Can Free Online Slide Guitar Lessons Really Help?

Beginning the New Year on a high note is an absolute must, at least for the musically inclined. And so in an attempt to strike the right chord, you convince yourself that picking up your first resonator guitar is indeed the most sensible thing to do. Making a departure from the norm, you decide to channelize your creative zest in learning the slide guitar. So is it as simple as it sounds? Despite several feckless attempts to create new tones with this finger picking method, you seem to be completely out of tune. The dearth of guitar teachers that can guide you with tutorials replete with a gallery of tips, techniques, instructions and exercises, starting right from the basics, only exacerbates your disillusionment. So is there a beacon of hope for wannabe acoustic slide guitarists like you, or will your long cherished dream of playing solo remain merely a black hole? Relax, take it easy. Free online slide guitar lessons provide the right trigger to take your musical talents to exhilarating new levels. Finally, learning the nuances of scales, strings, riffs and guitar tablature need not give you the blues anymore. No wonder, all novices tend to make such a song and dance about these tutorials. Rest assured, your lead guitar lessons are sure to take you places. Guitar No Bar Regardless of whether you own a rock guitar, Spanish guitar, bass guitar or an electric guitar, these exhaustive lessons guarantee a refreshingly insightful experience. Strumming chords, picking riffs, playing tabs and all that jazz will seem like cakewalk after a while. So move over classical and country, it’s time for rock to orchestrate a ‘no-strings attached’ adrenalin rush.

Tracing Its Roots

Before you understand the intricacies of this extremely unique, cloaked in mystery kind of technique, an insight into its humble beginnings is a must.

This exotic style boasts of an equally ethereal place of birth- Africa. However, some experts believe that it’s Hawaii’s gift to the world of music.

The slide guitar may have been popularized by the likes of Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Tampa Red and Duane Allman, but the fact remains that it has had an infinite, cosmic impact on rock music. So profound is its impact that it has almost become an inseparable part of blues.

Diametrically Different Style

So what makes the slide guitar, also referred to as bottleneck guitar, so special? Since the necks of wine bottles make good slides, it kind of resolves the mystery behind the somewhat eponymous title. The slide is essentially a smooth, hard object that is moved along the strings without lifting it in order to create a difference in the string’s pitch and vibrating length. This dramatic left and right hand style eschews the need of pushing the guitar strings against the frets to create alterations in the pitch of the strings.

Here are some more interesting facets of this awe-inspiring method:

• The slide can be used on any guitar, as long as the instrument is equipped with heavier strings. Rock and acoustic guitars minus nylon strings can also be used. Since you don’t need the frets, even a Spanish guitar on its last legs can be used. All steel, resonator and lap slide guitars face the music in this style.
  
• The slides can be made of metal or glass. Heavier slides are credited with louder sounds, and metallic ones resonate with a very soul-stirring tone.
  
• Expect to have an easier time playing higher strings than bass strings.
  
• So which finger does the guitarist use to hold the slide? Depending on the comfort the musician experiences and the dexterity with which the other fingers are used for fretting notes, the 2nd, 3rd or the 4th finger can be used for this purpose.
  
• Slide guitars require a different kind of tuning. Generally, open ‘D’ and ‘E’ slide tunings are used. To prevent additional stress on the neck and top of the acoustic guitar, an open ‘D’ tuning is always advised.
  

Your Perfect Guide

Accomplishing a clean and accurate slide guitar playing technique may seem quite a onerous task for guitarists completely in awe of the incredible sound created by the bottleneck slide. But systematic lessons online will have you strumming into your friends hearts in a few weeks, and that too without trying to make sense of lackluster theory.

These 10-15 minute video lessons cover essential concepts relating to techniques, scales and open tunings required by a novice to metamorphose into a ripping slide guitar player.

Here’s an overview of the priceless knowledge these free online tutorials impart:

• Like always, they begin with what else, but a captivating introduction that includes a brief history of the bottleneck technique.
  
• This is followed by how to tune your slide guitar. The emphasis is on different open tunings or the tuning of each string in open position. You’ll learn how to play minor chords in open ‘D’ and ‘G’ positions while using the slide.
  
• You’re privy to different chord-charts used in both open and standard tunings as well as exiting new tips and tricks with the slide.
  
• The innovative exercises in shuffle playing and slide guitars are sure to leave your gasping for breath.
  
• The assortment of practice techniques like vibrato and diagonal double stops are great. Varied styles for standard guitar tunings with the use of different scales and chords also hold a lot of promise.
  
• Whether it’s the best string gauges, finger placement, the best slide to use or the technique to play high and root notes, these lessons display a hard-to-torpedo kind of dedication.
  

More With A Few Clicks

It’s just not the free slide guitar tutorials that are grabbing eyeballs on the Internet. Rookies are also faced with quite an Olympian task of selecting from an array of DVD videos. They familiarize students with the entire gamut of traditional and contemporary slide guitar techniques.

These visually delightful materials cover all the essentials like bottlenecks, set up procedures and primary playing techniques, like damping and intonations.

Giving these videos company are booklets that inform pupils about chord formations and constructions, scale theory, song tabs and riffs, a multitude of fretting techniques, string stretching and the principles of harmonics, pull offs and hammer-ons.

Phew! Doesn’t all this sound exhausting? The sparkling results are hardly a surprise.

Strange, but how come your place resounds with a kind of eerie silence?

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