Slide Guitar 21
Electric Lead Slide 1

New Technique

This style uses the same basic techniques as described in the previous lessons with one slight difference.

The left hand fingers come down and rest on the strings to damp behind the slide ( just one will do - I tend to use my index finger )

Some slide players use this method on acoustic guitar as well as electric - personally I prefer to play acoustic slide without the damping.

Although this is only a minor change to your technique you may find it feels a bit uncomfortable and strange to start with .

The finger touching the string creates drag making it a bit harder to slide.

Stick with it for a while and you'll get used to the feel of it.

Setting Up Electric Guitar For Slide

To play slide successfully on electric you need to have a higher action and heavier strings ( something like a 12 to 52 set would do )

Luthiers tip for raising the action for strat or tele type guitars —

Loosen the strings a bit

Loosen - but don't remove - the 4 screws that hold the neck on

Pull the neck up so it comes away from the body a bit

Cut an old credit card or something similar into a 2 inch by 1/4 inch strip (roughly)and insert it in the gap between the neck and body across the slot

Retighten the neck screws making sure the bit of credit card is wedged between the neck and the body just inside the slot

Tune up to open E and with a bit of luck your action will be just right for slide.

The good thing with this method is that it is completely reversible so you can fairly easily get the action back to what it was before if required.

The Tune

This is 3 times round a 12 bar sequence - marked v1, v2 and v3 on the tab .

The key is E - the chord sequence is marked above the score.

The tuning is E major ( fairly standard for electric slide )

The first verse is played with L/H fingers rather than slide - I put this in to give a bit of contrast but also to encourage you to learn to play the tuning without using the slide.

There are 2 slide notes at the end of this verse ( marked above the tab )
Verse 2 is all slide played around the 12th fret.

I have put a fret diagram of all the slide notes I use - the red dots are root notes - the 2 dots with arrows I always sharpen.

The Tab