Play with a Slide. Help needed.

[finnman]

I own a slide but I haven't use it much.
I was listening to "Foghat's - Stone Blue"
Allot of slide playing in it.
It got me to wanting to learn it.
All my guitars have very low action.
Should a guitar have higher action when playing slide?
If so about how much.
Any good books or DVD's on slide playing?
This will be my New Years Resolution.
Thanks
Finn

[Reverend Timmy]

I use my old SG with the action raised.I feel like slide is easier with the shorter scale.Lock yourself in a room and listen to nothing but Duane Allman for about a year.Tuning is also important,lots of ways to go.I have a book on some slide work,I'll try to find it and get you the name of it..........

[Endrik]

action must be very very high to get the right sound, low action just flat out sucks for slide
also I recommend you to try to use your thumb and index or middle finger instead of pick... that way there's a lot more possibilites and dynamics... a lot of the melodies are on the D and G string so playing the D with the thumb and G with index or middle finger gives you a very smooth feel

it takes some time to get the pitch right and the phrases sound smooth,
I'd reccomend you to take all kinds of old Delta Blues records and start copying the licks, start with Elmore James, he's the greatest

[finnman]

Thanks.
I figured it would be like learning guitar all over again.
I also found this to get me started.
http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/lesso...de_guitar.html

I'm going to set the action a little higher my G&L Legacy and start with
E,B,E,G#, B,e

[tanpsi]

All that stuff is good advice if you want to sound like traditional blues slide player, which you said you did, but a slide can be also used for single note leads that fit in nice with metal:

"When you think of Ritchie Blackmore, slide player isn't the first thing that comes to mind — for me anyway — but when you look at his body of work and start adding things up, he actually plays quite a bit of slide and uses it quite effectively to enhance his melodies. Once he's finished playing his slide part, Ritchie likes to throw the slide — often at the one of his bandmates."

http://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/bios/Blackmore.shtml

I've used a glass slide with with my low action guitars in standard tuning and just play by ear and some times try to play along melodys on the radio, try it!

[Boxcar Willie 84]

use a thin walled glass or chrome slide with low action if you dont feel like messing with your action....really having a good ear is super important when playing slide, as your intonation is always gonna depend on what you are hearing. also mess with some open tunings and stuff like that, it really opens up a new world of playing when using the slide too. Also finding what slide works with your guitar is key too, take into consideration the fretboard radius and all that nerdy stuff i usually hate thinking about....i've been using a harris tapered brass slide and a dunlop joe perry porcelain slide on my electric and acoustic and both sound great.

[delt]

To play with a slide... you climb the little ladder, then sit on top, then slide all the way down into the sand weeeeeeeeeeeee

[Joelski]

Pick an axe you don't normally play a lot and then go have a new, taller nut cut for it. Simply raising the action at the bridge end will not do the best job of setting you up to play well. Experiment with open tunings and remember to not make it too complex; most blues slide is just boxes like a pentatonic scale.

[madcap]

Yea tune to open D, and theres certain frets that work well with slide. 3,5,7,8,12 the usual shit.