In this column we're going to wrap up the Intro to Slide Guitar series with some talk of techniques, and references. And by references I mean not only references for books on Slide Guitar, but music as well.

Take a peek at MelBay.com, and type "Slide" in the search engine. There are over twenty titles on Slide Guitar ranging from traditional bottleneck Slide Guitar, to Rock Slide Guitar, to Hindustani Slide guitar. These are great additional resources to take you deeper into slide guitar.

Musical References

For traditional Slide Guitar Blues:

• The Slide Guitar-Bottles, Knives, and Steel from Sony Music. It has tracks from Bukka White, Leadbelly, and Blind Boy Fuller, and Son House amongst others.
• Mississippi Fred Mc Dowell - Blues Masters: Mississippi Fred Mc Dowell

In the latter parts of the fifties and into the sixties, there's the classics:

• Allman Brothers - Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East
• Johnny Winter - Second Winter
• Rory Gallagher - Irish Tour '74

For more Rock type blues, Foghat's cover of "It Hurts Me Too" is cool. Check that one out, then the Hound Dog Taylor version of the same song. Newer amazing Slide Guitar cats are Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall.

Listen to everything. Many years ago, while working as a tech in a music store in Texas, I learned a lot from the pedal steel guitarists. While a regular guitar can't bend pitches of individual strings (unless you have a "B bender bar" or other type of special mechanical set-up) there was much to learn about finger picking, and use of the volume pedal.

If you're already good at finger picking on guitar, then this will be kind of redundant, however, the alternating Bass line to accompany your slide playing can be a very handy element to learn. By this I mean that your picking hand thumb is playing an alternating groove on the E and D strings, while you play Slide on the top three strings G, B, and E. (In open G tuning, these would both be D notes, as the low E string is tuned to D in D open tuning.)

Reference:
Open G tuning = D G D G B D
Open D tuning = D A D F# B D
Open E tuning = E B E G# B D

So now when pedaling the bass notes at one note per quarter note, you can get a cool rhythm going in which to play slide over at the same time.

Depending on your time and experience playing finger style guitar, it may be useful to play slide notes for lead and melody ON the beat of the bass notes first, to get the timing, then after a while, get to where you can play both the alternating bass notes, and slide notes in-between the quarter note bass rhythm as well as with it. When playing altered tuning, remember that where you normally have played your scales for lead is different. Change your playing style accordingly.

Slide Guitar is not a style of guitar playing that is about being overly technical. I would say that Slide Guitar is more about the feel, and emotion that you can get out of the guitar. It becomes another voice on stage.

Recording the Slide Guitar can be very interesting. On an acoustic guitar, Dobro, or resonator guitar, you can use typical acoustic guitar mic'ing techniques. One mic over the twelfth fret a couple of inches out, and one in front of the resonator about a foot or so out, as a general beginning.

For electric Slide Guitar, you can mic the amp or go direct (or both), but I also like to acoustically mic the electric guitar. Why on earth would I mic and electric guitar? For the string noise. With slide, it can be a nice enhancement in the mix to add that ambient sound in there.

As always practice makes perfect, so set time aside for Slide Guitar practice along with your regular guitar rehearsals. So let's review the basics just once more...

1. When it comes to the slide, be sure not to press on the strings with the slide. Remember, it's now your moving fret. No need to press on the strings like traditional playing.
2. For pitch, make sure that you place the center of the slide directly over the fret wire of the note you're trying to play. If you want to play an "E" note at the 12th fret, place the slide directly over the 12th fret. Not in-between the 11th and 12th frets like fretting a note with your hand.
3. Keep in mind that you don't have to use the whole slide all of the time. You can just use what's needed. If you're only playing slide on the top two strings, only place the slide over those two strings. This will help keep extraneous noises, and notes that you don't want to hear from sounding. It also helps when finger picking and playing the bass notes with your thumb of the picking hand, and slide with the fingers.
4. Use your right hand for damping techniques. I tend to use the fleshy part of my picking hand as a damper for the lower strings, and individual fingers for the higher strings. Even when using a pick, this can be a nice way to keep out unwanted notes or sounds. Sometimes you want it to be sloppy for a specific sound and feel, but when you need it clean, this is the way.

As always, keep playing, and have fun.