Slide guitar
A slide guitar does not have to be a musical instrument in its own right . The term often refers to a steel- stringed guitar that is played with a so-called bottleneck or slide bar. Here we let the bottleneck over the strings slide (English slide ), whereby the characteristic tone is produced. However, there are also instruments specially designed for this purpose, such as the Hawaiian guitar , also known as lap steel guitar, and the technically more complex pedal steel guitar .
history
The playing technique of the slide guitar goes back to two musical cultures:
Traditional Hawaiian music and thus the way the slide guitar was played has been very popular, especially in the USA , since the 1915 World Exhibition in San Francisco . The musicians played guitars (often made from the wood of the koa acacia ) with a metal stick , which they placed on their thighs while sitting. This is where the term lap steel comes from. An early virtuoso of this style was Sol Hoopii . Hawaiian guitars were also built as solid electrical instruments from the 1930s onwards. This Pacific track probably goes back to the Indian subcontinent, where a type of vina is played with a slide made of hardwood or ivory.
The second track of the slide guitar leads to Africa . There, single-stringed stick or board zithers were played, in which stepless pitches were generated by means of a stretched string and a piece of wood moved back and forth. Well-known blues guitarists like Bukka White and Elmore James made their first musical attempts much later on the same principle on a stretched piece of wire and a bottle. These rather primitive instruments are known as the Diddley Bow and are mostly self-made.
Based on mutual inspiration, both cultures have further developed the slide guitar technique in their own way.
Slide and steel guitar
The Hawaiian guitar, played sitting with a metal rod in an open tuning with a high string spacing, was later adopted by the musicians of country music . There they mostly know the Dobro and the pedal steel guitar . This electrical advancement of the lap steel guitar is a device standing on the floor in which the strings including the neck are arranged horizontally on a plate, similar to a zither. With the foot pedals attached to the floor, the setting of the strings can be changed as desired. The pedal steel is played with the help of steel rods, which influence the pitch. The glissando-heavy sound is typical of the steel guitar .
The blues musicians, on the other hand, often played the guitar in the conventional way. They used a broken and ground bottle neck (the so-called bottleneck ) as a slide and developed this style into an independent playing technique.
After the development of the electric guitar , the slide game was also adopted there and is a popular element in the various musical styles of blues , folk and rock . Even today, despite the similarities between the styles, the country-oriented steel guitarists and the blues-influenced slide guitarists, the division into two camps has remained. This is also a legacy of racial segregation in the USA, because although there is a common cultural area of whites and Afro-Americans in the southern states and thus a mutual influence, significantly different musical cultures have also developed.
Basics
As already mentioned at the beginning, every guitar with steel strings is suitable as a slide guitar. It doesn't matter whether it's an acoustic or an electric guitar.
The action of the strings is very important (this is the distance between the fingerboard and the string). Because while the distance between the string and the fingerboard should be as small as possible during normal play , it tends to be larger when playing with the bottleneck . If the strings are low, the strings come into contact with the frets due to the pressure of the bottleneck and generate unwanted background noise when playing. A slightly increased string spacing of 1–2 mm makes it possible to play an almost noiseless slide as well as to play chords and single notes in combination .
In terms of string gauge , thin strings aren't as good as medium or thick ones. For an electric guitar, a set of 11 (diameter of the thin electric string) is well suited. For an acoustic guitar, it should be at least a set of 12. It doesn't matter whether the steel strings are wrapped in bronze, phosphorus or bronze / nickel wire - however, the natural sound of the string is also a component of the slide sound. The weight and material of the slide itself are important for the tone of the slide game and the length of the reverberation. In addition to the simple chrome slides, there are slides made of brass, glass, ceramic, etc. Some of the "old" slide guitarists also used the back of a razor (you usually had it with you in your wash kit). Many electric guitarists prefer glass slides, acoustic guitarists and resonator guitar players tend to prefer brass slides. The basic rule is: the heavier the slide, the fuller the sound.
If you want to deal intensively with the slide technique, you should get a second guitar in addition to the "normally tuned" guitar, which you tune in an open mood , as the constant change of moods puts an enormous strain on the guitar neck due to different strings. With the purchase of a second guitar, the risk of a warped neck and thus a lack of "fret purity" (no intonation ) is eliminated.
Music samples
A selection of slide guitarists of the blues and rock in alphabetical order:
Duane Allman , Richard Bargel , Joe Bonamassa , Manny Charlton , Eric Clapton , Hannes Coetzee , Ry Cooder , Don Felder , Dave Hole , Rory Gallagher , Lowell George , Billy Gibbons , George Harrison , Warren Haynes , Gavin Hayes ( dredg ), Son House , Robert Johnson , Blind Willie Johnson , Brian Jones , Leo Kottke , Sonny Landreth , David Lindley , Mississippi Fred McDowell , Mick Mars , Bonnie Raitt , Chris Rea , Hound Dog Taylor , Mick Taylor , David Tronzo , Derek Trucks , Joe Walsh , Muddy Waters , Bukka White , Jack White , Alan Wilson , Johnny Winter , Peter Wells and Ronnie Wood .
