by Nick Annan
As slide guitar was one of Brian's passions and perhaps the one through which he expressed himself best, I thought I would share with everyone the basics of slide guitar.
The Slide
To play the slide guitar you will need a slide! These come in a variety of materials (brass, metal, glass) all with slightly different sounds. Dimensions are usually about 3 inches long and with a radius of about 1 inch.
When using a slide you should place the slide over the fret and use gentle pressure. You should also use a finger to dampen unwanted harmonics behind the slide. To do this simply keep a finger touching the strings but don't use any pressure, just touching.
You can either buy one (quite expensive) or make one on the cheap.
A method for making a glass slide is to:
Get a wine bottle with a long neck.
Score around the neck where you want to seperate it (2 and a half or 3 inches)
Put it in an oven until it is warm/hot (be careful!)
Take it out and dip it up to the score in cold water.
Hopefully the difference in temperature will cause the structure to weaken, so now hold both ends of the bottle and try to snap the neck off.
If you have the right combination of hot and cold it should easily come off.
For a metal slide either go to the local plumbers yard and search for offcuts of pipe or buy a length of pipe and hacksaw a piece off. Remember to smooth all the edges.
Tuning
The most important thing is the tuning of the guitar, this is a major aspect of the sound of slide guitar. For the moment I will explain Open G (A) tuning with Open D (E) to follow.
The idea is that you tune the guitar so that it plays a G chord when strummed with any chord being held.
Standard tuning on the guitar is (thick to thin): E-A-D-G-B-E
For Open G you should tune the guitar (thick to thin): D-G-D-G-B-D (notice that the D-G-B strings stay the same).
Now when you strum the open strings you should get a wonderful full G chord.
NOTE: You can tune all the strings up one tone for Open A (E-A-E-A-Cflat-E) but this adds extra tension to the strings and the guitar neck. I would advise using Open G with a capo on the 2nd fret.
(Also, Open G tuning was used extensively by Keith Richards and Mick Taylor on "Exile On Main Street", mostly without the slide.)
Basic Chords
As the guitar is now tuned differently so all the chord shapes have changed. Here I will show you the basic chord types Major, Minor and 7th.
For Major chords simply put one finger across all the strings. The root note for the chord being on the 5th (G) string.
For Minor chords again put a finger across all the strings and then hold down the (middle) G and B strings three frets up (towards the body of the guitar). The root note again being on the 5th (G) string.
For 7th chords, put that finger across all the strings again, then hold down the high D string three frets up the neck. The root note still being on the 5th (G) string.
These are the basic chords but some of the best sounds are found by experimenting. Use standard chords or move them up/down the neck.
Chords can be played with a combination of slide and conventional fingering but I find it best to wear the slide on your pinkie finger, allowing you to fret chords with three fingers then play lead/melody with the slide.
Playing Lead/Melody
There are a variety of scales you can use in slide playing but the best two are usually described as the blues scale and the country scale.
However the easiest is neither of these although it does give a good bluesy sound.
It is probably easiest to visualise it as a box that covers all six strings and runs from the nut to the third fret. So the notes are:
Thickest string-- 0 3 (over the 3rd fret remember)
0 3
0 3
0 3
0 1 2 3
Thinnest string-- 0 3 5
To add a bluesy sound use the 1st and 2nd frets on the B string in passing.
The Blues Scale
This is the "real" blues scale which is a wee bit more complicated than the last one but I'll try to keep it simple. The notes are (it is best to try to visualise the shape):
Thickest string-- 0 3 5
0 3 5
0 3
0 3
1
Thinnest string-- 0 3 5
The numbers are the fret you play, remember to play directly over the fret.
The other version of this scale is played at the octave (12th fret):
Thickest string-- x
12
9 10 12
12
10 12
Thinnest string-- 10 12
The Country Scale
This scale gives a more country sound, much used by the "Exile"/"Sticky Fingers" era Stones.
Thickest string-- 5
0 2 4
0 2
0 2 4
x
Thinnest string-- 0 2 5
Playing Tips
The beauty of slide is that you get the best sounds by not playing the notes. You can just pluck the first note but then just move the slide up or down to the next note and there is the slide sound.
Also, you can slide down to notes as well as up. Another tip is to pluck a note then slide to the next note and pluck another next string. Not only do you get the plucked note you also hear the 'slide' note.
That's all for the moment. I hope this inspires some of you to try out slide guitar or just using the Open G tuning.