Howdy Y'all!
Just thought i'd drop by and let you all know after about 6 years of guitar playing i took the plunge and started learning how to play slide! 6 years too long i'd say! I love it, it's a whole new dimension to playing that has opened up, almost like a whole new instrument! At the moment i mostly play in open G tuning, just been surfing round the web looking for licks and songs to get under my belt (p.s any favorite licks you have would be appreciated 8) ) (Plus feel free to mention any relatively easy songs in open g)
However, there is a downside...now that i'm officially a 'slide player' (well, not quite yet :P ) I can't stop looking at resonator guitars! As if i need another excuse/reason to fork over more of my money to the guitar store! Oh well.
Anyway, i pretty much only have one question at this stage:
At the moment i'm playing on my acoustic guitar, because i heard that if i tune down to open G on my floating bridge electric i could mess up my intonation. It seems like a pretty reasonable thing but just want to make sure that it's true OR if there are any ways around it (apart from buying a new guitar!! :lol: )
Anyway thanks for your time hope to speak to you soon
Tom
No, you won't hurt your guitar or its intonation, but a floating bridge is a PITA to retune.
Resos are great fun!
Don't have to have a reso to play slide, obviously. :D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
slide is very addictive. I never thought that when I bought my first lap steel four years ago I would end up with four lap slides, a National square neck resonator and a pedal steel. ( well, the pedal steel is gone now). I love slide. the expressiveness is incredible. I am stumbling onto endless songs to play when I am noodling around.
one thing I have discovered is that all my slide shapes or way of looking at the fretboard has translated itself into my standard guitar playing. I am playing things in standard I had never thought of before.
Standard's just another alternate tuning. :mrgreen:
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Standard is my favorite alternate tuning Rico....followed by G.
Too bad it wasn't Duanne's fav........
No, you won't hurt your guitar or its intonation, but a floating bridge is a PITA to retune.
Yah i don't know if i can be bothered mucking around on the electric at the moment, think i'll stick to the acoustic.
Thanks for the quick reply.
Just one other 'noobie' question: When playing vibrato, do you move the slide up or down or side to side? I have tried both read that vibrato should be applied by moving the slide up and down vertically (at least that was the impression i got). I have pretty much been applying vibrato by moving the slide from side to side horizontally but was just wondering if the 'vertical' vibrato was another technique or if i was just reading it wrong.
Thanks for listening to my groan worthy questions 8)
Tom
vibrato is a rolling or sliding wiggle forward (sharp) and backward (flat). by moving sharp and flat ever so slightly the sound sounds natural and pleasing to the ear.
"Vertical vibrato" might work on a lap steel, but not bottleneck. Not enough clearance over the fretboard to change the pitch much, you'd just be bouncing your slide on the fretboard. (Have I mentioned that you don't want really high action for bottleneck? You still need to be able to fret with reasonable intonation.)
Vibrato's done by sliding up and down the fretboard. What you're calling "horizontal" with respect to the fretboard. Usually up to but not sharp of the target pitch, and going down anywhere from 1/4 fret or so to about 2 frets, depending on the mood. I usually like to keep it pretty subtle. The rate is another variable, and you can even vary it. (Think of a Leslie switching speeds. On a sustained note, start slow and speed up the vibrato, or vice versa.)
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Thanks for the comprehensive answers guys!
Tom
