Help with playing slide in standard tuning
- Thread starter firebirdV
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stuey222
New member
Re: Help with playing slide in standard tuning
IMO, playing slide in standard is easier for soloing due to the fact that you already know a ton of scales in standard. Just think of your major, minor, pentatonic, or whatever and plan around those. Where you would usually bend, move the slide up a fret or two, depending on the bend.
IMO, playing slide in standard is easier for soloing due to the fact that you already know a ton of scales in standard. Just think of your major, minor, pentatonic, or whatever and plan around those. Where you would usually bend, move the slide up a fret or two, depending on the bend.
T
thucydides
Guest
Re: Help with playing slide in standard tuning
You know, I just got into this. Have no idea what I'm playing though.
You know, I just got into this. Have no idea what I'm playing though.
Bludave
New member
Re: Help with playing slide in standard tuning
Playing slide in standard can be challenging. The main challenge is learning to play with higher action. Most guys like to play with low action and this hinders your slide playing. If you are doing this on acoustic experiment with using shims under the saddle to raise the strings up. I use a business card to slide in the saddle hole to raise it up to where I like it, then have a new saddle made. I also prefer either bone or Ivory saddles. They sound a lot better. Another option is to use heavier strings. This will naturally bring the action up a little and with the higher action, the guitar will respond better. Kirk L'Orange uses dropped "D" tuning. basically drop the 6 string down to D. Its a really sweet alternative to standard. With only one string altered it makes learning the fingerboard a lot easier. The other consideration is what finger you will wear the slide on. I like to wear the slide on my ring finger, but if you wear it on your pinky, it leaves all your other fingers on your fretting hand available to play. I also prefer to play slide in either open D/E or G/A. All my favorite slide players use some form of altered tunings. IMHO that makes slide sound better. When you can slide from one chord to another its just a beautiful thing. Standard makes it harder to do this because you really don't have a triad under the slide like you do in an open tuning. Warren Haynes and Duane Allman on occasions use standard, but most use eitheir D/E or G/A. These are better choices in slide. Either way another good thing to do is to learn to use your right hand fingers to pick with. Slide is as much about the right hand as the left. I do most picking with my index finger, and I use my thumb and middle to mute the strings that are on either side of the string I want to pick. This gives me excellent control when I want to play a single note and slide without sounding any other notes. Try it..... it works real well. I would also recommend getting some videos by Warren Haynes or Kirk L'Orange Kirk is a monster slide player. He posts a lot of stuff here. Check out his site. Here is a great video of Kirk playing both acoustic and Dobro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asKmD0ZWa6s
Playing slide in standard can be challenging. The main challenge is learning to play with higher action. Most guys like to play with low action and this hinders your slide playing. If you are doing this on acoustic experiment with using shims under the saddle to raise the strings up. I use a business card to slide in the saddle hole to raise it up to where I like it, then have a new saddle made. I also prefer either bone or Ivory saddles. They sound a lot better. Another option is to use heavier strings. This will naturally bring the action up a little and with the higher action, the guitar will respond better. Kirk L'Orange uses dropped "D" tuning. basically drop the 6 string down to D. Its a really sweet alternative to standard. With only one string altered it makes learning the fingerboard a lot easier. The other consideration is what finger you will wear the slide on. I like to wear the slide on my ring finger, but if you wear it on your pinky, it leaves all your other fingers on your fretting hand available to play. I also prefer to play slide in either open D/E or G/A. All my favorite slide players use some form of altered tunings. IMHO that makes slide sound better. When you can slide from one chord to another its just a beautiful thing. Standard makes it harder to do this because you really don't have a triad under the slide like you do in an open tuning. Warren Haynes and Duane Allman on occasions use standard, but most use eitheir D/E or G/A. These are better choices in slide. Either way another good thing to do is to learn to use your right hand fingers to pick with. Slide is as much about the right hand as the left. I do most picking with my index finger, and I use my thumb and middle to mute the strings that are on either side of the string I want to pick. This gives me excellent control when I want to play a single note and slide without sounding any other notes. Try it..... it works real well. I would also recommend getting some videos by Warren Haynes or Kirk L'Orange Kirk is a monster slide player. He posts a lot of stuff here. Check out his site. Here is a great video of Kirk playing both acoustic and Dobro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asKmD0ZWa6s
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