Slide

[jdgm]

Having to learn some slide parts for these songs....gig next weekend.

 

'Lil Red Rooster' in E.

'Lets Work Together' in G.

'Hurts Me Too' in A.

 

I only ever want to take 2 guitars to a gig these days and now my spare is tuned to an E chord.

So 'Rooster' is ok and I can do the important bits on 'Lets Work Together' in the same tuning, but on 'Hurts Me Too'....hmmm...better I should retune to A or just stick with playing slide on my main guitar in standard tuning. Maybe. Clapton's fairly recent version on youtube is mighty but seems to be in D.

 

I've always deliberately avoided everything but standard EADGBE tuning all my guitar-playing life; much as I love Ry Cooder, Lowell George and the rest.

I remember seeing Cooder with David Lindley - another great slide player - and the stage was just a forest of guitar necks.

 

Anyone else play slide? What tuning, for which songs?

 

Best wishes to all.

[cody78]

I play with slide a fair bit in a folk/ country/ rock band at the moment. Other than some drop D, I play all the parts in standard tuning as it's easier at gigs rather than swapping multiple guitars! Obviously some classic songs need to be in open tuning to get the proper sound and there's some things you can't do in standard tuning that you can in open ones. I tend to use open G the most for slide if I can be bothered to retune. I guess that's one of the perks if you own one of the GForce type guitars, but I don't have one of those.

[Karloff]

I've been messing with slide a bit for a few years. Not working on it like I should but working on it just the same. I've messed with several open tunings: G, D & now just open E.

I've been working a fair bit playing slide with standard tuning too. I'll keep the slide on my pinky so I can chord or play some lead & fills.

I mainly want to improve on slide for when I get too old n my fingers don't work anymore.

[surfpup]

My preference is for open E. Don't have to transpose in your head since we are all used to E. However, in most bands I end up in open G to do the Stones songs so I just use that for slide too.

[rct]

I haven't seriously whacked at slide in years, and I was always the slide guy in the past, but have been thinking about practicing some and adding it to a few things. I've always played in standard tuning for the same reasons, don't want a bunch of guitars around just for one or two songs. I don't even set them up for slide, I just use all my guitars as they are.

 

rct

['Scales]

I used to take a second guitar to our 3 set covers gigs as an 'all-purpose'. For one set it was tuned to open G which I liked for rhythm (not slide) on Honky Tonk Women and on Brown Sugar, for the next set it was in Eb for a couple of PJ Harvey tunes, and on the other set in regular tuning for broken string incidents - of course that meant certain songs needed to be in certain sets (no real issue)and a little more tuning up if broken string in some sets (but I'd probably do a cursory tuning up anyhow).

 

You do sound like a G-Force candidate jdgm!

[merciful-evans]

I have not played slide out. Except for a couple of times using a pint of beer for a laugh.

 

I used to use G, D, A and C open tunings, but not for ages now.

 

If I were in your shoes I know exactly what I would do. I would take along the Variax and use the digital tunings; -just a turn of the dial. :)

[krock]

I used to do a slide version of pantera-walk, that was always fun. I stupidly never spent much time learning slide though so other than a few bits here and there I never really bother. I bought a few rock slides to get me back into it, so I've got no excuse now