Hi M29,
It seems that someone posted some links to some decent clips on Youtube for getting started with slide, but I can't find that post.
I've been toying around with it over the past year, gradually learning to get better with it. For now, I'm using standard tuning but from what I've read everyone reccomends using one of the open tunings. Open E is the one used by the masters like Duane Alman, Derek Trucks, and Sonny Landreth. This is the tuning that I will try eventually.
But there's quite a bit you can do with standard tuning if you stay within the boundaries of what it provides.
Here are the basics that really made a difference for me:
1) get rid of your pick and use your fingers when playing slide. (this makes a huge difference on the tone and also allows you to dampen the unused strings much, much better!)
2) string dampening is the key to getting a good tone.
- practice by holding your slide down on a note, then plucking only that string with your right hand, muting all of the other strings with the other fingers. When you get this down, try playing some basic phrases where you skip between a few strings. You will need to practice plucking with different right hand fingers and dampenening with others. (start slowly. You don't have to play fast licks to get some nice sounds.)
- place your index finger of your left hand behind the slide so that you don't get any noise from the back side of the slide when you move it around (on the headstock side of the slide)
3) Use a glass slide for the warmest, fattest tone. I first tried a metal slide and it sounded like hell, so I switched to a Jim Dunlop glass slide and it really fattened up the tone.
4) Finally, for standard tuning specifically, here are some things that you can take advantage of. Look for places on the fretboard where you can lay the slide down and hit a few notes together to make a basic triad or even 2-note shape. Some of these things are unique to standard tuning and actually make it a decent alternative to open tunings for playing slide:
- The bottom 3 strings (E B G) make a minor triad. This is a nice shape to use for blues licks. For example if you move your slide to the 5th fret and hit these 3 notes you get a nice A-minor cluster of notes that you can make licks with.
- These bottom 3 notes are also used in 9th chords. So you could move your slide over these same notes on the 5th fret and play things over a D9 chord.
- The middle 3 strings (B G D) make a major triad. You can take advanage of this with the slide by isolating only the B G D strings, plucking them together and moving the slide to the fret where you want this sound. If you move the slide to the 7th fret and hit these notes you get a D major sound. The key thing is to only pluck the notes you want and mute the rest.
I hope this helps, -- Jim