Slide

I've been self-teaching myself for about a year now, and my friend gave me his extra slide, though he didn't tell me how to use it.

When I got home, I tried learning how to use it, and soon enough figured it out. But I'm pretty sure there's some mistakes to how I use it since the sound isn't so great. Here's some of the problems:

When I'm on a fret, for some reason the note seems a bit lower than what it should be.

I get a ringing sound when I lift off the slide to hit open strings. (Is that supposed to happen?"

Also once in a while, I hear buzzes while playing.

Help!!! =)

Btw, I tried playing "In My Time of Dying" to try out the slide.

First off, you might need to raise your action for slide work. If it's buzzing at the point of the slide you might not be pressing hard enough, but even typical lower action reduces the room for error in this aspect, causing other fret buzzes. These changes might also require an intonation set-up too.

The other important thing is hand muting, by both hands. With the slide hand, lay the other unused fingers behind the slide resting on the strings. Same thing with picking hand...unused fingers/palm muting the strings. You might also try fingerpicking, to free up even more of your fingers/hand for muting purposes.

You might also browse through these lessons (if you haven't already) for other tips and tricks.