Beyond The Delta Slide Guitar

Read this article to gain more insight into the wonderful world of slide guitar playing. 

There are so many objects that have there place in Slide Guitar playing and history. Here you'll find a few of my best tips.

This is your choice. They've all been used before, including the thumb. I prefer using the pinky as it gives me the choice of fretting chords behind the slide. Once again, there are no hard and fast rules just put on that thing and see what happens!

Choosing the right guitar for Slide Guitar is very personal and there are many factors to consider. In this lecture you can consider all the options and find the right mix for you.

Sorting out all those unwanted noises can be a little tricky at first - this tip will give you a few valuable pointers.

In order to explore the variety of tunings that will take us on our slide journey, we should take a brief tour of the classic slide guitar regions:

Ok, let's move up to Chicago on our tour and check out what was happening to create it's own unique take on the Slide Guitar.

Try the deep dark slide sounds of Blind Willie Johnson and learn how Texas influenced the sound of the Slide Guitar

We're going to come back to Texas in a short while, but for the moment let's take an important step across the water to Hawaii and see what those guys have been up to.

Texas slide guitar during the 1930's became heavily influenced by Hawaiian slide. Learn how and play some examples.

Let's step outside the normal regions of the slide and go beyond and into some unusual territory.

Check out a few of these quirky essentials for slide guitar gurus

This first study is a slide version of the original parlour tune which gave rise to G tuning being named 'Spanish Tuning'

Here's a short adaptation of Spanish Fandango with an alternating bass part which again gives you an idea how the Delta blues slide was born.

This study tune is in the classic Tampa Red slide style and shows off his clever use of bluesy style riffs in a non Delta kind of way.

This is a great study tune in D tuning and highlights the droning quality of the low D string.

This simple study is based on G tuning with the top D up to E. As we learned earlier.

This tune is derived from the riffs and sounds you might expect form the lap steel players from the early Texas country swing bands. It uses a variation of D6 tuning

Why not try playing slide guitar on your lap! This tune uses high G tuning.

Learn this classic melody on slide guitar using the low down sound of Dm tuning.

This study tunes uses a variation of C tuning typical of the sound of Martin Simpson. Very beyond the Delta!

Porgy's Blues is my take on the classic tune 'Summertime'.

This slide tune is long way from the Delta using celtic style tuning DADGAD to create a distinctive sound.

I've used C7 tuning to create a unique slide sound!

A slight alteration to C7 tuning can create a unique flavour for slide guitar.

Please use the downloadable PDF guide to the tunings. Follow the instructions.