Slide guitar tuning in all keys and all chords minor major

Well, I often play minor chords in a major open tuning by fretting the string tuned to the major third (in Open D or E, that's the third string, in Open G or A, the second string) one fret behind the slide.

No common open tuning will be as handy to play in any key as standard, but as you've noted, standard isn't real handy when you're mainly making chords by barring with the slide. (Though lots of them are there when you're only using two or three of the strings at a given fret.) I haven't played much standard tuning slide, but it's interesting to note that strings 2-4 of standard are the same as Open G and always make a major chord. (Open, it's a G major triad. Duh.) Strings 1 & 2 (and 6) are the same as Open E. (Not a major chord, but it's an inverted "power chord" using strings 1 & 2.) ) Strings 1, 2 & 3 give you a minor chord (open, they're E minor.) So you can always find a major and a minor chord with a slide, it'll just take a bit of thought to figure out which frets to go to. There's a fellow on here named PlaneTalk who has a learning system by the same name for figuring this stuff out for sliding in standard and Drop D, and his slide playing will absolutely blow you away!
:shock:

The real steelers will pop in to tell how 6th chord tunings always give you a major and a minor triad at each fret.

:D

The real steelers will pop in to tell how 6th chord tunings always give you a major and a minor triad at each fret.

:D

Uhm.... eh.... well.... uh... oh, nevermind! :lol:

Anyway, I don't think a 6th chord would work all that well for bottleneck sliding, though I've never tried it. If you want full chords in an open tuning on bottleneck slide, the best thing is probably to learn how to fret behind the slide. That'll give you some very interesting options.

If you're in a band situation, the regular tuning can actually be very handy, as Grady mentioned, plus it will give you the option of switching back and forth between fretting chords and playing slide lines. I used to do that a lot before the lap steel completely hijacked my musical life.

Steinar

If i fret the notes on the same strings as the slide its like putting a Capo behind the slide so it doesn't really do anythingThen you're not doing it right. You shouldn't press the string down to the fretboard with the slide, just keep the slide enough in contact with it that it doesn't buzz. You should be able to fret one or two frets behind the slide easily. That takes the string out of contact with the slide while pressing it against the fret so it plays a note "behind" the slide. That lets you play minor chords in major tunings, Sus2 chords, sevenths, diminished... You can also fret in front of the slide to make Sus4, augmented or sixth chords in a major open tuning. You'll need the slide on the ring or middle finger to do those. Blues players usually aren't too interested in this stuff, but I often find it handy.

If your action's very low or you're using a very arched fretboard, it gets trickier to fret behind the slide, but you don't want your action raised much. You still need to be able to fret, good bottleneck playing has a lot of fretted stuff mixed in.

As for standard, reread my above message. You certainly can play both major and minor triads on every fret by barring alone in standard tuning. PlaneTalk does it all the time. He plays killer fingerpicked slide solo stuff with full accompaniment, not just melody lines, in Drop D (mostly) and standard tuning. My hat's off to him!

Here's his main website, BTW: http://www.kirklorange.com/
:D

Yeah, but it's a compromise you'll have to live with if you want to access a whole lot of chords and harmonies playing bottleneck slide. It sure doesn't seem to bother Sonny Ladreth a whole lot.

If you want access to a wide variety of chords and harmonies while still sliding, there's really only one alternative; The pedal steel. Everything else is a compromise, one way or the other.

An 8 string lap steel tuned to a 6th or 13th chord will give you quite a lot of options, a 6-string less but still a whole lot if you master the slanting technique.

A bottleneck slide guitar is the most limited instrument unless you include a fretted note or two. Tuning it to, for example, BDF#ABD, will give you many nice options, but then you'll lose some of the personality of a bottleneck guitar (at least to my ears).

That's just the way it is, sliders have tried to overcome these limitations for ages, and most of us have learned to live with a certain set of compromises. Not accepting these compromises is what eventually brought us the pedal steel guitar.......

Steinar

Hi walters ...

Have a look at these 'fretscapes' I posted at my site. They show where the triads and bits and pieces are that line up for slide in dropped D tuning. Just the bass string is lowered to D.

http://www.thatllteachyou.com/fretscapes.html

See if that helps ... remember that every chord has these same chunks of music, they just move around the fretboard.

Now, Grady and Ricochet are dead-on right about Standard-Tuning; if you follow Ricochet's description of how to find and play major AND minor triads and double-stops all over the fretboard in Standard, you'll find EVERYTHING that you could want for versatile slide-playing that fits the key of any given tune. You would do well to re-read his post about playing in Standard-tuning this way, and giving it an honest try.

You just might have to accept two- to four-note chords instead of five- or six-notes. And cultivating your fingerstyle chops, paticularly your damping and muting techniques, will get you a lot more miles out of it.
"Fretting behind the slide is going to press the string down so the "slide" is not going to be play that string any more because its not raised because its being fretted..."

Yes- that's exactly the whole point.

Sonny Landreth, one of the greatest sliders out there, does this to great effect; he generally plays in open tunings, Open D and G, and/or their relatives a whole-step up, E and A, I believe; and he can pretty much hit or imply any chord in any register at any time. And so can you, with practice!

"Standard" tuning would actually lend itself to this style very well, and would probably be the most versatile overall.

I do some behind-the-slide-fretting in Standard AND Open tunings to get minor and Major intervals, etc. I also occasionally slant the slide and play only the 2nd and 4th OR the 1st and 3rd strings for minor and Major 6ths; sometimes I throw in either an open or fretted low-string underneath for Major or minor three-note chords.

What kind of guitar are you using, and what kind of slide? For that matter, what gauges of strings, and tuning(s)? How's it set-up?

The Dunlop Harris Slide, a bell-brass slide with a tapered, concave-radiused profile, can make fretting-behind-the-slide easier on guitars with a pronounced fretboard-radius and a low-ish action... There are others with similar shapes, as well.

There ARE a variety of "string-bender" devices on the market that allow you to raise the pitch of a given string by a preset amount- say, a half-step or a whole-step- while the other strings remain the same, WHILE PLAYING. Put one on the 3rd string while tuned to, say, Open-Dm, and you've got six-string open/slide chords in either minor or major on tap.

In Open-Dm or Open-Em (D-A-D-F-A-D, E-B-E-G#-B-E) you can raise the pitch of the 3rd-string by a half-step for a Major 3rd, or a whole-step for a Sus 4...

If there's a good length of string between the bridge and tailpiece, you can slip a piece of Teflon tubing (used for wire insulating in electronics) over the string when re-stringing to cushion the string there between the bridge and tail and make pulling on it with a finger to raise its pitch for "Bender"-effects easier and more comfortable.

There are no magic solutions, only solutions by which you might make some magic... it's been done before; that's why we're all here in the first place.

Maybe D A D G A D

In stardard tuning with the slide you can't do major chords because the
notes don't line up straight with the fret so u have to fret and MIX with the slide barre only the lined up notes with the fret
Yes, you can walters ... the 2-3-4 stringset, the BGD strings are a major chord. They line up, and are (from bass to treble) the 5th, tonic and major 3rd ... all the required notes to make a major chord.

F major - strings 2, 3, 4 at the 10th fret
G major - same at the 12th fret (or open strings)
A major - same strings at the 2nd or 14th fret
B major - same strings at the 4th or 16th fret

Just like you would in open-G tuning,- strings 2, 3 and 4 are the same in standard and open-G tuning.

Steinar

Playing slide in any tuning is a compromise walters ... no one tuning has it over any other in my (long) experience of sliding. You can, however, always make do with what each has to offer. I went back to standard only because (apart from playing those big six string I-IV-V chords) I was lost. All the work I'd put into mapping out the fretboard was useless in open tunings and I really NEED to know what it is I'm playing. I then dropped the E down to D and I've been satisfied ever since. I now play a kind of hybrid style of normal and slide, all at the same time. I can find all chord flavors in this tuning -- major, major7th, 7th, minor, minor7th, diminished, augmented, sus 4, 9th, 11th -- they're all there even if you can only hit a couple of meaningful notes together.

http://www.thatllteachyou.com/xroads/sample.swf is a Flash file of my way of playing 'Crossroads' in dropped D if you're interested.

Cheers,

Kirk

Thats a high Register voicing for that
I think open tuning has to be better to line up the notes for major and minor chord but is Limited to only some major and minor chords for that
open tuning without "slanting the slide" just moveable Barre slide chords

If you'll re-read Steinar Gregertsen's post there...

G Maj available at the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings open...

A Maj - same strings at the 2nd fret...

B Maj - same strings at the 4th fret...

Connect the dots, find some more there;

maybe try "Standard", but dropped down enough half- or whole-steps to give you what you want in lower positions...

major, major7th, 7th, minor, minor7th, diminished, augmented, sus 4, 9th, 11th -

To get these chords in standard tuning use have to fret "behind or After the slide" to get those notes in the chords or have to slant the slide so really your only getting one or 2 notes that are fretted by the slide
I can get 3 note chords for major, minor, major7, 9th, sus4; 4 note chords for minor7th, 11th; 2 note double stops for dim and aug, but which move up or down 3 and 4 notes respectively clearly staing the flavor that way. You just have to know where to look.

If you want to play full chords for all flavors, you'll need to switch between several open tuned guitars every time the chords change... which can really get on an audience's nerves.

Why do you feel you need full, six-string, chords anyway?

No, sorry walters, just the fretscapes I posted earlier on for major/minor. The others are there though, you can believe me. The top 4 treble strings are minor7; the middle 4 strings are 11th ...

Walters...google on "guitar open tunings chord chart" and there's lots of stuff about open chords and stuff.

Good luck!

Carol