Has anyone compleatly abandoned standard guitar for slide?

nice boat S. good old days?

One of many venues during our Canal Street festival. Here's a couple of photos of Matthew Fox from last year's festival:

Steinar

great pics. danke.

the outdoor/water acoustics must have been different.
a bit choppy I'd bet.

Thanks all for your input :)

Scott

I always have a slide on my pinkie when I play live. I use dropped D tuning, just the bass string down, and I have developed a sort of hybrid style over the decades. I'd feel a little lost without it, I must admit ...

You can hear a bunch of my tracks on the little Flash radio I installed at one of my sites http://www.bottleneckguitar.com

All the best,

I play alot of slide. 99% lap style. it can be a lap steel guitar or my acoustic.

Ive tried bottleneck slide but cant manage it very well. too much clacking. I kow it is because I havent really worked on it.....

About the clacking: use lighter weight slide, I use glass on electric, heavier guage strings or slightly higher action. The electric I have at reach has low to medium action and I think it has a string set starting with a 10 guage (haven't changed these in a long time) and it doesn't take much pressure with a glass slide so it works fine (on all my electrics actually) The brass slide gives me some clacking (on the frets) and of coures the angle of the slide to the horizontal surface of the fretboard has to be a low angle so as not to hit the frets- its a light touch, SO, since your lap steels are set with higher action you are probably just using too steep of an angle on the slide when you are playing on the 1st string.

Of course I am practicing and playing at low volumeso I don't know if that makes a difference.

I think you can manage it pretty well with just a little practice.

I am working almost exclusively on bottleneck slide and not satisfied enough with my progress to stop. I want to get good at it.

I tried lapstyle on my standard electric guitar a few days ago and it was fun, a different techniques to learn, it actually seemed like it might be easier (more versatile I know) so I can see how you guys get hooked on it, but I am not quite ready for it. I want to get the bottleneck stuff down first. Actually I should switch back and forth. Interesting to see the fretboard from a different angle- adds another dimension to it

I need much work on EVERYTHING but I spend almost all of my time with bottleneck.

To the original poster's question; doesn't Sonny Landreth play mostly with bottleneck slide?

Winter in Minneapolis should keep you playing alot

After hurting my hand at the end of July, I was so desperate to play guitar as soon as possible I wore a glass slide on my thumb and played lap style for a couple of weeks...the plaster then came off, and although I couldn't manage chords for a few weeks, I was able to play bottleneck slide....played mostly in open G. Now my hand's pretty much back to normal, but I'm still playing a lot more slide than I used to.....

I don't think I could ever totally abandon standard tuning and riffs for slide though, I'm one of nature's rhythm guitarists.....

One guitarist who springs to mind who plays a lot of slide is Butch Trucks - I don't know if he plays nothing but slide, but I do know - from an interview I read - he uses an open E tuning on 99.99% of his playing.....

George Thorogood also plays a LOT of slide guitar - think he uses mostly open G or open D tunings.....

:D :D :D

Vic

One guitarist who springs to mind who plays a lot of slide is Butch Trucks - I don't know if he plays nothing but slide, but I do know - from an interview I read - he uses an open E tuning on 99.99% of his playing.....

You mean his nephew, Derek Trucks, right? :wink:
I have his "Joyful Noise" album, it's a great album and he's one of the best bottleneck sliders around today, IMHO. I'm quite sure he mixes up his slide playing with some regular playing, sounds like it's all in open-E.

Steinar

Good to hear the healing's come such a long way Vic!

For me, recently, I've been rediscovering that interesting tuning - Standard! ;)

Since we're heading off (again) into a new direction, regular guitar tuning (and playing) has gotten interesting again. I'm sort of off the bass jag for a little bit (we played our last Hawaiian type gig a few weeks ago), I'm now finding renewed interest in Standard tuning.

Though the lap steel will probably always be in A6!

Yeah, even was experimenting with open D and G, and DADEAD, but...A6 and Standard for right now :)

Derek Trucks, not Butch - I stand corrected!

Joyful Noise - that's been mentioned more than once on these forums, sounds like a must-have CD.....

Thanks....

Vic

Oh and Steinar - that Canal St Festival looks good, can you be a bit more accurate with the "where and when" it takes place?

:D :D :D

Vic

The beautiful small town of Arendal on the south coast of Norway, usually the last week of July. It's a fantastic festival, where everything from pubs and clubs, scenic outdoor venues, the concert house, main outdoor stage, even the garbage dump (!) is used for concert and 'happenings', with audiences from 100 to 3000.

Here's a few more photos from previous festivals, should give you an idea about the various venues (sorry for the thread hijack):

(Ooops, that's me and Matthew Fox....)

This festival has become one of the main reasons I still live here....

Steinar

that is a great shot on the end there, Steinar. Making my heart ache for live playing again.

I started playing lap steel as a lark about 2.5 years ago, and haven't touched a regular guitar in almost a year. The level of expressiveness I get from a bar is what I was always missing on the 6 string. I am sure I'll go back to guitar again eventually, but no interest at all right now.
I am trying hard to do something different with it, and I feel closer to that ideal than I ever have been before. I play 8 string on a Fender 400 minus the pedals. The Fender has a more guitar like tone and works better with guitar effects than most of the more PSG-like instruments I have played. The 400 also is built in such a way that it works better with all the junk I use to torture music out of it. I recently had a friend blow a glissando rod out of lead crystal for me, and I think I might just have to live there for a while. I also use glass vibrators (yep, that's the ones I mean) to get odd tones, Ebows and all the usual effects pedals, wire hangars, popsicle sticks, whatever is around. I think the guitar has been pretty well picked clean when it comes to innovative ways to approach it.

Steinar if your CD is too expensive to ship individually, I'd be happy to help out if you want to sena a few over and have me repack them and send them media mail. I have done this before for some SGF folks and it works out pretty well.

Steinar if your CD is too expensive to ship individually, I'd be happy to help out if you want to sena a few over and have me repack them and send them media mail. I have done this before for some SGF folks and it works out pretty well.

Thanks for the offer Keith, very kind of you. I have that part taken care of,- a friend in Seattle (Russ Young from the SGF and IGS forums) handles all US/Canada shipping for me. Shipping of one CD to "outside Europe" is ridiculously expensive, $10 to be exact........ If it had weighed 5 grams less it would have cost half of that..

8)
Steinar