them up and down the neck are fairly easy to figure out. When tuned to Open G, you will get a D chord when laying your finger straight across the 7th fret. The big dots on this graph are where the notes in the pentatonic blues scale (in D) are found -- where you place your slide to make the notes of the scale. Generally, you want the slide right over the fret.

To get more of a major scale, you place the slide over a few different notes. String 2, Fret 7 and String 2, Fret 5 will give you some major notes to play with. Duane Allman, Kurt Winter and other players threw in a lot of major notes while playing slide blues.

On this graph, String 1, Fret 5 and String 2, Fret 8 are the same note. Each one can be substituted for the other. This happens a lot more in Open G than you will find in Standard Tuning. In fact, you can play one blues riff three different ways -- same exact notes, within the same exact octave, all near the main 'blues box', because of the way Open G is tuned. 

This cluster of notes that I've illustrated in the chart above is the first slide blues box I learned -- centered on a D chord in Open G tuning (where you lay your finger all the way across Fret #5). About half of this box I rarely use -- most of my slide playing is on the smallest four strings. But I learned the entire box anyway. :-)  At first, it takes a little effort to play these notes clean, moving the slide from note to note and string to string. But it shouldn't take too long.

After learning the basic blues box, and the rest of the blues scales up for that key and down the neck, then you learn your first 'stock phrases'. Those are the basic three or four note riffs that seem to be the easiest to play, and the ones you may think sound the best -- they become the stand-by riffs you build your solos around. Usually they are right inside the blues box.

Although I already knew about the concept -- most lead guitar players are aware of their most basic, go-to phrases -- I first heard about 'stock phrases' when I began to get into Eric Clapton's playing a year or so ago -- when I started adapting some of his riffs to slide. I had found a cool 1968 video of him where a BBC interviewer asks Eric about his 'stock phrases' -- some of the standby riffs that he'd play when figuring out where to go next while soloing. Eric says "Yeah, I've got some of those..." and then plays a few of his standbys.

The Clapton interview itself is pretty cool, and entertaining as well as informative: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqmXpfvIm_I

After you get your basic scales and stock phrases down, you start adding new riffs, which can be fun, but can also be frustrating -- as any lead guitar player knows. One thing I've found helpful is that when I learn a new slide riff somewhere up or down the neck, I memorise the 'trail' back home to one of my most basic stock riffs, which is usually in the main blues box somewhere. If I am playing in D, that probably means I return to one of the stock phrases I play in the 'blues box' centered around Fret #7.

Otherwise, you might be playing with some guys (or practicing), hit the new riff, and get a brain fart where the way back to the standard cluster of riffs you play the most isn't automatic. You're in new territory, but your brain isn't always 100% sure what to do with it yet, or where to go after the new riff is played. This can lead to a miffed note, dead air, or swear words. When you get a new riff down, remember to memorise the 'trail' of notes back from that new riff to the section of the neck you are most comfortable playing in -- and the box where most of your stock phrases are located. It will help -- trust me.

ANY GUITAR WILL DO, REALLY -- EVEN CHEAP ONES
Now comes the basic question: which guitar do you use? Are certain ones better for slide?

My answer is: not really. You see sliders using all sorts of guitars: Strats (Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Rory Gallagher), SGs (Derek Trucks, Duane Allman), Les Pauls (Mick Taylor, Truth-era Jeff Beck, earlier Duane Allman), resonators and acoustics (Ry Cooder, Justin Johnson, Roy Rogers, Johnny Winter), Danelectros (Jimmy Page). But the set-up is important, no matter which guitar, or what kind of guitar you use. 

As for the style and make of guitar you use, it's completely up to you. I get a decent tone from my Lotus Les Paul copy (L520), although it took a month to get the bugs worked out -- adjusting pole pieces to balance the pickups, adjust the saddles, raise the bridge, gradually lower the tailpiece to get the string tension to that sweet spot where the strings ring but don't pop. My Daimaru -- a cheaper Japanese Jaguar copy from the 70's -- works great on slide, although I originally was just trying to get it as stable as possible for rhythm bashing. My Ibby Gio GRX40 turned out great for slide once I set it up for Open G -- raising the height of the two smallest strings, mainly, and adjusting the saddles for intonation... the tremolo springs are maxed on it, as they always have been, for the best sound.

As for acoustics, guys use resonators, expensive steel strings, and even older plywood acoustics which have a closer sound to that dry thump of the Delta blues guitarists of the 1930's. My main acoustic is a Texarkana -- a budget model made in Indonesia from whatever wood. The model is WJ-750 -- after doing an internet search I guess there are a few of them out there, basically they were made in the early to mid 1990s. For a budget acoustic, it has cross bracing (!!! -- something completely alien to budget acoustics when I was first learning in the 70's), and it plays well. When I got it for $40 at the thrift store in October 2004 the bridge had pulled off, and it was missing half of its string pins. They apparently spot glued the bridge at the factory and the previous owner must have put heavy strings on it, causing the bridge to eventually pull off. I fixed it, and set it up. I call it my Black Beauty. It gets the job done.


[A link to a vid of Johnny Winter playing an old Son House blues song, using slide in Open G on an old resonator guitar. You will notice that Johnny was so good he hardly ever looked at the guitar at all when playing. He was the consummate pro.].


[A great vid of Johnny Winter playing Stranger Blues in Open D, on his famous Gibson Firebird. There are many shots of Johnny's playing, and you can see how he uses a lot of open strings along with sweeps up to higher notes.].


[Johnny Winter playing Mean Town Blues in Open G at Woodstock. There are a lot of close-ups of his slide work, during the slide playing about halfway into the song. As you can tell from all three of these videos, Johnny wore his chrome slide on the outer half of his pinky finger, which some slide players can be seen doing. I never would, as I find handling of the slide more positive when I have the slide on all of my finger. But who's gonna argue with Johnny Winter? :-) His guitar here, by the way, is a Fender electric 12 with only six strings on it -- heavier bridge, wider neck = full sound.].
Dallas - YouTube

[Johnny Winter's recordings are a veritable gold mine of slide riffs. This early track of his (off of one of his first albums) is in Open G, and don't let the speed and dexterity fool you: you can learn some cool riffs from just listening and stopping down the vid, and figuring them out -- even though this vid is just audio, the riffs are still findable. You just have to stop it down and hear them in your head -- and get them down on the guitar. I figured out about five or six of them in just the first minute of playing. A lot of Johnny's riffs on this track are played in the lower registers, on the pentatonic scale that uses open strings as well as slide notes.] 


[Here is a slide player from Japan, Muddyhatta, that plays "Dallas" on his resonator guitar in Open G. Here you can see where a lot of the riffs are.]


ELECTRIC VS. ACOUSTIC
A guitar is a guitar, right? Yeah, but not really. Electric is a whole 'nother animal, and on slide it's the same thing. Slide on an acoustic guitar is a very different sound (obviously), but when playing you are also playing with a different feel. With acoustic, you'll hear the 'plunk' and movement of the slide a lot more, and you get a much earthier tone in your slide playing.

With electric, the notes themselves appear louder, and a lot of the nuances and dynamics of the slide hitting the strings are lost. So when you practice playing slide on each one, you'll be concentrating on different aspects of slide playing.

With the acoustic, it's concentrating on the whole sound -- of the way you pluck or pick the strings, the way you use the open strings, etc. With electric, I have found that one has to make doubly sure you are super accurate with your notes, because the pickup and amp will definitely get your miffed notes out there! I probably devote more time to electric slide guitar, because I like the tone of electric slide guitar better than acoustic. But slide on acoustic is fun, and there are a lot of videos and recordings of slide players (like Johnny Winter and Ry Cooder) playing slide on acoustics, and of course a lot of the 1930's Delta blues players were using acoustics (often relatively cheap acoustics, like Stella brand guitars and ones they'd get from Sears catalogs), too, and it's fun to learn how to emulate their sound.

SOME PECULIARITIES YOU ENCOUNTER PLAYING SLIDE ON YOUR GUITARS
One big positive peculiarity to playing slide is that you are making your own notes -- you are not dependent on frets to sound the pitch of the notes you play. That also can be a drawback, as alluded to before. If you move the slide too far or too little from a previous note, it can sound really, really bad.

This is why you practice, practice, practice. :-)

Another peculiarity in playing slide is that string tension is important -- you can't ignore it. Some guys set up a guitar with very high action and heavier strings (like I do on my Daimaru -- although I can still fret notes and play chords on it), and other guys like Derek Trucks apparently play their slide guitars with fairly low action -- which can mean lower string tension -- but they manage to get away with it. I prefer higher string tension, because I want to feel the string fighting back against the slide. It feels more positive, and sounds out better. To me, the notes sound more positive with higher string tension than when it is lower.

One thing I've found through playing slide is that with some guitars you have slack spots in a string. This will happen if your string tension is set relatively low. I've noticed this the most on my Lotus L520, a heavy (10 pounds), ash-body Les Paul copy with the tailpiece closer to the bridge than standard. It's a great sounding guitar, and plays well. Sounds great on slide. But when I started playing slide on it, there was a slight slack spot right over the 12th fret, mainly on the smallest string. I think it's because the gauge of strings I use on my L520 aren't as heavy as on my other guitars, and it's also because the tailpiece is so close to the bridge, which can give you lower overall string tension. I discovered this slack spot when playing, and finally tested the string by touching it in places up and down the fretboard with my finger. The string was slacker over fret 12 than fret 20 or fret 7. Very strange. Live and learn.

I gradually lowered the tailpiece, a few thousandths of an inch at a time, increasing tension on the strings, until the slack spot mostly disappeared. Adjusting tension was a matter of finding that sweet spot, where you have good string tension, but are not popping strings.

In the process I also jacked up the action (raising the bridge) gradually, a few thousands of an inch at a time (1/4-1/8 millimeter or so, or even less), making it high enough to raise the tension to an acceptable level without popping strings. In the end I got it to play well using a slide.

So, if you happen to play slide on your guitar, and you have a slack spot -- don't blame the guitar. It's just the physics of strings. Experiment with raising up the bridge, even a thousandth or two of an inch (1/4 to 1/2 millimeter or so). Or lower the stop tailpiece, if your guitar has one. If you have a Strat or SuperStrat guitar, tighten down the tremolo springs. Perhaps go a little higher in string gauge. Try a different, heavier slide.

Or -- you can also adjust the tone and gain levels on your amp or distortion box, and it will compensate for the note not being quite as resonant or loud as the other notes. You can also compensate by the way you press the slide down on the string at that place over the fretboard. Or a combination of all the above.

Chances are that very few slide players encounter this issue. I just put it out there in case someone else does.

Another thing to remember is even raising or lowering your bridge a few thousandths of an inch (or even less) will affect its intonation and how the string responds. Sometimes you won't see much of a difference, other times it will be frustrating until your neck settles in (or your slide finger adjusts!) and you've adjusted a couple saddles.

My Ibby Gio GRX-40, which has gone through several different tunings and set-ups since 2003 when I first got it. It's a 2000 model, one of the first Gios made. I recently set it up for Open G and slide. Gios aren't bad guitars. They can be adequate for slide. The Powersound humbucker on my Gio sounds better on slide than it does when I play lead. With the fingers making fretted notes, the single notes have a flat sounding tone. With the slide, the Powersound livens up. Something about the characteristic of the humbucker makes the slide notes sizzle. For those who don't care for the overall tone of their Powersounds, or other similar pickups, slide might be an option to get the most out of the pickup, and the guitar.

EXTRANEOUS STRING NOISE on ELECTRICS
When playing standard. fretted lead guitar, string noise isn't something you have to worry about much -- unless your frets are so worn (or your neck needs adjustment) that notes are buzzing.

But with a slide, you may encounter three different types of string noise. The first kind is when a metal slide barely touches the strings. One some guitars (single coils especially) you'll hear a crackle. It's more apparent with steel and chrome slides than brass ones (where it's hardly there), and nonexistent with glass slides. This crackle is normal, but it can obviously sound bad. The way to defeat it is to ensure that the metal slide always makes positive contact with the string, or it is completely off the string. Make sure the slide is either firmly pressed onto the string firmly, or taken completely off of it.

Another sort of string noise is when you're playing and the slide lifts up just enough that the string is rattling against the slide. This is even more apparent if you have a Strat-style guitar and you're playing in switch positions 2 and 4, the out of phase, 'chicken pickin'' positions, where the treble is enhanced. The extra treble that comes out from the out of phase pickups only amplifies the rattle. The solution is to practice and ensure the slide always has positive contact with the strings. Turning down the tone helps, but it's not always preferable, because the extra treble is part of the 'chicken pickin' sound.

The third kind of slide string noise is a mystery to me, because it occurs on one of my guitars, but doesn't occur so much on my other three: it's the type of string noise that happens when the slide is actually doing what it's supposed to do, move up and down the strings. On one of my guitars, a Univox Gimme Les Paul Copy, the slide's hitting and moving against the wound strings is picked up especially well by the pickups, which are humbuckers with ceramic magnets. None of my other guitars (including my cheaper Sakai Jag copy, which has cheap single coils and ceramic magnets) exhibit this kind of string noise. I have no idea why this is happening, except the voicing on that guitar is loud, and has an open sounding, hefty midrange -- possibly it's the perfect storm for this sort of slide noise.

I don't know of a solution to this particular problem, aside from using a glass slide only (they're quieter overall), cranking down the tone a bit, or just use a different guitar.

The bridge and first two pickups of my Ibby Gio GRX-40, which over the past three months has been adjusted for slide and Open G (after a year of being set up for Drop-C, an experiment that was fun but I didn't really find as useful). The saddles are a little higher than they would be normally, and the humbucker is 4-5 millimeters from the strings to keep the ceramic magnet from screwing up the intonation (which can happen if you use thick strings -- this set is 52-11 in gauge). The 4-5 millimeter distance also improves the humbucker's sound. I don't use the tremolo, it's just on there for decoration. I have the tremolo springs maxed to keep it as stable as possible. I could probably do a little better with a 12 instead of an 11 at the smallest string, as it would give me more string tension, but as the pole pieces in the humbucker are non-adjustable, I make do with the 11, to keep the string from roaring into the pickup on certain chords. I also make sure I use slide technique to keep from having missed notes, which can happen with slinky type strings.

I've noticed that when adjusting this guitar that even a thousandth of an inch change in string height can make a difference, both in slide-playability and note projection.

STRING TENSION AND HEIGHT / ACTION
How high should you set the string height / action on your guitar for slide? The answer is: it depends. One of my main slide guitars (my Daimaru, pictured at top) has pretty high action -- the strings are about 4 mm over the 12th fret and 4.5 mm over fret number 21. The bridge pickup is 10-12 millimeters from the strings, because the pickup's magnet is pretty powerful. The string gauges on that guitar are a bit heavy -- 12 to 49 gauge. I could probably lower the action a little, but it's been working well for me for over two decades so I'm not about to change it now.

On my other main slide guitar (my Lotus L520 Les Paul copy), I use slightly lighter strings (on the D, B, and high E), and the action isn't quite as high: it's about 3 mm at fret 12 and 3.5 mm at fret 21 (due to the way the neck is set). The gauges on the strings on that guitar are about 11 to 52. I've had to set the bridge pickup about 4 mm from the strings, because the ceramic magnet is powerful enough to 'pull' on the heavier strings. The adjustment screw for the smallest string is removed on the neck pickup, and two of the humbucker adjustment screws (for the 11 and 16 gauge strings, in EADGBE tuning it would be the pole pieces for the high E and G strings) are also removed from the bridge pickup to get it to balance. Most guitarists probably don't have to be that drastic in adjustment, but ceramic magnets can interact with heavier strings (which are larger, and the area of vibration is correspondingly larger also) in a different way than other magnets do.

Increasing string tension via raising the action / lowering the tailpiece can also improve the projection of notes, especially on the smaller strings, where low string tension can give some notes a 'squirrely' overtone with some distortion boxes or amp channels. It has to do with some of the overtones the slide itself creates when it contacts the string. For many, this may not be noticeable, or a problem. 

Higher string tension also increases the volume and presence of the notes, because the string is pressing harder against the slide.

My Ibby Gio, which I began setting up for slide about three months ago, has the strings about 4-5 mm from the top of the bridge pickup. I've had to increment the last two strings (the two smallest ones) a few times by moving them upwards even a half thousandth of an inch or so (tenth of a millimeter?) at a time, to get the right balance between string tension, slide playability, intonation, and volume balance with the other strings. With string height, even a tiny increment can make a difference.

The most important thing is to get the strings just high enough, or the gauge heavy enough, to where you can still fret some chords with your finger, but also press down on the slide with enough pressure to easily sound a note -- without touching the strings to the frets. You want the string height or tension (or both) to be enough for the string to fight back against the slide. This will give you better projection. Finding the right balance for your guitar is a bit of a trick, but can be done. A lot of it comes with practice and feel -- getting the hang of pressing the slide without fretting, and getting the slide down on the string and producing clear notes.

AND DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE GUITAR NECK'S RADIUS, and the STRING RADIUS
Another issue is remembering that the radius of the guitar's neck (and strings) will affect your slide playing. I have three separate electrics with three different radiuses. My Ibby Gio is flatter radius than my other two electrics. When I switch from the Ibby to my Teisco/Kawai/Daimaru or Lotus I have to remember the radius when playing, until my hand gets accustomed to it. Otherwise, I find myself either missing notes or having weak notes when I play something on the largest three strings.

The slide is a straight surface -- the radius usually is curved to a certain extent, and if you aren't careful you can miss notes, especially on the inside and lower strings, if you aren't angling the slide to accommodate the radius.
   
If you only play one particular guitar for slide, it won't be much of an issue, as your hand won't have to adjust.


Two of the distortion boxes I use in my rig -- a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive and a Joyo British Sound. The DD-3 delay, ahead of them in the chain, is dialed down, and just adds a bit of atmosphere. The SD-1 is a ubiquitous box that a lot of players use as a boost for lead. I leave mine on all the time, and use it as a pre-amp to guarantee that no matter which amp I play through, I get roughly the same sound all the time. The box in the middle (the Joyo here, and I also use a Blues Driver BD-2 instead) adds a British or Marshall like tone to the crunch.

I've found the SD-1 works well with slide -- it seems to boost all the strings equally, and has a little compression built into it, while still bringing out picking dynamics. When playing slide, there are no dead spots, which can occur if one of your strings is a little slacker than the others.

Peter Wells of the Australian blues-rock and hard rock band Rose Tattoo used an SD-1 with his slide playing.

As for the arrangement of the boxes, I've found that the SD-1 overdrive on the end of the chain works best for me, with distortion / second overdrive unit in the middle, and echo / chorus / etc. in front of the gain/dirt boxes. The overdrive being at the end of the chain allows for a bit more fine tuning of the overall tone and crunch you get out of the entire chain.

RE: the JOYO British Sound box: if you get one, you'll have ready access to a Malcolm Young-like early Marshall distortion sound. Crank the gain (called "Drive" on the JOYO) up past noon or one o'clock, it sounds like a JTM45/JCM100/'Plexi' amp. But beware -- these boxes are apparently prone to excess hiss when the battery gets too weak. The gain will also drop slightly. The LED, however, will still look fairly bright -- brighter than the LED looks like on a Boss box when the battery is too low for normal operation.

So -- when you use a JOYO and are hearing a lot of HISS, change the battery! A trade off for this issue is that the JOYO is excellent with battery usage -- a 9 volter will last a couple months.

SLIDE GUITAR AND DISTORTION BOXES
One peculiarity I wasn't expecting was how distortion boxes respond to a slide. I have three distortion boxes I use, a Boss DS-1, Marshall Guv'nor GV-2 Plus, and a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive. The SD-1 is one of my latest acquisitions -- I got it so that I could reasonably duplicate the sound of my Fender Bronco solid state amp into any amp I play through. Its response is relatively flat, tone wise, with a hint of midrange boost -- it has great distortion, and the tone control seems to adjust mids and trebles, sort of like a fine tuner. The SD-1 is a great slide box. I call it my "Ronno box", as it can make my guitars sound a lot like Mick Ronson's.

There are rarely, if any, dead notes with the SD-1, as the box seems to amplify everything equally. It has just enough compression built into the op-amp circuit that slide playing really sings. The DS-1 is similar, and although I prefer the overall tone of it a bit better, as it is a bit more 'scooped' in tone. However, it's a bit overpowering with humbucker guitars.

When I chain the two together (as I do when I play my single coil Daimaru), I place the DS-1 first, using the SD-1 as a pre-amp for the amplifier. The DS-1 seems to mellow the midranginess of the SD-1 when it is placed in front of it. The combination sounds very good.... it sounds like a British amp cranked up all the way.

The Marshall Guv'nor Plus, a great sounding dirt box that has a wide range of uses, from a heavy overdrive to a JCM800 or 900 like distortion. The tone controls are active, and interact with each other a bit. A little bit of a change can go a long way. The 'Deep' control is like the 'Contour' control on modern Marshall amps. Basically, it is the tone control for the final, gain stage of the box. When I first started using this with slide, I noticed that some notes didn't want to project, something I figure had to do with the 'Marshall midrange', which is part of what makes their amps and devices so distinctive. Boosting the mids on the Guv'nor seemed to remedy the issue -- at least for my guitars.

The Marshall Guv'nor Plus is a different animal from the other two boxes. Now -- I love the sound of the box. It makes any amp sound like a roaring Marshall amp. And it's quite versatile, with three tone controls and a 'contour' control (called "Deep" on the Guv'nor, although it operates like the Contour control on a Marshall amp). The problem is that with slide there are some notes that just won't ring out through the Guv'nor as well as the other notes do -- if you have the Guv'nor at certain settings. At first I thought it was just my guitar. Then I thought it was just my slide. But no -- the Guv'nor seems to have a tonal emphasis that chooses some notes over others, especially at lower Gain levels. I suppose you could call it that famous Marshall 'ringing roar' sound, the way the amps make your chords snarl and stand out so much -- it's the same with the Guv'nor Plus, and it seems that some notes 'ring' more than others.

The main solution is to boost the high mids. If you loved the scooped sound of a Marshall (which you can easily get out of a Guv'nor Plus), you may have some notes that won't sing out on slide unless you boost the high mids. So crank that 'Mid' control a bit. You can always compensate a little with the tone and volume controls on your guitar if it screams out a bit too much. Luckily, the 'Mid' control on the Guv'nor sounds OK, unlike some midrange controls on earlier Marshall amps, where you could have called the control 'Mud' instead, because that's what the Marshall midrange made everything sound like back then.

Some guitarists dislike the Guv'nor Plus, because it has a capacitor across the final circuit, that cuts some of the highs. They think it deadens the sound. I haven't had that experience with it. In fact, I think Marshall placed the capacitor there to imitate the 'dark' sound of many older Marshall amps, and I prefer the Guv'nor Plus for that reason. It's too bad they don't make them anymore and the prices for used ones are sky high, as they are good dirt boxes. The Guv'nor sounds remarkably like a Marshall amp, without the 'sag' you get with some of them. You hit a chord, you feel it.

I also have a couple newer boxes (a Joyo British Sound and Boss Blues Driver BD-2) which I am still testing out on slide. They both seem to be very useful. I place them in front of my SD-2 overdrive, which I always keep as the last box in the chain. Like with any variable, you get a different set of tones with each configuration. It's all a matter of taste. I don't have a box that makes slide sound bad, but some of them sound better with slide than others.

My latest dirt box acquisition, a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, which is an excellent box for slide, as well as hard rock and blues sounds. I run mine in front of my Boss Super Overdrive SD-1. The BD-2 has a British-amp like tone to it (a bit Marshall-like, but sounding more like something in between a Marshall and maybe a Vox, or Orange or similar amp -- a tone I refer to as a "British edge"), and picking harmonics are clear. It has a bit of compression that brings out the sound of the slide notes, but it doesn't kill the dynamics. As an aside, it also gives my Ibby GRX-40's Powersound pickups a bit more body.

The Boss Blues Driver BD-2 appears to be awesome for slide playing, as it has most of the positive attributes of the SD-1, great picking dynamics and enough built in compression to make the notes sing out, without muddying up the chords like some distortion boxes can do. Its 'British' like tone (it sounds a bit like a Hiwatt, Vox, or a bit like a Marshall amp, depending on settings) also is a plus.

Either way, when using a distortion box or overdrive with your slide, experiment -- and even switch boxes -- if you seem to have some notes that won't ring out as much as others. Same with some of your amp settings.

LEARNING FROM THE BIG GUNS
One last note -- one key to learning is from recordings of big name players. Some of them you'll see playing slide and instantly you'll think "I can't ever do any of that." That's the last thing you want to do. Find a player you like, and listen, and watch a video of him or her playing. I'll never play like Johnny Winter or Ry Cooder, but I've learned a lot from watching them play. Some of the things they do are rather simple. It's just that it's a ton of simple things chained together at lightning speed. But the riffs themselves are fairly easy to learn. Stop the video, try to play one of the riffs on your guitar. Restart the video, and listen some more.

You'll also find some players really have a style that speaks to you more than others. I grew up listening to Keith Richards, Brian Jones, and Mick Taylor play slide on the Stones' records. It's a little closer to how I want to sound. To someone else, modern day virtuosos like Sonny Landreth, Ry Cooder, Derek Trucks or Roy Rogers may be your model. Some of the folk-rock Americana guys like Chris Whitley had a unique and rootsy way of playing.



[Ry Cooder playing Vigilante Man on bottleneck slide, in Open D tuning. This is a perfect example of what you can do in Open D -- and the video actually shows Ry using his slide, too!].

There's guys in the middle, like Johnny Winter (both picked and fingerpicked simultaneously, using a slide) or the Australian guitarist Kevin Borich (did a lot of open strings and sweeps using a flatpick), whose styles were in between single notes and chording. There are meat-and-potatoes rock slide players like the late Rod Price of Foghat, who is fun to watch, and did some wild sweeps with his slide (which he wore on his middle finger). One of my favorite Oz bands, Rose Tattoo, had a slide player named Peter Wells (who sadly died in 2006), who played a metal slide in Open D or E, and had a bluesy, blasty, punkish style of playing. He mostly played chords and dual-note runs. One reviewer I read a long time ago described Rose Tattoo as "Humble Pie with Ry Cooder, all jacked up on speed." Peter Wells' solo stuff is more laid back and melodic, however. He was a great player.

HUM, OR SING THE RIFF TO YOURSELF BEFORE TACKLING IT
Sometimes when learning riffs -- whether lead or slide riffs -- it's difficult to retain the notes in your head clearly enough to get them down on the strings. At times like that I've sometimes done what I read about -- ironically -- in a booklet about an Appalachian mountain music musician, a banjo and fiddle player named Hobart Smith.

Hobart Smith, who lived his live in the mountains near Saltville, Virginia, was a multi-instrumentalist and he had an entire library of all sorts of old mountain tunes and folk songs stored in his head. There are several CDs of his music available, and his music is also on YouTube.

One thing he said was that if you want to learn a tune, get it in your head by humming, singing, or whistling it. Then tackle it on the instrument. This is also a method that bagpipers used in ancient times to learn a piece.

Sometimes when I am trying to take apart a slide riff I've heard on the 'Tube, I'll stop the playback and just hum the notes out until I get it down in my head. Then I'll try playing it right on the slide.

OPEN NOTE / SLIDE-NOTE vs. ALL SLIDE-NOTE and SINGLE STRING PLAYING
There appear to be three basic schools of slide playing, examples of which you will find a-plenty on the internet: the first school is the open note / slide fretted note way of playing, and the second school is where the player mostly 'frets' all of the notes with the slide.  

Johnny Winter was famous for the former school: half of his notes appear to be open strings, and then he will sweep up with the slide and do a quick run before picking some more open notes, interspersing open strings and slide-notes quickly and effortlessly. A lot of the popular, modern slide players seem to do this as well. It's a style that appears to be based on some of the early, acoustic folk blues players.

A lot of current players and recent popular slide players, like Roy Rogers, Sonny Landreth, Ry Cooder, and the late Bob Brozman use this method. They'll go from open strings to slide created notes in a flurry, making a wall of sound that is fascinating to watch.

The second school of slide playing is the one I'm more into: where you mainly use the slide to do runs of notes, with very few, if any, open notes included in the riffage. Duane Allman did this, using very few open notes in his playing. Mick Taylor's slide playing has few, if any open notes, either. They use the slide more like a movable fret -- a long string of single notes, instead of half open chords with slide sweeps interspersed.

A third school of slide playing is used a lot by Ry Cooder and used extensively by Derek Trucks (and George Harrison was also a user of this method): the sweeping up and down a single string, stopping here and there along the way, while making notes. In other words, the player will play a few notes on several strings and then make several notes going up the string -- sometimes all the way up past Fret 12, making the notes slur and sweep up and down a scale. Derek Trucks does this with a lot of vibrato. It helps if you have a lot of sustain in your guitar / amp setup.

I myself can imitate the Johnny Winter, open string / slide note method for a few seconds, but it doesn't really speak to me. I prefer to treat slide playing as if it is an alternative to lead guitar -- closer to what Mick Taylor does when he plays slide.

Of course, how you approach playing slide is up to you. It will depend on the slide music that appeals to you most -- the open note, folk blues version or the more 'rock' oriented, all slide-note version.

There's a lot of different slide players out there, and most of them have videos on the 'Tube. Check 'em out.

DUANE ALLMAN -- THE MASTER
You can't talk slide playing without mentioning Duane Allman. It seems every other slide player out there wants to sound like him. I'm not one of them. Allman was a key slide player, and excellent at it, and his influence on nearly all slide playing is undisputed. His work in the song Layla is an example of him pushing the limits, even playing above the neck, and making it sound cool, like the guitar was taking off into outer space. One can argue that his playing made the Layla album the gem that it is in Eric Clapton's solo catalogue. Without Duane's musical contributions, it wouldn't have been the same.

But so many players out there have borrowed from Allman's style that I can't get into it that much. Some of the phrasings that originated with Duane have been a little overplayed. That said, some aspects of his playing are useful, as he was a very musical slide player. He used a Coricidin bottle, deadened the strings behind the slide, and also used an SG a lot of the time, usually on the neck pickup. I've found that you can adapt his tone to a lot of different guitars even if you don't use a glass slide, by tweaking the gain and muffling some of the tone on your guitar and amp, by using his phrasing, and if you don't like the sound of your guitar on the neck pickup (or if your guitar doesn't have one), even picking over the neck pickup sometimes helps you get somewhere in the vicinity of his tone. 

As for his style, it's difficult to ace, but not difficult to get in the ballpark. Duane played a lot in major pentatonic slide scales, and did a lot of long slurs up to the note, which means you've got to practice, practice, practice to guarantee you stop right at the note at the end of a long slur. Listening to him play (or some of those who learned his style -- Warren Hayes and Derek Trucks being two prime examples) will get you there. Like I said before, Duane can be imitated in Open G with some effort, but it would be easier to have a guitar tuned to Open D or E.



[This link is to a track that Duane Allman and Eric Clapton did while recording the Layla album -- both guys are playing an old blues tune on slide guitar. This is a classic outtake, and the slide feel by both players is, of course, excellent.].



[This is the recording of the Allmans that got me into Duane Allman's playing. Statesboro Blues is one of their biggest songs, and in this early live recording (which sounds like you're right up front) you can really hear Duane's slide playing in the left channel. There are several live shows available with Derek Trucks or Warren Hayes playing this track that give visuals to help you learn it if needed -- but I prefer to hear Duane.]
DON'T FORGET TO LISTEN TO REGULAR BLUES LEAD PLAYERS
You can also duplicate non-slide players' riffs. This actually will give you a rich library of riffs to use. I have tried to incorporate some of Eric Clapton's riffs to slide. Some of them work better than others. The same thing with Alvin Lee, whose riffs on the old Ten Years After records were very cool. Allen Collins' pentatonic, minor scale blues riffs on Lynyrd Skynyrd CDs are very cool riffs, and translate over well to slide playing. Kurt Winter, who played in the Guess Who after Randy Bachman left the band, is one of my favorite guitar players. His riffs on Guess Who records are quite adaptable to slide, as he also played slide very well.



[Kurt Winter of the Guess Who isn't a name thrown around much when it comes to rock guitarists, much less slide guitarists, but the opening riffs to this minor Canadian hit are all dual -- and perhaps triple -- slide guitar, with the jagged style of slide-vibrato that Kurt Winter was famous for. The multi-layered slide parts were also something not heard much on any rock records. It just shows the breadth of what can be done with a slide and an electric guitar.].

Also, don't forget the harmonica players! Blues 'harp' riffs translate over to slide guitar very well! Some of the coolest slide riffs you're going to find are in blues-harp riffs and solos. They tend to be pentatonic, and have the sorts of bends to them that are easy to mimic using a slide. In fact, with the right settings on your guitar, distortion box and amp, you can imitate an amplified blues harmonica decently.

Some players like Derek Trucks have incorporated Indian, Turkish and Middle Eastern riffs into their slide playing. The sky's the limit, as you're making your own notes.



[An article on slide players would not be complete without a mention of Jimmy Page, whose slide tracks on Led Zeppelin III and Physical Graffiti were an introduction to slide (and alternate tunings) for many rock fans in the 70's and 80's. This is a video of Jimmy Page playing "In My Time Of Dying", a featured track on Led Zeppelin's classic album Physical Graffiti. He's playing in the tuning of Open G on a Danelectro guitar with 'lipstick', single coil pickups. Most of his riffs here are fairly simple -- Jimmy Page is hitting an open string, and then sweeping up and down to various frets, mostly on the middle G string. Sometimes he goes up and strikes the chord at the 12th fret, sweeping up to the 15th on the two smallest strings and back down.... Mostly simple stuff to learn. It's the quick execution that makes it so impressive. He also wears the slide on his ring finger here.]



[Led Zeppelin's Hats Off To Harper was the first introduction my guitar playing pal Jack Bell and I (we taught each other guitar) had to this style of country blues slide guitar. The last track off of Led Zeppelin III, Jimmy Page is playing this in Open C, which -- naturally -- is Open D with every string dropped down a step. Like in "In My Time Of Dying", the actual slide licks are simple, it's the fast and deft execution of the slide playing that is impressive. For those interested, Robert Plant is apparently singing through a guitar amplifier's vibrato channel or otherwise through a vibrato treatment.]

AND PRACTICE...
Lastly, as mentioned before, practice. When I was learning guitar, "practice" meant getting the chords down, and learning the scales, although I generally didn't practice the way I probably should have. I became a good rhythm player and decent at lead (when I was playing it), but looking back, I could have been better had I practiced the right way. This is exceptionally apparent with my slide playing.

With slide guitar, if you're off by an eighth or quarter note, the slide lands too high or low, or you hit the wrong string by accident, you can really sound bad.

So, to do it well, it's probably imperative to practice, practice, practice. Johnny Winter could play incredible slide riffs without even glancing once at the guitar -- it's obvious that not only had he been playing for years, but he practiced a lot. He said he would practice sometimes for six hours a day to get things down right. Eric Clapton apparently practiced every riff hundreds of times a day, until he got it perfect. Although he wasn't a slide player for the most part, that dedication probably helps!

I practice simple three and four-note riffs over and over until I get them right. I have to really work at it the higher I go up the neck, as accuracy is extremely important up past fret 14 or so. I probably spend twice as much time practicing above fret 14 than I do lower on the neck for that reason. If you want to play a lot of slide riffs up above frets 17 and 19, it takes a LOT of practice to dependably hit the notes right, as actual notes can be 5 mm (or less) apart.

After working on the three and four-note riffs, I start chaining them together. I've found that even several shorter periods of intense practice a few times a day (in between other tasks, obviously) really helps. Finally, I'll chain the newer riffs and notes back home -- the 'trail back home' to the core 'blues box' I mentioned earlier. It helps when playing new riffs on the fly, until it all becomes automatic.

Since I first started writing this, I've added a few links to YouTube blues and slide videos in this article. Hopefully, they will remain on the 'Tube so they don't become dead links. A lot of vids these days are officially placed on the 'Tube, so it shouldn't be a problem. Fingers crossed. :-)

Hopefully this article will help some starting slide players, and entertain others. The vids should provide musical entertainment for some of you.

Until next time, my friends, stay safe and stay well.

Peace.

C.C., final writing 3-2021, published October 8th, 2025.

Obviously, I was sitting on this article for a long time. In fact, I forgot about it. Finally, I remembered it was on here and decided to post it, warts and all.



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