Slide guitar is one of those highly cherished styles that few people dare to venture in. It is also one that can be very frustrating to figure out on your own. My own first attempts where pathetic until I saw Eric Sardinas on a youtube.com video and it all suddenly made sense.
 
TUNING
While you can slide on any tuning, things will come a lot easier if you start on an open tuning like open D (D A D Gb A D) or open G (D G D G B D). I use open G because the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings are the same as on a standard tuning (e a D G B e), so it is easier to relate one to another.
If you want tunings like open E or open A you should tune to open D or G respectively and use a capo. Otherwise you'll put too much tension on the neck and strings.
 
The reason it is easier to start with an open tuning, is that the guitar is tuned to a major chord. Because of this, any feedbacking notes from strings you don't mean to play, will sound in tune and will add to the whole sound. With a different tuning, feedback will be out of tune, causing a mess. I use a short slide to eliminate this effect.
 
One very important thing to remember and take advantage of when you play in an opening tuning is that the intervals between strings are different from string to string. D - G is a 4th, G - D is a 5th, G - B is a maj3rd and B - D is a min3rd.
On the plus side, you can form major and minor feels by playing different strings (despite the fact you are tuned to a major chord).
On the "minus" side, the same pattern played on different strings will sound radically different. The same notes played across different strings will also sound different, because the ambient notes produced by the slide will be different and may be in or out of key, depending on which strings you use.
This means you have to make good use of the entire length of the fretboard, since different positions for the same notes have unique properties, unlike a standard tuning, where most string intervals are a 4ths
 
STRINGS
As you'll hear in the video, string buzz is produced when moving the slide. If you use heavy strings, you can try lighter strings but it limits the useability of your first string, which becomes too flimsy (I use regular gauge 10: almost too light for acoustic guitar). Generally thicker strings will sound better, if you can handle the buzzing. Don't try to use flatwound strings. They are too lifeless.
 
SLIDES
 

There are some types of slides and materials they are made of.
Traditionally slides consisted of bottlenecks. Making one is risky though, so I strongly suggest you visit your local store and buy a slide instead of making your own. There are different glass and metal slides out there, in different lengths, diameters and thicknesses.
What you should consider is the size of your fingers. Don't get a slide much larger than your finger or you won't be able to control it.
 
Glass slides are more lightweight and have a distinctly different tone than metallic ones. If you play electric guitar, you'll appreciate them more. On an acoustic guitar I find that they lack sustain and volume.
There are metallic slides that are thin and lighweight and sound quite like the glass ones.i.e the wedge-shaped one in my pic.
Brass slides are big, thick and heavy. They have the most sustain and volume, they can handle thick strings, but they are cumbersome to use if you have thin small hands. Notice how in the last tune in the video I keep accidentally hitting it against the fretboard.
 
SLIDE-FINGER
So which finger should you wear the slide on?
I suggest your pinky as the best cadidate. It leaves three fingers free behind the slide to mute string overtones or fret notes, which makes overall playing sound nicer.
One can argue you can put the slide on your index and use the three fingers ahead of it to fret notes. It probably sounds cool too, but none of my slides fits on my index so I haven't tried it. The minus point here is that you can't mute the strings behind the slide.
Using the middle finger is something I advise against. It is the longest finger, so it will be awkward to cover all 6 strings, and it will make all your other fingers useless for fretting.
The only alternative I'm open to is using a half-length slide on the ring finger. With practice, this allows you to have all 4 fingers available for fretwork. In this case I wear the slide on the middle segment of the finger.
 
SLIDE and NOTES
On a fretboard, the notes are located directly over the frets.
It is confusing, because you are probably used to thinking of notes as them being between frets, which is where you place your fingers. But when you put your finger behind a fret, it is the fret that actually produces the note.
So when you use a slide, you have to seek the notes directly over the frets to get the proper pitches.
Oh and don't push the slide down too much. You don't want the strings to contact the frets. The slide has taken up the role of producing the notes now. This will be easier to accomplish if you play a guitar with high action.
 
A good tactic, to make your slide playing sound more true, is NEVER to place the slide directly over the target fret. Even when you're not transitioning from a previous note, always try to "sneak up" to the note by sliding up or down to it. This also helps you as it allows you to stop when your ear detects the proper pitch has been reached. Laying the slide directly over the fret is prone to producing slightly wrong pitches.
This is why in the tabs I provide, you'll often see a note in parentheses (not to be picked) preceding a slide-up to a note.
 
 
****************
TABS for the VIDEO

Be sure to view them zoomed somehow, otherwise it is not always clear what's written.
Legend:
/ , \ : slide up , down
(...) : Not picked. Ambient or sustained notes.
F : Fingered note
sliiide or sss : played with the slide
___| or ~~~ : sustained with the slide
b... : bend to target note
p... : pull off to target note
 
CHAPTER ONE (B):

The slide is initially positioned in a very angled position, in a way that it meets the three strings over frets, so that a chord is formed (Bb maj). Very tricky to get 100% and sustain it. But the trick is not to spend any time on it. Instead I slide directly back to solid ground (F maj). The result from the different slide intervals is pretty nice, even though I didn't do it justice in the video.
BTW: This is definitely not something you need to worry about learning right away. I only showed it to you to help you think "outside the box" .
 
CHAPTER TWO :


I was trying to see what certain tunes sound like when played with slide instead. The beginning of the solo of smoke on the water struck me as a nice playing around with the 2nd and 3rd strings.
To keep things simple, I use no fingers here. But, I do lift the slide a little, either for a staccato effect (to sound more like the original tune) or to move elsewhere. Try not to drag the slide on the strings for every transition you make.

 
CHAPTER THREE:

This is the same tune I put as music over the opening title of the video. Except I played it better the first time.
The idea is that I slide up to a note (chord) and while I still sustain it with the slide, I use a finger behind the slide to fret an other note.
Moving the slide back to get that note (like I do in the "Smoke on the Water" part) would create a different effect, as it would move the sustained note along. I want to keep the sustained note to its pitch and still add a note from a different fret. That's where the fingers come in handy and why you shouldn't play slide in a way that renders them useless.
 
CHAPTER FOUR :
Structured as a 12 bar I-IV-V in the key of G in 4/4 timing.
It goes rather fast, but in the video I have added a slowed-down version of it as well.
I try to play both rythm and lead and well, it's evident to the pros that I slip in a couple of spots. As a beginner I suggest you try to get the leads alone. The rythm doesn't have anything special about it.
I came up with this tune just recently looking for something suitable to end this lesson with. I have since remade the video and tab to fix errors.
 
NOTE: if it doesn't say "s" over the tab, it is not played with the slide. This tune demonstrates why you should wear the slide on your pinky and keep the other fingers available for fretting.
 
First two 2 bars:

For the next two bars, I sneak in some warm up slide fills:

Now we move to the "IV" for two bars. The fills are more or less the same pattern:

Back to I:


Now the "V"-"IV" drop. Watch out for the fingered notes:

And finally back to "I". The ending chord sequence is very cliche:

 
 
Ok, that's it!
 
One last TIP: Noodle around along the guidelines I gave you. Explore what types of sounds you can get by using different strings and frets, always in relation to you open root. Try to create short licks, just a few notes each, each implementing just one idea, and gradually build up a library of such licks. By stringing those licks together in various ways you'll be able to play quite satisfactorily. Tab them out or tape them down if you are prone to forgetting.
 
 
Enjoy!
- RG -