Playing electric slide

ddlooping

IanSavage

Lewy said:

I learned so much from detailed study of this video. It was a great thrill to later perform this song with him at a few low key (for him....great for me!) gigs. It's in Open G, capo'd up to A.

Fully jealous, didn't know you'd done that! I've put in a few hours working out what he was doing on this tune as well...

EDIT: and it's a wonderful example of how some audience members simply have no rhythm  

ToneControl

I've found playing slide with the guitar in a normal vertical position pretty unsatisfying, and fighting with the frets doesn't help

My (unoriginal) solution is: lay the guitar flat on your lap - Get a nut riser from ebay. should be less than £5 I think - lift the strings up a good quarter of an inch

Then get a chromed tone bar. The tone from these is so much meatier and sustain is better (think tones anywhere up to SRV), With these, you hold it with your thumb and first 2 fingers, so the opposite side of your hand damps. I like to use both pick and fingers - depending on the bit I'm playing, same as usual, damp with the heel of your picking hand just off the bridge I think (I don't think about it - I learned this with hyper gain pedal setups in the 80s, where you had to play one note at a time, and control feedback)

I use a glass or ceramic slide if I want to add more rattle or those glassy artefacts

If it works out, you can get a cheap purpose-built lap steel for £50-£100, replace the single pickup and you're done

The only catch with all this is that the chromed tone bars cost a fortune - up to £40

Amazon is cheap for them new. I think the best one is the Shubb SP1

The curved bit at the end lets you pick out 2 strings to do a slide with 2 notes in parallel.