Slide Guitar for Beginners - part 1

Lesson Sample

Lyle: This series of lessons is for guitarists who have never played slide guitar. It's not as hard to learn as you might think. It doesn't matter if you use an acoustic or electric guitar, these lessons can be learned and played on either type.

Lyle: If you don't have a slide, you can pick one up for under $8 at your local music store. There are glass, ceramic, brass, and steel slides and they are available in many sizes. I like the steel ones because they don't break! You can use them on your ring finger or your pinky.

slides on fingers


Lyle: You'll always want to play the slide on TOP of the fret wire, not between the frets. On TOP of the fret wire will put you in tune. Here's a picture of my slide on TOP of the 5th fret:

slide at 5th fret


Lyle: Notice its smack dab on top of the fret wire. Also, don't press down very hard on the strings; just glide the slide over them while dragging your index finger along the strings behind the slide. This will help mute unwanted noise.

Lyle: I'm going to take you through a series of simple exercises and riffs for most of this lesson, then teach you a simple solo that you can learn to play along to a jam track.

Lyle: Here's the first exercise. Play the open G string, and then slide up the 4th string to the top of the 5th fret, which is a G note. You only want to hear one note at a time. The purpose of this exercise is to help you get "in tune" and getting you used to playing on top of the fret.



ex. 1

Lyle: The open G string acts as your target pitch, and then you slide on the 4th string to the 5th fret, matching that pitch.

Lyle: Vibrato is easy to do when using a slide. Just remember to hover around the top of the fret. Watch this video clip of me playing exercise 1 with slow and fast vibrato:

ex. 1 with vibrato