Slide guitar tuning in all keys and all chords minor major

You must be fretting behind or after the slide to get 3 note chords like these there no way the standard tuning is not made for 3 note chords to be lined up at frets like that i mean i don't see it like that at all its very very limited just useing a slide and no fretting before or after the slideI'm not understanding something: Why is it so important to you that chords be made only with the slide, not using finger fretting? That's just basic bottleneck slide technique to fret with the slide, and indeed a lot of good playing with a bottleneck is done just with finger fretting chords in between sliding with the bottleneck. That's why you don't want to go overboard with high action and huge strings. I don't think of bottleneck playing being an all-slide endeavor at all. That's lap slide territory.
:D

I don't think of bottleneck playing being an all-slide endeavor at all. That's lap slide territory.
:D

Exactly Ric,

"Bottleneck" style involves Fretting and Sliding.
I couldn't imagine just playing Slide on my guitar in any Tuning and not fretting chords & notes.

You guys that play Lap Steel are way beyond my level.
I couldn't do it if I tried.

Walters may be asking for something that just isn't possible.
Unless,,,he wants to re-tune his guitar after every song.
and maybe even during a song.

I just don't think there is one single tuning (other than Standard) that's going to give you "everything".

Some of the more experienced and more talented guys like Steiner and PlaneTalk can come up with an answer but,,,I'm stumped on this one.

I still say that Standard Tuning & Fretting is going to be the only thing that gives you everything in one Tuning.

Walters, I feel that you are looking for something that a bottleneck guitar simply CAN'T do. It's like wanting to play harmonized melodies on a saxophone,- you need to accept the instrument for what it is, including it's limitations and the compromises you have to make.

There will always be compromises, no matter what instrument you play. A pianist can't bend the notes like us guitarists can, and he can't add vibrato, yet the piano can be one hell of an expressive instrument. A regular 6-string guitar can only play six notes at once, and we guitarists has to make harmonic compromises compared to a pianist,- but we can bend and wail and howl as much as our heart desire...

Slide guitar playing, be it on bottleneck or lap steel, was born out of a desire to mimic the human voice, not to add rich harmonic backing for a soloist. I still view my lap steel as a melody instrument, just like I would a saxophone, but with the opportunity to add harmonized lines and triads. If I want fuller chord voicings I reach for my guitar or (gulp) synth.

As I've written before, pedal steel was born out of frustration with the limitations of lap steel. Steel guitar developed from being a simple melody instrument with six strings, usually backed by a ukulele and/or guitar, then the tunings got more advanced, then there was more strings added, and finally the pedal steel arrived. All of this was in an attempt to overcome the chordal and harmonic limitations you are dealing with now.

Yet many of us still stick to 'simple' bottleneck and 6-string lap steels. Why? I don't know really, but perhaps there's something in the simplicity of the instrument that makes us focus more on the melodic beauty of it...

Steinar

See, you have to learn how to damp and mute and move from one grouping of strings to another and back. And you have to learn how to throw in fretted passages, and combine fretting-behind-the-slide and various techniques for bending notes- fretted or held with the slide.

It isn't supposed to be a big honkin' slide autoharp! And it isn't going to play itself.

The only way you're going to come even close to what you're asking here is to get a big-@$$3d dual- or even triple-neck pedal-steel, and even then you're gonna find that you'll have to use the pedals and levers to bend notes, or else zip up and down the length of the thing AND side-to-side and that would doubtless sound as ridiculous as it would look and feel.

Playing any musical instrument is about creating a dialogue or conversation, whether you're in a group-setting or completely solo. There has to be give and take, ebb and flow, bob, weave, punch, and counter...

Think of how it would sound for a solo pianist to just play all ten-note chords in whole- and half-notes. It'd sound ridiculous, wouldn't it? There's got to be motion that pushes and pulls the tune into shape, and not just rhythmically, harmonically and melodically too! It's got to be 3-D and alive.

An incredible and long list of great players have found LOADS of ways to get all manner of sounds and styles and chords and licks and phrases out of a near equally incredible and long list of slide-guitar style instruments. And they've been doing so for a very long time, leaving audiences floored.

What's stopping you from joining that list? Figure that out, and the rest will just fall into place.

In my opinion if you play in open e you can move to any other key quite easily. Just use the box pattern at whatever fret your on, 3rd fret g, 5th fret a, etc. etc. fingering and chording are simpler than standard tuning also. It's all just a different way of playing the same guitar. :wink:

You don't, really.

If you've got a slide guitar tuned to a major chord, the slide isn't pressing the strings down to the fretboard - it's stopping the strings sort of in mid-air.

One of the strings will be tuned to the third of the chord. if you fret that note behind the slide (one fret behind the slide), you're fretting the note a half step below the third - making it a minor third in the chord.

When you fret that string, you're pressing it to the fretboard. That makes it 'lower' than the other strings when seen from the end of the neck. Now when you place the slide, it won't actually touch the fretted string - fretting it pulls it down beneath the slide.

The result is a minor chord in major tuning.

Seems like a lot of work to me. And how would you do the tunes live?

Lots of music (including blues) mixes major and minor chords. It strikes me as very limiting to reject fretting behind the slide.

There is another way, though - you could always re-string. Since you're only talking about doing slides into chords, you could change your setup for only treble strings. If you put on two G strings, two B strings, and two E strings, you could tune to G-Bb-D-G-B-D (or any other major/minor triads you wanted) and you could play either - in that tuning, you'd get minor chords on strings 6-4 (or even 6-3) and major chords on strings 1-3 or 1-4.

Walters, you can do that with any "6th" tuning. Take C6 for example, from low to high: CEGACE. As you will see it includes a C-major triad (CEG) and a A-minor triad (ACE), plus many other cool harmonic possibilities.
It's not a coincidence that this tuning is so popular among lap steel players...

Steinar

In my opinion if you play in open e you can move to any other key quite easily. I really like Open D and E. (Same thing, really, E's just a step higher and works better on guitars with light strings.) That's my "home" tuning.

I use DADGAD a lot when I want to avoid a distinct major/minor sound, but not for slide.

For lap steel, I use one of two tunings, depending on what I want to achieve...

1) The tuning Steinar mentioned: CEGACE. I grew up on open-D (and E) and open-G (and A), but started using CEGACE for some things.

2) DADDAD (or EBEEBE): I tune to open-D and then drop the F# (the major third) down to D so the fourth and third strings are tuned to the same note. In this tuning, there's no third at all, just roots and fifths, so you aren't playing major or minor triads, but you can choose your third (major or minor) when playing melody.

Check out this one ! http://www.goeldo.de/gshop.php?p=bender Watch the slide videoclips played on a standard guitar. Lots of voicings and chords temporarely available any time....!! Can`t believe that it`s just a regular guitar !!

Check any of Kirk Lorange's videos. He does amazing slide stuff with all sorts of chords, in either standard or Drop D tuning. Drop D's his favorite. He comes out with a new lesson and video about every week, too.