But before you slither the slide up and down the neck, take note of these essential tips and exercises to start or improve your slide guitar playing.  Have a listen to my recording below of Bach’s Air on a G String while you read the article.

Slide guitar setup 

Before we begin our guitar slide tutorial, we need to briefly discuss your guitar setup and the various types of slides available.

The action (the distance of strings to the neck) on your guitar determines how hard you will need to press on the string.  Lower actions are tricky, as the slide will knock against the frets making an unwanted buzzing clank that often produces dropped and muffled notes.  Try adjusting your bridge for a higher action to make your instrument more conducive to slide playing.

I have an extra guitar dedicated to slide playing, but if you want to just use one guitar, then a good compromise is to adjust the action a touch higher.  This will help avoid the buzz yet still low enough to not mess up the intonation or playability.

Types of Slides

Finding a guitar slide you like is your first challenge to master slide playing.  For many year’s guitar players would have to conform to commercial slides that are often too big, too narrow, too thin or thick or just not the right tone.  Fortunately, more slide manufacturers now cater to different finger sizes and offer many materials like glass, metal, ceramic, and bone, to name the most common.   I suggest you experiment with as many slides as possible until you find the right fit, thickness and, most importantly, the right tone.

Of course, the slide you choose will depend on which finger your wear the slide.    For instance, most players put the slide on the 3rd or 4th finger, but there are no rules, so try the slide on different fingers and do what feels natural to you.

Skill #1 – Slide Tuning

Practice without looking at your fingers to develop your sense of touch and using your ear to keep the notes in tune.  Another suggestion is to use a clip-on tuner and watch how accurate you are when moving from note to note.

Skill #1 – Center the slide directly over the fret to play a note in tune.

Skill #2 – Muting with the left and right-hand

The technique of selectively stopping strings from ringing is called muting or dampening.  This technique is crucial and will refine your slide playing to the next level.  Knowing how to stop the strings ringing is sometimes as important as playing the notes.

The sound of the slide gliding between notes is why you play slide, however the best slide playing uses a combination of sliding and muting.

Skill #2 – Place the right-hand finger(s) or pick on the strings to stop them from ringing (muting).  Muting is effective when the slide sound is not desired.

Skill #2 – Left-hand muting is another essential technique to help prevent string rattle when moving the slide.

Slide Exercises 1 to 4

The following exercises are notated in standard guitar tuning.  Open guitar tunings like Open D, Open G, Dadgad, and Open E are very common if not preferred for slide guitar. Still, all the exercises below are notated in standard guitar tuning (EADGBE).  Watch the video below and try and play along.  

Here’s a few more tracks to listen to while you finish up the article.  The first is Wayfaring Stranger from the book – Slide Guitar Collection.

The second track Delta Slide Blues is a solo based on the country blues style and from the book 101 Blues Riffs and Solos in Open D Tuning

And the last track is a traditional called Worried Man Blues.  This track was recorded using a guitar looper pedal and is from the book The Blues Guitar Looper Pedal Book.  

Skill #4 – The Slide Tilt

In addition, another essential technique to develop is what I call the “slide tilt.”  At some point, you will need to target a specific note, reduce the slide noise or let some notes ring while you are sliding to another note.  Tilting the slide is the only way to do this and should be practiced until mastered.

Skill #5 – Playing chords with the slide

Have you ever tried playing chords with your slide and fingers at the same time?  It can be done with great effect so add another technique to your growing list of slide skills to absorb. There are a few good ways to play a chord with the slide on using the slide tilt or depressing a finger behind or in front of the slide.

8) Here are a few slide-chord exercises to practice below.  Remember to keep the slide straight and place the first finger behind the slide.

Skill #6 – Vibrato

A good vibrato not only adds an authentic slide-vibe but can also help with any tuning issues you have.  Vibrato is achieved by gliding the slide left to right or vice versa around a targeted note on the string.

There are two points to keep in mind with vibrato: speed and width.  The speed is how fast the slide moves back and forth, while the width is how far or wide the slide moves left-right or right-left from the targeted note.  Listen to different slide players and try to spot how they are approaching their vibrato.  For example, do they vibrate on long-held notes?  Do they have a combination of fast and slow vibratos or only fast?  Do they use a long slide from note to notes or short strokes?

I suggest you experiment with your vibrato’s speed and width to create your own unique style of slide playing.

Play “House of the Rising Sun” on Slide Guitar 

And finally, let’s put our slide skills together and play  “House of the Rising Sun.”  Have a listen to the audio and play-along video.  A free download of the sheet music and tablature is available here: House of the Rising Sun – Slide Guitar – PDF