Slide pitch

Which is why so many slide players use vibrato.

Exactly. Precision in pitch becomes noncritical when you're using vibrato. A note sustained for very long without any vibrato sounds pretty uninteresting. (I would've said "flat," but in the context that word's ambiguous.) I mostly use a very slight vibrato with the slide just wiggling a little, nowhere near a 1/4 step or any such. The key to slide playing is that you're sliding, not staying in one place. Slide up (or down) into those notes, don't just drop the slide on 'em and keep it there. I don't mean big long slides, either, half a fret's often plenty, and slides of more than 2 frets should be used very sparingly.

But as for the original question, your ear for pitch will develop over time. (Hopefully.)

It's interesting to listen to recordings of some of the great classic blues slide players (like Muddy Waters, for instance) and realize that they're often way off of exact pitches on the notes. But they still sound great! Those "off" notes come in runs and don't hang around long.

In case you haven't yet found it, there's a very often useful note just about exactly halfway between the minor third and major third of the scale. Can be played by string bending the minor third up a bit or of course with a slide up a half fret or so from the minor third. Often called the "blues third," it represents a true melodic interval not found in European music, and has been theorized to derive from some Western African scale. In any event, it's used a lot in blues.

:D

Yes, that's sorta what vibrato is for. Lots of ancient music doesn't have it, but it developed when people started singing together and some couldn't hit the pitches.

I've also heard it said that harmony developed that way too :)

But as far as slide dcarroll, I hope you're not playing while watching your electronic tuner, lol, because, well, it's sorta missing the point. Slide playing can be thought of as a raw, emotional, expressive sort of playing where precise pitch is (and shouldn't be) a concern. It's like, you have to try and play in pitch, but you also have to not let it get in the way. It's also a lot like singing, but in more ways than one.

If you've ever put a tuner to a singer and watched the readout, the pitches aren't going to always be exactly in tune. But that's part of what makes the tone and sound and melody richer, in my estimation. There's a certain point where you have to stop worrying about the mathematical precision of what you're doing and leave it behind and just play. That's the whole point. Practice for perfection, but play with abandon. :)

With that said, it was said that Duane Allman was one of the rare ones who could play slide without looking at the fretboard and still get pitches close to perfect. I believe that. But in listening to some of the things I used to listen to - namely Allman Bros Band stuff - maybe it's just that my ear is better these days (or worse) but there are some things he plays that are definitely not on pitch. Some would argue. I can't give you a specific passage that's out, but when you listen to it and focus only on that, it's a little off.

And the thing is, it really didn't (and doesn't) matter one tiny bit. His passion and the fire with which he played is the only thing that's important. And when he was playing, I don't believe he was looking at tuner to make sure he was on pitch. :wink:

And with that said, some guys use the frets as 'markers' to where they're going. The slide, if you didn't know this already, should be positioned as near as possible directly over the center of the fret and not behind it as you would push down a fretting finger. Not to say you should spend your life staring at the frets though, lol. Some would say that you shouldn't look at the fretboard, but I believe you have to, to start with. It's a little different than fretting notes because with that, you have the tactile feeling of where you are on the fretboard by feeling the edges of the frets against the underside of your fingers. In other words it's easier to feel your way up and down the neck when you have those little 'bumps' to guide you.

As far as the 'not looking' theory, I'd have to bring in the fact that steel guitars, though they have no frets whatsoever, have a graphic all the way up the neck to show you where you are. If looking wasn't the case, they'd have a featureless fingerboard like a Sarod, which is just shiny stainless steel from end to end.

So, short answer (which I'm never able to do :) ) is to 'look' and keep the contact point of the slide directly 'over' the fret you're playing. Eventually you'll be able to hear the pitches (close enough) to pitch and will be able to stop looking.

Me? I look most of the time :)

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the great replies guys. Also, for slide vibrato I have two questions...

When I do normal vibrato I use my wrist and bend the note from on pitch to slightly flat, when I vibrato with a slide should I waver from flat to sharp...will this type of vibrato sound different?

Also, do you guys use your arm and move your whole hand side to side when using vibrato with a slide, or are you rotating the wrist.

Thanks for helping a beginner,
dustin

That's the other thing I was going to mention (but forgot to) about slide vibrato and singer/vocal vibrato. On guitar, with an un-bent note, when you vibrato, it's going from normal to slightly sharp, because you're actually bending the string slightly. Vocal vibrato is going from pitch to slightly flat most times. I've listened to it and asked my wife (the singer) about it. She never really picked it apart; for singers it's just 'normal.' But if you listen, singers dip down a bit in their vibrato - unless it's like East Indian where they go all over the place (I love that style). It's a little hard to discern which is the vibrato and which is the ornament though sometimes. :)

Anyhow, with slide, it's 'more' down than up, but it goes up above the pitch as well. So (which is why I like slide), slide playing is the most 'vocal' type of playing you can do. And as such, it's always noticably different. It's almost subconscious, but it hits the ear somewhere and you know it's different from other types of guitar vibrato.

An equivalent is the use of the vibrato bar on some guitars, because you can go slightly flat and slightly sharp (aside from divebombing of course) and it has that real 'liquid' sound.

So yes, you waver the slide slightly above to slightly below the note.

As far as the movement it concerned, yes, it's rotating, but (and this'll sound weird) it's like imagine a cobra snake staring you in the eye: it's lifted up (your forearm) and its head is angled right at you (your hand) and then it slowly shakes its head to answer "No" because you just asked it if has a cell phone you can borrow.

It's that sort of motion. :)

My slide vibrato's pretty much from on pitch to slightly flat, as with vocal vibrato.

Vibrato tends to sound wobbly if you go both above and below on the same note. It's best to pick a direction when you don't want wobbly.

Playing on pitch is part hearing and part muscle memory. Hearing the note is important, but by the time you hear the off note, so has everyone else. Just playing a lot will build the muscle memory. I don't play slide much, but my pitch is good since I play my fretless bass all the time. Ideally, you only want to lokk when you're lining up for the beginning of a run, to make sure you're starting in the right spot. From there you can play by feel.