Open Tunings For Slide
Electric slide tuition for blues or country require a knowledge of open tunings. To play slide guitar using guitar tabs is not so common. Usually it's easy to play guitar tabs and pick up the riffs of songs you love, but slide guitar whether it's acoustic slide guitar or electric slide needs a few good tips.
Guitar tabs don't need high musical orientation and as long as you know the song you are trying to learn guitar on, you can get a rough sketch of the guitar techniques used, and hence glean how to play the chords and melody well enough to enjoy. Electric slide guitar playing is easier when you are given the open tunings. Here is a useful list of open tunings for electric or acoustic slide guitar.
| OPEN TUNINGS |
Strings |
6 |
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
G Major |
D |
G |
D |
G |
B |
D |
D Major |
D |
A |
D |
F# |
A |
D |
C Major |
C |
G |
C |
G |
C |
E |
Dsus |
D |
A |
D |
G |
A |
D |
D6sus |
D |
A |
D |
G |
B |
E |
Dsus/9 |
D |
A |
D |
G |
A |
E |
D7sus |
D |
G |
D |
G |
C |
D |
D Minor |
D |
A |
D |
F |
A |
D |
E Minor |
E |
B |
E |
G |
B |
E |
E7sus |
E |
A |
D |
E |
A |
E |
D Maj6 |
D |
A |
D |
F# |
B |
D |
D/9 |
D |
A |
D |
E |
A |
E |
To make the guitar students life easier for slide guitar, John does special blues guitar theory courses. If you understand the roots of blues music theory, it is more fun using your bottle neck or slide as you don't just play the obvious bar chord stuff everyone does.
To play guitar tabs using slide and open tunings is possible but you have to have the open tuning denoted at the beginning of the tab. Good slide guitar playing needs a fair amount of muting guitar techniques from the left hand or you get excess noise.
Mizarolli was taught to play slide guitar in the usa by a red indian blues guitarist who actually broke a bottle in front of him and proceeded to smooth the glass on a stone surface after it was heated. It was an offering like a peace pipe.
John still has the bottleneck which he uses on recordings with the legendary blues singer John L Watson. Many of John's guitar students are intrigued by the apparent simplicity of slide guitar playing. It's not difficult to get a good blues groove on a slide guitar, usually the pitching is a problem for beginner guitar players.
John teaches all the scales, chords and arpeggios used in a 12-bar blues progression. If you can apply the blues theory in normal tuning, then your electric slide technique becomes easier. Easy to play guitar tabs are available on the net everywhere but tone, sound, articulation, technique and performance need a private guitar teacher to attain the real thing!
John Mizarolli
07958 427 236
(try a guitar lesson & see)
Learn guitar with UK's Leading Virtuoso & Mentor!
