Slide Guitar 101 - A Primer

Here is a quick primer on how to play slide guitar on an acoustic. I used my 1951 Gibson J-50 for this and I'm in 'dropped-D tuning', which means you 'drop', or lower, the bass string from its usual E pitch one whole tone to D. As is say in the video, by doing so you wind up with a guitar that is 1/2 open-tuned (the three bass strings) and 5/6 standard-tuned. I started using this tuning decades ago because I had a very good mental fretboard map in standard tuning, but a confused map in open tunings. All my landmarks disappeared in open tunings.

I think I did a pretty good job of explaining it all in the video but I'll recap here and add some tips:

• Playing slide is not easy! It's is all about 'touch', and you will be dealing with micotones and micrometres. At first you will feel like someone tring to dance wearing skis. Take it slowly.
• Your right hand does most of the work. It's in charge of muting out all strings that are not being played. You will never get good until you master this. The side of the thumb and fingertips become very busy. This aspect is all about hours and hours of practice. 
• Don't press down on the strings. The weight of the slide should be enough to make good contact with the strings. My slides are heavy, making it easier to get a good solid note and sustain.
• The point of contact with the string should be right above the fret-wire for whatever pitch you want to hear. Snce you will probably be sliding up or down to that position, so you will need to practice stopping the movemet precisely at that point. Again, practice will make perfect.
• If you find you have gone sharp of the desired pitch ...  keep moving up until you arrive at the next eligible note, usually the next chord tone. Being sharp of the desired pitch (and correcting the mistake by going back down) sounds MUCH worse than being flat. 
• I didn't mention the vibrato techniqur I use throughout the video. I'll do another on that soon, but you should be able to watch and imitate what I'm doing.
• My 'How To Play Slide Guitar' course goes into more detail about all aspects of the art and it includes many stand-alone lessons.

 Below is tab for the line in the video. It's not perfect but at least you'll get a rough idea of the moves. The (1/2) means slide up a semitone, the (1 1/2) means slide up a tone and a half, or a 'minor third'.

As always, have fun with it all!