So, you`ve had a listen to a few ole slide fellers playing and now you`re ready to think about choosing a piece for yourself. Well, it`s a bit like choosing a gun – they all do the same thing but handle very differently. You have to ask yourself do I need a.44 or a .38?
For those of you who don’t know your blues onions this section might really help you out…
Here are some particularly lauded slide manufacturers who bring the best of modern technology to the tradition of slide guitar- these guys make slides with different bores so whether or not you`ve got hands like shovels with sausages for fingers or the slender bony twig-like knuckles of a corpse there`ll be a slide for ya!
REMEMBER:
The shorter and thinner the wall of the slide, the brighter the tone. And the longer and thicker the wall, the warmer the tone.
The Moonshine Slide is warmer than glass. Made from a white porcelain body and glazed with cobalt–a round, fluid tone reminiscent of a tube amp is the result.
The Mudslide and Moonshine Slides have bisque interiors, providing moisture-absorbing properties for better control.
udslide, used by Grammy winning artist Keb’Mo’, slips in between glass and metal in tonal quality.
Mudslides are crafted from high-fire black porcelain and finished with a hard clear glaze. Brighter than a glass slide yet not as metallic as a metal slide–its very much like the bone slide of old.
Rockslides which are tapered and shaped to fit – the appliance of science.=to the oldest game in the world.
Rockslides are designed to avoid all the usual problems of movement, instability on the finger and also tonal problems, weight issues and the like.
The Small slide fits comfortably on the pinky finger allowing the index, middle and ring finger freedom to play. The Medium slide fits the ring finger comfortably and can be worn on the pinky finger of players with larger fingers or if you want full six string coverage with a slide on the pinky finger. The large slide fits comfortably on the middle finger or the ring finger of players with larger fingers. The large slide has the adjacent finger rests on both sides for resting the index and ring finger (maximum stability) The weight and thickness of this slide produce un-paralleled sustain!!
Rocky mountain have a HUGE range of colourfull slides and tone bars and fingerslides of all sizes and shapes such as
The Finn, the Poncha BUllet, the Swamp Frog, Hot Spike and many more. Here are the Worlds first and only hand-crafted custom Guitar Slides. Although made of ceramic material, each model, when combined with specific glazes, can be calibrated to emulate the tones of glass, ceramic and various metals.
Their RAW slide growls like abear and the Double dipped slide has three finishes for 3 tonal varieties in one slide.
THese guys are off the hook!
For those of you who dig the Piedmont fingerstyle of the North American East Coast here is traveling bluesman Jim Bruce showing you how to play the Doc Watson version of Deep River Blues. Jim makes his living traveling and playing on the streets of Europe.
This lesson is intermediate to advanced and showcases a somewhat idiosyncratic fingerstyle using just the one finger and one thumb. If you are a beginner you might like to try simply strumming the chords along with the Doc in the video below. Jim’s video has the chord diagrams embedded into it.
You can find out more about Jim Bruce and his guitar playing travels here and here where he showcases some great ragtime techniques and Blind Blake songs.
R.I.P Les Paul without whom most of us wouldn`t have a raison d’etre. Paul pioneered the development of the electric guitar (at around the same time as Leo Fender) and also pushed the envelope in the early development of multi-track recording. It’s testament to Paul`s design that the guitar still remains one of the most iconographic symbols in the history of music.
If you ever find yourself in a learning plateau when it comes to guitar you just have to plug into your imagination or maybe buy some John Fahey records…
If there was ever a man to put the words heavy and eclectic into the acoustic blues guitar cannon here he is - it’s John Fahey, iconoclast, drinker, rebel and consumate acoustic mash up artist – taking Skip James, Gregorian chants, early 20th Century ragtime, Gamelan and Tibetan music amongst a horde of other influences and blending them together into a rich and velvety cornucopia of guitar idiosyncracy. Fahey started out his career with a 17 dollar guitar and the inspiration of fellow stick-in-the-mud Guitar Frank (Hovington) a piedmont style player who rarely traveled for fear of losing his welfare support payments.
John Fahey
Guitar Frank
If you like Lightning Hopkins you`ll probably like Frank too. It’s well worth looking into Fahey’s work because his eclecticism illustrates that even within a specific genre or technique there are always new ways to express and expand the musical vocabulary of the guitar. Fahey is the forefather of modern acoustic guitar in sense that he was the first to demonstrate that the finger-picking techniques of traditional country and blues steel-string guitar could be used to express a world of non-traditional musical ideas.
For those of you who are new to the guitar here are some general pointers regarding guitar strings and how to choose them. I`m going to use the sets provided by Ernie Ball because I’ve been using them for 20+ years but also because they offer sets of strings in convenient readily available configurations that make sense.
ELECTRIC GUITAR STRINGS
The thicker your guitar strings are the fatter and richer the tone, sustain and volume BUT the harder they are to bend and manipulate, in short they become harder to play because more tension exists in the string. If you are a beginner then perhaps opt for a lighter guage of strings as this will improve your fretting and playing comfort.
When you buy a packet of strings you will see a series of six numbers on the packet – these numbers tell you the guages of the strings inside – basically how thick or thin each string is. As an example consider the following guide:
A great set of strings to start with is a set of ERNIE BALL regular slinky because these give you a lighter top end string and medium to heavy bottom end strings for the bass tones. You will find that the bass tones will have enough inherent bass but that you `ll still have a good enough tone across the board and the ability to perform bends and vibrato. If you’re determined to become a blues legend you might find that you need some POWER slinkies of if you`re a METAL player using dropped tuning try some NOT EVEN slinkies.
Just to give you all an insight into what this all means you might find that you enjoy playing a third string (g) at .17, and prefer a .10 on the top (E) because it allows for bends but without the sacrifice of the thinning tone of a light .9
You may also prefer to play with a .46 on the bottom (E) because its got enough bass. You would be looking at a packet of ERNIE BALL regular.
The best strategy is to start out with something like the regular slinky strings and if you are inclined then try some hybrid slinky for a lighter top end, or try moving the other way to some heavier guage sets such as the Power slinkies. If you happen to own two electric guitars then string up each with a different set and spens some time comparing the TONE and the PLAYABILITY of each. You can of course develop your own completely individual preferred sequence of guages, but to begin with it’s probably best to try some of these pre-configured sets. Then perhaps after youve spent some time playing different guages and found one you really like then you can consider the tonal charachteristics of string materials.
There are several options for materials to bear in mind:
1. nickel wound – produce a well balanced tone.
2. titanium coated – a vibrant tone with longer life, less corrosion, longer tuning stability.
3. pure nickel – a richer, warmer tone.
4. stainless steel – a crisp bright tone
5.gold plated – more expensive but bright sustain and long life.
When to change your strings:
The more you play your guitar and the harder you play then the quicker your strings will become tired. Things like sweat, moisture and dirt from your fingers all add up to a strings wear and tear and if you really want your strings to last:
1.wipe them gently with a soft cloth after playing
2.detune them when not playing so that they aren’t all tight and wound up.
Unless you are desperately down on your luck then avoid second hand strings altogether and pay attention to how your strings sound. If they feel rubbery and the sound is lackclustre with no brightness, sheen, clarity, zing or life then its time to put some new ones on. Similarly, if they become hard to tune, if that point where they`re in tune is becoming more and more elusive then throw `em in the bin. You cannot boil them up in hot water to make them last longer – neither should you put them in the freezer with your old pet dog.
One more thing, if you`re finding that you’re going through strings like nobodies business then perhaps you aren`t stretching them enough when you put them on!
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