Slide guitar
A glass or metal tube glides over the strings without pressing them down onto the frets: the note is no longer locked to the frets, it glides, cries and sings. It’s the sound of Delta blues and Southern rock, often played in an open tuning.
- Notation:
- “slide” above the tab, then / and \ (10/12).
- Hand:
- Both hands.
- Difficulty:
- Intermediate.
- Style:
- Blues, rock, country.
Listen
d|-10/12----12----------12~-12-| B|-------12----------12-----12-| G|-------------10/12--------12-| D|-----------------------------| G|-----------------------------| D|-----------------------------|
What it’s for
With a finger, the note stops at the fret. With a tube resting on the strings, it glides freely: it can pass through every pitch between two frets, rise slowly toward a note, overshoot it, come back. The sound turns vocal, moaning, with long sustain and a very wide vibrato. The tube is called a bottleneck because many bluesmen used the necks of broken-off bottles.
It’s the sound of Mississippi Delta blues, from Son House, Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters, and Elmore James’s slide riff on “Dust My Broom” is one of the most famous in the blues. Rock picked it up with Duane Allman, then Derek Trucks, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt; George Harrison made it his signature on “My Sweet Lord.” In country and Hawaiian music, its cousins, the lap steel and the dobro, are played with the guitar flat on the lap.
Don’t confuse it with the fretted slide, where your finger glides while pressing the string onto the frets.
How to do it
Here’s the move from the example at the top of the page, in open G: the guitar is tuned D, G, D, G, B, D, from low to high, so the six open strings make a G chord. The tube slides on the 1st string, the high E tuned down to D.
- Slip the tube onto your ring finger, or your pinky: the other fingers stay free for muting. The tube should cover all six strings.
- Lay it on the strings without pressing. It touches the strings, never the frets or the fretboard. If you hear a metallic clatter, you’re pressing too hard.
- Place it right above the fret wire, not in the middle of the fret space: that’s where the note is in tune. For the 12th fret, the tube sits above the 12th fret wire.
- Keep it parallel to the frets, so every string is in tune at once when you play a chord.
- Mute behind the tube: your index and middle fingers, lying flat on the strings on the nut side, keep the part of the string behind the tube from ringing.
- Mute with your picking hand the strings you’re not playing. Many slide players play fingerstyle: the thumb and the free fingers rest on the other strings.
Slide guitar in open G
- The slide right over the fret, not in the middle of the space, and without pushing the strings down to the fretboard: it just touches them.
- Your index and middle fingers lie flat behind the slide (nut side) and mute the strings: only the slide’s sound gets through.
Drawn like tab: high E at the top, low E at the bottom.
In tab, the word slide (or “w/ slide”) appears above the staff, and the tuning is given at the top: in open G, the string letters become D G D G B D. The numbers give the position of the tube, above the fret wire; 10/12 means: slide from the 10th to the 12th fret, and ~ calls for vibrato.
Examples
The example at the top of the page, in open G: the tube slides from the 10th to the 12th fret on the 1st string, then on the G string. One held note, with slide vibrato, and to finish, a G chord, the tube flat across the three high strings at the 12th fret.
Here, the three chords of a blues in G, in open G: G at the 12th fret, C at the 5th, D at the 7th. Each chord is announced by a slide on a single string, arriving from a whole step or a half step below.
d|-10/12-12-----5-----7-10/12-12-| B|-------12-----5-----7-------12-| G|-------12-3/5-5-5/7-7-------12-| D|-------------------------------| G|-------------------------------| D|-------------------------------|
A three-bar phrase: the open low G as a bass note, slides up to the 17th fret, slide vibrato on the high G, then the way back down to the chord. You have to jump from string to string while keeping the tube above the fret wires, and mute each note before the next one.
d|---10/12----12/15----17~------------------------12-| B|---------12-------15-----15\12------------------12-| G|-------------------------------12\10------10/12-12-| D|-------------------------------------12------------| G|-0--------------------------------------0----------| D|---------------------------------------------------|
Licks
A Delta blues lick, in open G, on an acoustic: the tube on the high strings answers the open low G, played with the thumb. The second bar comes down to the bottom of the neck, with B♭, the blue note, before the open chord.
d|-10/12---12---------3/5---------| B|------------10/12-------3-----0-| G|--------------------------3-0-0-| D|------------------------------0-| G|-------0----------0-----------0-| D|--------------------------------|
A rock lick in standard tuning, with distortion: the tube climbs to the 17th fret in the A minor pentatonic, glides across three strings, then comes back down to the A on the G string. In standard tuning, you mostly play single notes: the tube laid flat across all the strings doesn’t give you a simple chord there.
e|-15/17----17-----------------------------------| B|-------17----15/17-------------15--------------| G|-------------------14/17-17\14----14-------14~-| D|-------------------------------------17-14-----| A|-----------------------------------------------| E|-----------------------------------------------|
A country lick in open D (D, A, D, F♯, A, D), with a clean tone: slides in the D major pentatonic, ending on a D chord at the 12th fret. It’s the sound the lap steel and the dobro are known for.
d |-7/9---9-9/12----------------12-| A |-----9--------12-------------12-| F#|-----------------10/12----12-12-| D |-----------------------12-------| A |--------------------------------| D |--------------------------------|
Practice routine
Pitch first, guitar in open G, with a tuner or by comparing with the fretted note:
- play the 12th fret of the 1st string with your finger, then place the tube above the 12th fret wire and compare;
- do it again at the 5th and 7th frets, then with the chords: G (12th), C (5th), D (7th);
- once it’s in tune, add vibrato: 2 waves per beat at 60 bpm, then 3, then 4.
Then with a metronome, the intermediate example: start at 60 bpm (one eighth note per note), with each slide landing right on the next note. Go up 5 bpm once everything is in tune and noise-free. Goal: 100 bpm, the speed of the example.
Common mistakes
Notes sounding out of tune? The tube sits in the middle of the fret space, like a finger would. With a tube, the right pitch is exactly above the fret wire. Check against the fretted note.
Buzzing or clacking against the frets? You’re pressing too hard: the tube pushes the strings down to the frets. Just let it rest on the strings; the weight of your hand is enough.
Hearing scraping and ringing strings? Nothing is muting the part of the string behind the tube. Lay your index flat on the strings, on the nut side, and mute the strings you’re not playing with your picking hand.
Chords out of tune even though single notes are fine? The tube is tilted: it’s in tune on one string and too high or too low on the others. Keep it parallel to the frets.
Variations
Open tunings. Open G (D, G, D, G, B, D) and open D (D, A, D, F♯, A, D) are the most common, along with open E, which has the same intervals as open D a whole step higher. The tube laid flat across all the strings plays a major chord at every fret. The Alternate tunings lesson explains them.
Standard tuning. Handy if you also play fretted parts in the same song, but chords with the tube are rare there: you mostly play single notes or double-stops.
Tube and fingers together. With the tube on your pinky, your index and middle fingers stay free to play normal fretted notes between slide passages.
Guitar flat on the lap. The lap steel and the dobro are played resting on the knees, with a steel bar held in the hand: that’s the slide of country and Hawaiian music.
Acoustic or electric
On an acoustic, the bottleneck gives you the raw sound of Delta blues, especially fingerstyle. Resonator guitars, with their metal cone, are built for it: louder and more metallic. A glass tube sounds softer, a metal tube brighter and louder.
On an electric guitar, sustain and a little overdrive make the notes sing for a long time: that’s the sound of rock slide. With light strings and low action, the tube easily hits the frets: many slide players raise the action a little or use heavier strings.
Going further
- The course lesson: Bottleneck slide, with a phrase in open G, and before it, Alternate tunings.
- The fretted glide: the slide.
- Vibrato, essential with a tube: vibrato.
- The scale for the examples in G: the G blues scale.