I've heard that it's best to place a slide on your pinky to make chords and notes better.I just have a hard time playing with a slide on my pink,so I moved to my ring finger intead.It feels more natural to me,but I can't place any chords this way.I know a little bit of chords in Open G,but have problems using them while playing slide.Usaully,one finger makes a chord in open tunings,but they can have three depending on the chord and key.How are chords played when using a slide?
It's just something you'll have to get accustomed to. It doesn't happen over nite.
Yep. Some chords are easier to make with your first three fingers, the slide being on the pinky. There are some that are easier to make with the slide on the ring finger. There's no right or wrong. Some, like Bonnie Raitt and Billy Gibbons, prefer to wear the slide on the middle finger and use the other three when they want to chord. You can also learn to modify the basic major chord the slide barres by fretting a string behind or in front of the slide, for instance when you want to play a minor key tune in an open major tuning. It all takes time and effort to figure out.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Ric's right, of course. There is no right or wrong.
However.
If you want to slide and fret on the same guitar, you can't beat having the slide on the little finger. You can do more with three fretting fingers than you can with two, or one. Simple mathematics. Also I think the little finger gives you a slightly more advantageous angle for the slide -- you don't have to cock the wrist so much to get the slide dead perpendicular to the strings.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
