Slide technique

The physical method of playing with a slide: how the tube is held, how pressure is applied and how the hand damps the strings behind it.

The slide is worn on a finger, usually the ring or little finger, which leaves the other fingers free to fret and to damp. Contact must be light and even across the strings, since too much pressure drives the slide into the frets and produces a rattling sound, and the fretting hand's spare fingers rest on the strings behind the slide to stop them ringing. Vibrato is made by rocking the slide along the string rather than across it.

Example: light, even contact with the slide across all six strings and firm damping behind it is what separates a clean slide tone from a clatter of rattling notes.

Slide technique

See also