Slide Styles

I picked "Blues (straight ahead old timey)" because not everyone understands that "Country Blues" IS straight ahead old blues from the country, like Delta Blues. Little to do with today's "Country Music."

Wow, you were right there! I hit the submit button by accident.

I was trying to make it say Country, Country Rock, Country Blues, Blues, Blues Rock, Rock, New Age (?) Jazz (old-timey) Modern Jazz, but I couldn't edit it :(

Anyhow, maybe people could just write in. Just wondering if someone would want to put a collaboration together using some backing track that everyone would feel comfortable with.

Oh, this is a difficult one.....
I guess the blues is present in everything I play, but more as an 'attitude' than anything else, I find playing straight 12bar/3chord blues too limited I'm afraid. But I love the blues - in a way you can say that I love it too much to play it, because of it's apparent simplicity it has to be done real well and with great conviction in order to sound true, at least to me.. But it's definitely there, in the way I approach the music I play. At least I prefer to believe it is..... :wink:

In case anybody's interested - when I did the lap steel clinics in Denmark I made backing tracks from three of the tunes on my CD; Unfinished Business, God Only Knows and Poet On The Radio. I'll email them if any of you are interested in them as 'jam tracks' (but only for strictly private use, of course...).

Steinar

I don't play steel - but I'm trying to get better at slide, sometimes play it lap-style....especially if it's on the acoustic with no cut-away....does that count?

I can't play "No Expectations" any other way....

So....blues in open G.....

:D :D :D

Vic

I'd like to have those tracks, Steinar. I won't bootleg ya, either... hehe

I've been trying to learn slide in Standard Tuning.

I'm coming along slow but sure.

I always default to the blues. but when I jam with friends and the tabla player shows up I jump right into jam mode using my quasi-indian stuff. having fretless is nice for the tiny intervals.

I am throwing my heart into old timey lap style western. the two note harmonies have got my interest.
Hank is fun to play/learn .

I am not really falling into any of those categories, but it is all blues in one way or another... my time is spent on looping these days and trying to get better with the technology.

One can argue how strictly one can define "Chicago blues," but my favorite--in fact, only--style of playing is the style associated with Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor, J. B. Hutto, Johnny Littlejohn, and Lil' Ed Williams.

I had to go with country blues (delta). Most of what I play as far as slide guitar goes is directly related to that kind of blues 8)

Steinar, I would love to have a go with your backing tracks..thanks :D

Steinar, I would love to have a go with your backing tracks..thanks :D

I posted them on the steel guitar forum, you can download them here. If it doesn't work just let me know and I'll mail them..

Have a great New Years Eve everybody! 8)

Steinar

Oh, this is a difficult one.....
I guess the blues is present in everything I play, but more as an 'attitude' than anything else, I find playing straight 12bar/3chord blues too limited I'm afraid. But I love the blues - in a way you can say that I love it too much to play it, because of it's apparent simplicity it has to be done real well and with great conviction in order to sound true, at least to me.. But it's definitely there, in the way I approach the music I play. At least I prefer to believe it is..... :wink:
>
>
Steinar

Very interesting comments, Steinar, for example about playing blues with 'great conviction'. I have always called that 'depth of emotion' and I think there is something unique and special about blues where you can capture and hook up with powerful emotions and convey those through the instrument, moreso than any other style of music although we know that this can be carried over to any style of music. I feel that there is inherently alot of power in blues styles if one is inclined to play with that level of passion and this can capture the emotions of a listener. Once that is accomplished you can take the song anywhere, painting a picture, a story, one with a purpose, a moral, a lesson... whatever, and bring it back to a nice landing or finish. The lyrics are equally important in my opinion and ideally the music and lyrics should be on the same emotional wavelength so to speak. When talking about slide guitar the old timers often compared the slide notes to the human voice (singing) and of course that too was a powerful form of expression that often carried alot of emotion.

Yeah, there is something uniquely special about blues in this regard and that is why blues is my base. I can take these same concepts and this understanding and extend them into any style or genre of music and I am interested in all styles and genres from Rap and Hip Hop to Opera and Classical, but one essential element is that emotional tie-in, the passion of the artist for the work of art. I think there are intellectual aspects too. I'll curt this short so I don't ramble on too much.

When you said in effect that the blues is in everything that you play, as an attitude, I understand what you mean and that is also what I was trying to elucidate in my comments. I think it could be stated similarly that you are passionate about your work and in my view you are truly an Artist.

I guess we know what that means, LOL.

On the other hand I envision that the corporate controlled music industry is going to be taken back by artists and controlled by people who know and appreciate what the art is, rather than controlled by profitteers who mass produce cheap junk and as David Crosby stated in an interview about the corporatization of the music industry; "They wouldn't know a good song if it flew up thier nose."

In effect I think that we are going to be part of a revolution, which is very much needed but I'll leave it at that, for now.

As far as my answer to the poll question, I haven't started playing lapstyle (yet) but I will. I always have a bottleneck within reach and my answer is 'blues' of all kinds but mostly I am concentrating on acoustic blues right now and I am studying everything I can from the early beginnings through the whole history of how this music evolved, so it is alot of old time stuff, fingerstyle and bottleneck mostly. I want to have a thorough knowlege and experience of the whole realm of blues music.

HOWEVER, my objective is songwriting- writing songs and composing the basic music for them (rather than being a performer), AND the music I intend to create will be in alot of different genres. Blues is my base and that is what I am studying now.

Eventually I will get around to learning to play lapstyle but presently I have so much to learn now with conventional styles that I haven't had time to venture into lapstyle. I'm trying to get 'good enough' instrumentally to record what I have in mind, to create the mood for the songs and I had intended on passing those songs upward to more competent musicians for the final composition work but I find that I like playing guitar so much that I might just get really good at it. I am working at it.

I've been trying to learn slide in Standard Tuning.

I'm coming along slow but sure.

Bottleneck slide in Standard Tuning is great, I think. Try to get ahold of the Hot Licks video by 'Warren Haynes of the Allman Brothers Band' 'ELECTRIC BLUES AND SLIDE GUITAR' (if you are into blues) I think he states or implies that he plays slide almost exclusively in Standard Tuning (prefers standard tuning) and he is an excellent blues and slide player. It is a very good video. It has excellent reviews and relatively inexpensive ($20.00 or so) for the over all quality and content. He also has a book and CD on slide guitar that has good reviews and costs about half that much.

I am glad you mentioned Standard Tuning for bottleneck slide because I think there is way too much emphasis on alternative tunings.

When I first started playing slide on my tricone I mentioned it to my neighbor who is a recently retired professional rock lead guitarist who has played and lead bands for 40 years. (mostly southern rock). I told him I was playing in an open G tuning and he scoffed at that saying, "What do you want to do that for? " He grabbed his old Gibson acoustinc and started playing some Allman Brothers bottleneck slide stuff and said "That's the way you do it".

The fact is that bottleneck slide in standard tuning sounds really awesome- if you can learn how to do it. Listening to and watching Warren Haynes on this video will prove that. It's a bit more difficult than open tunings because you don't have an open chord so string damping is more important and I think it is more technical in standard tuning. He also explains advantages and things you can do in standard tuning that you can't do in open tunings.

He says that when learning slide the open tunings are easier to learn but you are confined to the parameters of that tuning and reach a point where they become limiting. Open tunings offer more chord opportunities but standard tuning offers more solo note opportunities - play minor key stuff, voicings inflections, 6th's, 9ths, etc.

I am listening to that video right now and I wonder why in the heck I am spending so much time in open tunings when this standard tuning is some of the best bottleneck slide I've ever heard.

Of course he is playing an electric guitar, lead solo parts in this video so I'm not sure how these same techniques will sound on acoustic, but I think it should sound good. I think the advantage of open tunings on acoustic is that you can have a background chord or drone notes and make it sound almost like 2 guitars or at least full enough where the single guitar doesn't need any acompaniment. If you have two guitars going I think standard tuning would have some significant advantages.

Phangeaux, great to see you!

I don't think anyone ought to think that playing in either standard or open tunings is the "best" or "only" way to slide. Both have advantages and disadvantages for particular situations. Ideally one could use both. Standard is just one of many alternate tunings, IMO. I don't like the terms "standard" and "alternate."

For learning slide in standard and Drop D, there's nothing better than the videos produced by Kirk L'Orange.