Ive tuned my qacoustic to open g to play usin a slide. I got pretty good with improviisin with a slide. But only wen i play by myself. How can u solo with a slide in any key, in open g? or is it only possible to solo in open g? Just how Rory Gallagher does with that battered Tele. I tried but it didnt work. Please help! Thanxx!
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"No pain No gain!"- The Scorpions
Theoretically it's possible to solo in any key using any tuning AS LONG AS YOU KNOW THE SCALE FOR THAT KEY!!!!
Take the 12th fret in standard tuning for example....
playing the 4th 3rd and 2nd strings gives you a G chord...D, G & B...move everything across one fret, play the 3rd, 2nd & 1st strings, you have G, B & E...which, in the scale of E, are the 1st, flattened 3rd and fifth, which gives you an Em chord....so in open G you'd play the 3rd string at the 12th fret, the 2nd string at the 12th fret, then slide up to the 14th to accompany the Em chord....
You can read up a little on this in David's lesson about "If Not For You"...
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Most people are really only comfortable playing in the root key of an open tuning, and for blues stick around the open, 12th fret (both being the I chord), fifth fret (IV chord), seventh fret (V chord) and third fret (minor third.) For other keys it's easy to just figure out where, say, the I, IV and V chords are on the fretboard and use those. It changes the tonality as you may be playing the IV chord lower on the neck than the I chord, but the same slide licks work that way.
Vic's quite right that the scales for any key are there in any open tuning. The big advantage of open tuning is in having a whole major (or minor, whatever) chord available at each fret, just by barring.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
This is good example why you need to fool aroung in standard tuning.
Once you get into it, its not so bad at all.
It shouldn't be viewed as a matter of standard tuning vs. open tunings. One's not "right" and the other "wrong." They're different and have their pros and cons. Lots of cool slide stuff's been done in standard tuning. But there's a lot that you can't do with it. You'll never be able to get that cool resonance of having all the strings in tune with one another. You won't be able to replicate the sounds of the old blues that were played in open tunings. It's mostly good for playing melodic leads in a band situation. The open tunings aren't as easy to switch keys in, which is why standard tuning has become so popular. Learning good muting skills is critical for sliding in standard. Starting off sliding in standard, you'll sound like a classroom of 3 year olds learning Suzuki violin. In an open tuning, you can make pretty decent sounding stuff from the beginning.
:lol:
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Ricochet said:
"In an open tuning, you can make pretty decent sounding stuff from the beginning. "
Absolutely!!!!
When I first started out on guitar, my favourite record at the time was Lennon's version of "Stand by Me"....I was struggling at the time with the G/Em/C/D progression, sore fingers, clumsy fingers, thinking "I'll never get this right!!!" But the slide solo was no problem - took me a couple of days...then I moved on to "Vigilante Man" and "Child in the Sun" (both Nazareth) and could soon play along with them as well....all in open G...
So in my opinion, slide is a good way to start out - you get a feel for notes and where they are on the fret board, and it really helps you learn to play by ear....
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
When I said earlier it's possible to solo in any key inany tuning, I've managed to find an example...George Harrison's song "Any Road" is in the key of D, but the slide solo sounds as if it's done in Open G...it's pretty simple anyway, all based around the 7th fret, never have to move more than 3 frets away....
If I get time, I'll try and tab it out for the easy song database...
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Speaking of Open G: This morning I got a notion to try tuning my little cheapo Artisan lap steel into high bass G, commonly called "dobro tuning" nowadays, a good old standard lap steel tuning. GBDGBD. Got nervous when it was taking quite a bit of torque to tighten up the .056" sixth string the last 10 cents or so to G. The cheap classic guitar tuners on this thing are OK for normal purposes, but don't strike me as inordinately strong. I've seen tuners like that sprung apart. I also got to worrying about overstressing that wooden nut. So I tuned into Open G minor and played around for a while, then into Open G.
I haven't played to amount to anything in Open G in a year and a half. Couldn't even remember how to do the Muddy Waters/Eric Clapton version of "Walking Blues" that I learned long ago when I tried to pick it out on a friend's National a few months back. But it came right back on the Artisan, and sounds good.
:D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
