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Slip Sliding Away....


Marshall Paul

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Who out there likes to just pick up the slide and howl away?

 

I Love it. Been doing it since I was a kid, took a long time to master, if you ever do at all. I do it in standard 440 and in the Duane Allman/Joe Walsh de-tune (EBEG#BE).

 

Started out on the good ol' chrome, went to the brass, and now last few years use glass.

I reckon the best I've ever seen are Kevin Borich and Sonny Landreth. Both just brilliant. Saw Kevin on TV when I was a boy and he blew me away. I wanted to do what he was doing.

 

What do you reckon?

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Yeah, my brother swears by ceramic. That's all he uses now. I'm not 100% sold myself, guess because I'm having too much fun on glass.

 

I can't play banjo but envy those who can. Scruggs was the best I ever saw on one of those. Going slide on one has to be a ball.

 

Closest sound and texture I would get to that would be when I go slide on my Dobro, very similar sound I think.

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Resonator is a different beast, but it isn't banjo. Resonator has a groan to it. A sweaty,

solo groan. So delicious.

 

Banjo is more plunky. Slide on banjo is ridiculous. Really. I use glass on banjo because it's light. Banjo strings don't take much effort to press down, the neck is narrow and wee.

 

But yeah. Banjo is tuned to open G, so it's a natural fit.

 

I have a Republic resonator. Action is sky high and the finish is awful. It sure is shiny though. I keep it tuned to open E. I keep thinking that some day I'll play like Derek Trucks, but that day never comes.

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Always wanted to learn "Slide," and I fool around with one, now and then. But, it's pretty laughable![blush]

Might be, a good thing to work on, this Winter. [tongue]

 

And, you're right, MP...Sonny Landreth is Awesome!! [thumbup][scared]

 

 

CB

I've always loved the sound of a good slide player and have toyed with it myself. I just suck at damping strings. Saw Sonny Landreth playing with Jimmy Buffet a few years ago and yeah, he rules. so do these guys:

 

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Yeah, saw a U-Tube vid a few years back of Clapton's X-Roads festival in 2007, and the first act off the bill was Sonny and I watched him play and just went...WHOA! who is this bloke, he's brilliant!

 

I've noticed over the last few years that a hell of a lot of really good sliders seem to come from your deep south. Must be a bluegrass thing I think.

 

And when I get that cone vibrating, well, it's so delicious you could put it between two slices of bread and bite down!

 

I found a great de-tune for the dobro a while back. F/Bflat/F/Bflat/D/F. Then capo off at the third fret. Too much fun!

 

And it is a good way to mark off a winter, just kick back and slide away every day.

 

I found , when I used to dial in a certain sound and then used brass, that brass would change the tone ever so slightly. Could pick it up by ear. Chrome I think has a tendency to do that a little bit as well. But glass is just pure slide heaven.

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I used to play a lot more slide than I do lately , but yea, I like playin slide too (always in standard tuning tho)

 

I have a few glass slides, one ceramic, a brass one, and a few stainless steel

 

the ones I use the most would be glass and brass. The brass just seems to punch the notes out with more clarity,

but I don't dislike glass either, so many options, so little time..

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I use glass myself. The trick to slide is the feel and touch, really requires being precise, especially if played in standard tuning. One odd thing I have noticed over the years, I have known and know guitar players that play better than myself, but could not master the fundamentals of slide. They could play scorching leads and complex finger picking and strumming, but couldn't play even basic slide. It is a technique that you have to put considerable time in to learn.

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Haven't really played slide since late '79 when I entered a second "life." Moved, etc.

 

But from '64 until then, I used a metal lipstick case "borrowed" from a girl friend in the summer of '65. She was a blues picker at the time. The metal case fit perfectly on my left hand pinkie finger and I'd play in open G or an open E. Around 15 years ago I went back to playing a bit of open G for folkie/bluesie material but... @#$%@#$% couldn't find the lipstick case and I'm too much of an old grouch to find a substitute.

 

I think a lotta the "dobro" players actually were influenced by the big Hawaiian fad. I think the "bluesies" would often use a knife or about anything to get their sound - but I'm not sure the degree it may or may not have predated the Hawaiian music fad. I think, though, that it predated it probably back at least into the 1890s if not before. There was a huge explosion of music we know about around that time, probably because of sound recording availability.

 

A shorter bit here...

 

 

or...

 

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then there's Kottke...

 

Back in my folkie days, on a six string I could play half as fast (half-fast) and half as many notes. On a six string.

 

Sheesh.

 

But this is a sort of thing a lot of us were doing in the pre-Beatle '60s and beyond. Few of us reached Kottke's talent and ability.

 

... Also, with reference to the Hawaiian music influence and a lotta bottlenecking and literally use of a knife to get the same effect in "the south," at various periods, the vocal slides and wails of blues naturally lent themselves to that. There was so much crossover in style and songs, borrowing of this and changing a bit of that...

 

m

 

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I use the Dunlop Joe Perry Boneyard guitar slide. Tried the glass & brass but it just didn't get the smooth warm sound I was looking for. I think this slide is a ceramic with unfinished interior that is easy to keep on your finger. I'm not a great slide player, but learning as I go along.

 

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Aw, I completely forgot about Leo, thank you for reminding me of him again. He was fantastic.

 

"....used a metal lipstick case "borrowed" from a girl friend in the summer of '65. She was a blues picker at the time". Come on you budding songwriters out there, if there's not a song right there I'll eat my hat! It screams to be at least a whole verse. That's just too great!

I started out when I was 12 using an old discharged CO2 cartrige out of my fenzy dive vest, until I had enough pocket money saved to go down the shop and buy my first chrome. Thought I was king of the hill then! lol

I've spent a lot of time in the islands, since I was 16, mostly North Shore, and there is a veritible dearth of excellent slack key players out there. They're a whole new genre all to themselves. They do some amazing stuff.

 

The point Mark makes I think is a good one. A hell of a lot of excellent players out there don't slide. I remember sitting up late one night, and I caught the tail end of a docco, and there was an interview with Brian May talking about the making of "Tie Your Mother Down". Now, I thought he did a top job of sliding in that however Brian openly confesses to struggling to get that down. And yet that man is a good as they get. Go figure.

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I dig on Ceramic slides!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yup, my younger brother swears by them, absolutely loves them. He plays a Tele, and when he gets going with that ceramic slide, I just put my guitar down and take it all in. I love watching him play.

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I'm not a great slide player, but learning as I go along.

 

You don't have to be good, you just have to be having fun. First and foremost rule. lol That's what it's all about. Slide away to your heart's content mate!

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half the battle in learning slide guitar is just getting the slide directly over the fret without too much pressure. Not enough pressure same deal. To me once you get the "feel' even if its only a few notes or 'A' form chording slide you are on your way.

 

The predominant school of thought is to finger pick for sliding, it gives you more control on muting the strings. But using a pick also gives you more volume and attack, just a bit more difficult to control muting.

 

I am into slide now in std tuning. But my favorite and to me easiest slide tuning is D,A,D,F#,A,D. In that tuning you can simply apply a capo for open E or G.

 

 

 

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Yeah, when folk first start out sliding, they make that first obvious mistake of applying too much pressure and so they wind up 'speed humping' up and down the neck. It's only when they start to relax that this goes away. When I first started, I found that when I began to relax I didn't even need to watch what I was doing and so the whole thing about being directly over the fret ceased to be an issue. And first learning A forming the 2,3 and 4th, well, I thought I was Borich and Walsh all rolled into one then! LOL!

 

My right hand I never really had to think about. It sort of naturally gravitated to using a sort of combination of picking and plucking at the same time. Whether that's considered good technique or not I don't know but I do know that it works for me so I pretty much stick with it.

 

I find that if I've got to do a lot of single string/note picking, then I prefer to be in good ol' standard 440. But if the songs a lot of slide riffing, then I'll be in a de-tune. For many years that was the Allman/Walsh tune up to EBEG#BE. Murder on strings but I figure, if it was good enough for those two, good enough for me. I like this one you do. It's basically a modified double drop D. It transfers the A form to 1,2, and 3rd and keeps the root 4,5, and 6th. Beautiful! You get to eat your cake and have it too because it keeps the major 3rd and also retains the root, 4th and 5th. Capo the E to firm up and away you go! Love it. Thanks for that one mate, going to give that a good going over this evening. Proof once again that an old dog can learn new tricks!

 

 

[thumbup][smile]

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Ben Harper is a pretty cool slide player. Though he doesn't have the skill a lot of other guys have, he certainly has a unique sound on his Weissenborn guitar.

 

Slide is great when players grab whatever there is around to play it. There is a video of Joe Satriani playing slide with his harmonica on his tune Big Bad Moon.

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