Slide Guitar

As a brand new guitar player, my passion is the Slide. I have not been able to find any web sites or good info on learning to play the Slide. I am taking lessons, but there is not an instructor in my town Erie, Pa that teaches Slide. Anybody have ideas where I might be able to find some good info? I have found the sites for tuning open G, and A, but also have found that one of my favorite songs, Statesboro Blues is in standard tuning but I can't get anywhere close to sounding like that. I have the standard Media Play issue Squire Strat with the $10 amp, quite sure one of them may be the problem. Any help you can shoot my way willbe appreciated.

[font=trebuchet ms]Specializing in slide at the very beginning of your journey may not be a good idea. A slide guitar setup does not work very well for playing normally, and vice-versa. Slide guitars usually have the strings arranged to be flat across instead of following the curvature of the fretboard. The action is also set high to keep the strings from touching the frets. Not exactly easy to play chords on in the normal way.

I suggest learning how to play normally at first, so you gain a solid understanding of how it works, including the use of open tunings. From there, you can develop good slide technique.[/font]

slidermike
Hey there, I'm brand new here. I'm a beginning blues player. I have not learned one slide song yet, but I certainly plan to. I think Lorda is right, learn regular guitar playing first. Your guitar may be fine for slide, many folks use Strats or Tele's and get by just fine. Don't worry too much about the tone from your rig. You are set up to learn how to play which is cool. I've seen some slide books that I think have the CD included, maybe that will end up being something that might help you.

I just ordered some guitar books with CD to help me learn the Blues, and they are supposed to be really good. "Blues you can use" by something Ganapes. They say start out with that book, follow the lessons and you'll be on your way to improving your abilities. I also have a Tascam GT1 which is great for slowing down CD's to help you learn your favorite licks and stuff. But if you have a decent computer, they make music players that let you change the tempo and/or key! Some are free too.

This probably doesn't help, but the last guitar one issue, December 2005 has an excellent begginers slide playing guide.
And if slide is your passion, stick to it. :cool:

Here is a website with some Slide guitar for beginners in the style of Eric Clapton(Who by the way plays awesome slide guitar on a Stratocaster).

http://www.12bar.de/slide.htm