Slide guitar has been used in many recordings in a wide array of musical genres. Listed below are some example songs and artists that you'll surely recognize. Below out selected discography are some tips and tricks to get the most out of your slide skills.
Slides, or bottlenecks, used for guitar playing are very inexpensive, as are lesson books and videos to learn the basic technique. Once you get the mechanics mastered, you'll be on your way to giving your guitar a whole new voice!
A selected slide guitar discography
Badfinger: No Matter What (solo)
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Lookin Out My Backdoor (main riff)
Derek & The Dominos: Layla (main riff, solo played by Duane Allman)
Foghat: Slow Ride (solos by Rod Price)
George Harrison: My Sweet Lord (intro)
Led Zeppelin: Whole Lotta Love (chorus)
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Free Bird (intro riff, bird effects)
Tom Petty: I Won't Back Down (intro, solo)
George Thorogood: Bad To The Bone (solos)
George Thorogood: Move It On Over (solos)
Joe Walsh: Rocky Mountain Way (intro, solos)
ZZ Top: Tush (solos)
And just about anything by:
Duane Allman, Ry Cooder, Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers, Govt. Mule), Elmore James, David Lindley, Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Bonnie Raitt, or Johnny Winter.
Tips for slide guitarists
Tip 1: Have a guitar with high action? Raise the strings off the fretboard even more and use it for slide!
Tip 2: Slides come in different sizes to fit your finger. A medium or large slide works best for most guitarists.
Tip 3: Different slide materials produce different tones. Common materials for guitar slides include brass, chrome-plated brass, glass, acrylic, porcelain, and aluminum.
Tip 4: Raising string height at the nut helps tremendously. You can obtain a nut extender that fits over your guitar's existing nut to provide sufficient clearance from the frets. Best of all, it doesn't require any modifications to your instrument, so it won't hurt guitar's resale value!
Tip 5: Try several different slides to find the type that works best for your particular guitar and finger size.
Tip 6: Some guitarists use the slide on their middle finger, while others use it on their ring finger. A few use it on their pinky!
Tip 7: It's easier to play slide with medium to heavy gauge strings (.010 or higher "E" string). Heavier strings are harder to depress, so you won't accidentally hit the frets by pressing down too hard with the slide. A bonus is that heavier strings on electric guitar are louder than light strings, since there is more metal over the pole pieces of the guitar pickup at any given time.
Tip 8: Many slide guitarists use open tunings, such as Open D (D-A-D-F#-A-D low to high). Barring across all strings at the 12th fret produces a D chord. Same with strumming all strings without using the bar (open position). Other famous non-standard tunings are DADGAD, open G, and open A.
